Publishing

I'm not talking about a book deal I recently got - publishing can be a revenue stream, post-music creation, that many musicians/songwriters do not take advantage of...let alone, know what it is. I'm going to try to describe some things you can do at whatever level you're at to get you familiarized with it.  I'll start with how a song is separated, and move onto a list of terms that you hear, but some of you may not know.

How a Song is Separated:

1. Sound Recording - this is the actual recording of a song. Whether it exists in mp3 format, CD, vinyl, etc., this is what someone might refer to as a "master." You sell CD's, vinyl, and mp3's for money. Here's where it gets a little tricky - I can own the "master" of a song, and I don't have to be the writer. For example, I recorded a version of a tune called "Give Me Just a Little More Time" (you can listen to it on my music page), but I had nothing to do with the writing of the song. My recording of the song is my master of the song. I had to get permission from the writers (and pay them mechanical royalties) to do this, but I currently own 100% of that master recording. 

You can have a thousand different recordings of the same song, and they will all be classified as different sound recordings and can have different owners. If you record your record in your own home, at your studio, and no one else has anything to do with the recording, you own your own master/sound recording. 

If all of that made sense, nod your head, "Yes..."

2. Writing/Publishing (Intellectual Property) - this is the aspect of a song that exists as an intellectual property. Before a song is ever recorded, you wrote it, the lyrics and music, and you now have it as intellectual property. Cool, huh?

The intellectual property aspect of a song is comprised of 2 parts when it pertains to collecting income on it - the (1)writing, and the (2)publishing of the song. Think of them as cash and checks that you take to the bank - they are both forms of money, they're just called different things. 50% of the song exists as writing, and 50% of the song exists as publishing.

If you have written a song, and you are the sole writer of it, you own the writing and the publishing associated with that song. 

Why is this important?

Now that you know how a song is separated, you can better categorize how you will make money from it. The "master" side of a song, the actual recording, is what most independent musicians will use to make money because they sell copies of the sound recording to their fans. That's great! Keep doing that, and the more, the merrier. 

Writing/Publishing gets a little more intricate as far as how income gets into your hands. You will want to join a PRO (Performing Rights Organization). I mentioned these in my previous post, 3 of the big ones are ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC.

Do some research on each PRO before you make your decision of which one to apply for (I am a member of SESAC for those who are curious). Once you decide, make sure that you sign up as both a writer AND a publisher, because you own both of those aspects of the song.

For example, let's say John Smith wrote the song called "I Love You." If John Smith is the only writer, he would register the writing side under "John Smith" (he might have to provide another form of ID like a middle name or something, because there are a lot of John Smith's, but anyway...)  The publishing side of the song can be registered under whatever John Smith decides his publishing should be called. Let's say he calls it "John Smith Publishing" If no one else has that name for their publishing, he can use that to register the publishing of his song.

My publishing for my music is called "Bring the News In Publishing" - you can be creative with the name of your publishing, and probably should be so that people can tell you apart from everyone else!

Licensing

Here's the last section for this post - licensing. This is a huge element of how a writer can generate income from songs that already exist. When you "license"  a song to someone for use, they basically pay you for the right to use it in some way. It can be used in the soundtrack of a movie, TV show, in a TV commercial, as music in the background on a website (ESPN.com does a lot of this with hard rock music), and can even be licensed to other artists to perform versions of the song you wrote (many country acts do this - songwriters will license their music to bigger name artists to record and then sell their music, but the writer gets royalties!)

To go over every opportunity you have to make money would take quite some time, but here are some of the things I've done through licensing:

- Songs in a motion picture. You get money up front, and if the movie airs on TV, you collect royalties on the back end
- Songs in a retail store playlist. My songs have been featured in a few store chains, and in a few casino chains around the country, and some internationally. Different countries have different reporting/pay laws, but all of these count as licensing to the companies to use my music, so I get money for it.
- Songs on an actual movie soundtrack that is released as a CD/Mp3 album. I am compensated, through licensing, for both the sound recording that I own, plus the writer/publishing side of this because I am giving the film company permission to use them both on the soundtrack to sell for a profit. We all get a piece of the pie that way.

I hope this made sense, and has encouraged you to look at how your music is categorized for the sake of revenue generation. I know, this is the ultra boring side to being a musician, but it won't be boring when deposits are being made into your bank account. :-)

Thanks for reading, this will conclude this short series helping musicians figure some of this stuff out, but I'll definitely continue to post more info as I get questions from people.

Happy writing, creating, performing - and hopefully this helps you make that what you REALLY do...

-TRMJ