Music Publishing Pt. 1

Music publishing will be your largest source of income in the business.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Top40 Charts/ Show Dog Records) - Singer, songwriter and entertainer Toby Keith has been named one of the world's best-paid music stars by Forbes. Keith ranks No. 3 on the list, behind the Police and Beyonce, with $48 million in earnings between June 1, 2007 and June 1, 2008. Following Keith in the top five are Justin Timberlake and Madonna.


Establish and administrate your own Publishing company with your songs with either ASCAP, BMI< or SESAC. They each handle the collection of your publishing royalties from traditional and digital sources. The reason is that you want to own your publishing rights and be able to license them to someone for a short period of time, not for them to own them with you for the duration of the copyright terms (see below). So if you do decide to step to a publishing house, you will already have your publishing company established before you do.

Also join the Harry Fox Agency that collects Mechanical Royalties, which a lot of artists don't realize (if they are signed) are owed to them at the completion of manufacturing of their album(cd), even before one album(cd) has been sold.If you were to get signed to a record distributor and one of their affiliate lables, each entity is going to get a share of those rights any way, right along with a seperate publishing house that you would have contracted with. When you have reached the status of a Michael Jackon, Garth Brooks, etc... and you have too many other responsibilites that tie down your time, then I would suggest hiring an established publisher to help administrate your publishing rights, but not in the beginning as a new or fairly new artist.

These are your rights for life (plus) (*see below). So for the duration of your life, and years after your death, do you really want a publishing house handling what you or your beneficiaries should be doing? Look at the Bob Marley family that doesn't own any publishing rights to his music.

I would also suggest joining NARAS and the RIAA, that have several conferences where industry professionals attend to seek out new talent, or you can be there and pitch your product to them.

I'm attending one in ATL on the 7th of February for the Grammy Association (NARAS) since I won't be able to attend the Grammys this year.

Go to any established conference where industry professionals attend.

*The Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998 extended copyright terms in the United States by 20 years. Since the Copyright Act of 1976, copyright would last for the life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years for a work of corporate authorship. The Act extended these terms to life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier.[1] Copyright protection for works published prior to January 1, 1978 was increased by 20 years to a total of 95 years from their publication date.

Also read this article that I did not write, but I think is very informative, about Re-title Publishing. This is when a company takes your songs, re-records them with other musicians and/or singers (Hot Music), and re-titles your songs under a new name.(http://www.themusicsnob.com/2008/07/22/re-title-publishing/)