Making Money From Your Songs. Part Three. Joint Ownership of Songs.

This is Part Three of my blog posting series on “Making Money From Your Songs”. Part One explains "What Is Music Publishing" and Part Two discusses “Forming a Music Publishing Company”.

Determining who holds an interest in music publishing interest can become more complicated if you collaborate on your songs or you perform with a band.

Basics of Joint Copyright Ownership in Songs

Each person who collaborates on a song becomes an equal joint owner of that song – unless there is a written agreement stating otherwise. For example, if there are two songwriters, each will own one-half of the entire song. If there are three songwriters, each will own one third of the entire song, and so on.

Note that even if one person writes the lyrics and another writes the melody, there’s not a separate copyright in the lyrics and a separate copyright in the melody. Instead, there’s one copyright in the entire song and each person who contributes owns an equal portion – unless once again there’s a written agreement that says otherwise.

What Joint Copyright Ownership Means in Practical Terms

As a co-owner, you have authorization to grant a non-exclusive license in the song. You don’t need the permission of your co-owners; however, you must give your co-owners their proportionate share of any revenue you make from the song. That means that each songwriter could potentially administer his portion of the song through his own music publishing company.

This has the potential of creating a logistical problem in the event someone wants an exclusive license in your song because all songwriters must agree to an exclusive license. Granting an exclusive license means that you can’t grant the same rights in the song to someone else. For example, a producer of a television commercial who wants to use your song might ask that the song not be licensed for use in any other advertisement.