Record points and publishing - stuck.

[The Byre]

He who writes the songs, gets all the song-writing credits. Arrangements do not (normally) count towards this.

The mechanical (i.e. recorded noises) is obviously the result of a partnership and as nothing has been agreed, will be an even split between all those involved. If you wish to alter this, you are going to have to draft a simple partnership agreement.

[Verve111]

Originally Posted by The Byre

He who writes the songs, gets all the song-writing credits. Arrangements do not (normally) count towards this.

The mechanical (i.e. recorded noises) is obviously the result of a partnership and as nothing has been agreed, will be an even split between all those involved. If you wish to alter this, you are going to have to draft a simple partnership agreement.

Thats what I'm starting to understand as well. So if the song is covered by another artist, the writer gets to license that song and would be paid for that licensing.

The recordings of our songs that we have produced together is considered the mechanical and would be subject to whatever split we agree upon for licensing or sales of the record/songs?

[Verve111]

So would I then become the Publisher for these songs as in the ASCAP formula?

[ksandvik]

Might be good to do a contract so you are buddies long term...

[jwh1192]

i am in a 3 way deal for 13 songs ... i produced / played all instruments except for drums and 2 solos ... i wrote 5 of the 13 songs and decided to go with the 3 way deal for songwriting and publishing ... i spent 40,000.00 worth of my time, playing / engineering / producing ... 2 of us would like to sell the songs to a placement firm .. 1 does not ... a tough position to be in ... and the 1 person was suppose to be in charge of promoting the CD ... he has not done much and i am now involved in trying to do something with this mess ...

we have a contract that i wish now would have been separated by the songs ... i am stuck .. even though they are friends, as another post said, have a contract or you will not have friends ...

even though we have a contract it is still tough ... 2 people is hard enough ... 3 is a near disaster ...

i would like to see us get a small part of something instead of a huge part of Nothing ...

just my .02

john

[RKrizman]

Originally Posted by yotonic

You can do whatever you want. Your singer can share songwriting credit with you, happens all the time. If you guys are buddies you won't even need contracts. I thought your split made good sense.

The singer does not have to share songwriting credit with you for you to have a piece of the publishing. Just think about the traditional job of a publisher, which is to put the music out to the public. If you are a major part of this effort then you may be entitled to a share of this, but you will have to negotiate that with the songwriter, and whatever you decide will be immortalized in a legal document or some sort of binding written agreement.

This way you can enjoy a piece of the copyright without claiming to be a writer of a song that someone else actually wrote.

Tread lightly, however.

-R