Topic
An admin deal charges a percentage and leaves your copyright with you. A co-pub or full publishing deal can pay an advance, but you give up part of the copyright, often for years after the contract ends. Here is how to compare the two on cost, control and time.
Workflows
A performing rights organisation (PRO) licenses the public performance of songs and pays the writers and publishers. Here is what that covers, how joining works at the big societies in the US, UK, Germany and India, and the income streams a PRO will never collect for you.
Workflows
Every recorded song carries two copyrights: one in the composition (music and lyrics) and one in the sound recording (the master). Here is who owns each by default under US law, how work-made-for-hire and transfers change that, and the registration basics that decide what you can do if someone copies you.
Workflows
Every stream of your song in the US earns a mechanical royalty, and your distributor and your PRO do not collect it. Here is what a mechanical is, how a self-administered writer joins the MLC and registers or claims works in its portal, what MCPS and CMRRA do outside the US, and the order we would do it in.
Workflows
Two codes and one document hold your royalties together. An ISRC names the recording and comes from the recording owner, a national agency or a manager such as your distributor. An ISWC names the song and only a registration agency, usually your collecting society, can assign it. A split sheet has no issuer at all: you and your co-writers make it. Here is who issues what, what it costs where we could check, and why the split sheet has to come first.
Workflows
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