The Publishing Sector (draft)

What are publishers responsible for? The publishing sector, in an elemental sense, faces the task of commercially exploiting musical compositions. Whilst Record Label Companies exploit the physical recording  of a song, a publisher will set to promoting it’s intellectual content. This is the main role of a publisher, they are given permission by artists to license music on their behalf.

How does it work?

In times long lost, it was common for artists to sell sole rights of their compositions to labels for a set fee. This means that all royalties earned, whether they be mechanical or transcribed sheet music, are owned outright by the label. Time proved this to be an unstable model and in the 1960’s and early 70’s artists, armed with their lawyers, spurred the true development of the modern publishing sector, setting the industry standard model that we know. The law states “Any user of music that publicly performs a song must secure a license and pay a royalty to do so”. Publishing companies use collection societies to obtain these royalties, which are then split, (in an industry standard contract) ranging from 50:50 to 25:75 favouring the artist. This ratio will be negotiated by either party based on many variables including but not limited to: brand prestige, expected monetary returns and the artists history. Once the contract is signed, like the artist, the publishing company drives to increase the success of the artist. The way in which they achieve this varies on the type of company.

Much like record labels, publishers are defined by the following categories: Major, Mini-Major and independent. Whilst the key role takes no falter between each company, the methods implemented by each vary slightly. Larger companies have a wealth unmatched by the smaller companies and are therefore more affluent in their pursuit of return. However smaller companies offer larger percentages in favour of the artist. This is down to the roles adopted by each company. Smaller companies are typically associated with less legwork because they offer a smaller cut, these are commonly assumed to be of more use to smaller artists, the ones that wouldn’t necessarily benefit from the extra running around. and vice-versa for larger pop artists- legwork means securing larger deals, achieving more exposure.

In the modern world, one enveloped by media, there are many different types of royalty attainable in the eyes of the music publisher. All of these fall down to copyright and are responsible for paying what is owed for the use of intellectual content. These royalty types are:

Public Performance Royalties

This is the most well know type of royalty. The one that springs to mind when the word is mentioned. However publishers do not mind themselves with the recording of the song. Instead the content of it, the composition – not the recording! Collection societies collect public performance royalties from radio, television and other users of music- i.e nightclubs and concert halls. This type of royalty will be due whenever the song is played in a   Last year in the US ASCAP and BMI, the two largest “PROs”, collected approximately one billion dollars each.

Mechanical Royalties

Mechanical royalties are the monies that songwriters earn from the inclusion of their songs on records.  The rate is set by a court of justice, specialised in the area, called the Copyright Royalty Board. The current average rate in the US is 9.1 cents per copy of each record sold (unless the song exceeds 5 minutes, in which case the 1.75 cents for every minute thereafter.

Sync Fees

A sync fee refers to the synchronisation of a musical composition in a media work such as a movie, TV show, advert or video game.  Sync fees vary depending on the nature of the song. To provide an example, an already successful pop song has the potential to gain over 6 figures appearing on an advert, whilst independent songwriters may only earn a few hundred pounds for their compositions to appear. Not only is there benefit of monetary reward but composers gain further exposure.

Sheet music

Sheet music used to be the primary source of publishing income however development has seen it become the opposite. Although publishers still process all forms of sheet music, both physical and digital.

Like much of the music industry, income within the publishing sector has declined significantly over recent years. According to Billboard.com Sony Music’s publishing sector alone fell 12.6 percent to $152 million (¥15.65 billion) from $174 million (¥17.844 billion as of June 30th 2016.