The legality of your music

Music, like everything in life, is regulated by a series of rules and laws that must be followed if you want to avoid having problems with the law. There is a lot of information on the internet on this subject, but from experience, I know that it can be confusing and tedious to understand certain terms. That is why I have decided to create this article so that you can understand and assimilate the most important legal concepts that surround your music.

This post may not interest you much if you have a team that handles legal issues (lawyers, record labels, publishers, …), but it never hurts to know your rights, since in any professional relationship where there is money from in between, all parties will do their best to achieve their greatest benefit. So, I recommend that you inform yourself well on these issues to avoid future problems.

Even if you are an amateur artist who still does not generate money with his music, this guide can help you to know such important things as registering your works in the authors’ society of your country or knowing what percentage and where you will receive the economic benefit generated by your music.

1. The rights of a musical work.

In any published musical work, we can distinguish 2 types of rights. The publishing rights (copyright) and the Property and Profit Rights. We are going to see each of them in detail:

1.1. Copyright:

These rights are generated automatically at the time of creating the work (it is necessary to make a registration to make it official) and define who is the creator of the music and who is the creator of the lyrics. Hence, the name of copyright, since it indicates the Authorship of the musical work.

Copyright means 100% of a work, of which half are distributed to the composer of the music (50%) and half to the composer of the lyrics (50%). If there is more than one composer of the lyrics or music, the 50% corresponding to this part would be distributed among the participants. I am going to explain it with several examples to make it clear:

-If a producer makes a song together with an MC, in which the producer makes the music and the MC the lyrics, the distribution of copyright would be:

-50% for the producer (composer of the music)

-50% for the MC (composer of the lyrics)

-If a producer makes a song together with 2 MCs, where the producer makes the music and each MC writes the lyrics for him, the distribution would be:

-50% for the producer (composer of the music)

-25% for MC1 (composer of the lyrics)

-25% for the MC2 (composer of the lyrics)

-If 2 producers make a song together with 2 MCs, the distribution would be:

-25% for producer 1 (music composer)

-25% for producer 2 (music composer)

-25% for MC1 (composer of the lyrics)

-25% for MC2 (composer of the lyrics)

In short, 100% of the copyright must be distributed among all the people involved in the composition of a musical work. There are exceptions in which the distribution is not done in this way, as long as the composer of the music reaches an agreement with the composer of the lyrics or vice versa.

Also add that for someone to enter the distribution percentage, it is necessary to add creativity to the musical work, that is, if I hire a guitarist to record a melody composed by me, this guitarist will not be entitled to any percentage of copyright, since he is only playing a composition created by me.

To monetize the copyright that a musical work generates, it is necessary to do two things before:

1-Register as an artist in the authors’ society of your country (BMI, ASCAP, SGAE, …).

2-Register the song in the authors’ society, indicating who are the participants in the musical work and what role they have played in the creative process (producer, lyricist, arranger, …).

Copyright is collected by the authors ‘society of the country where the song is registered, and it is the authors’ society itself that distributes the benefits among the different authors.

Copyrights generate publishing royalties, and these are generated each time your song is played in for-profit settings. In section 2 of this post, I will explain the different types of royalties, how they are generated and who collects them.

Once we know who the composers of the work are, let’s see who owns the original recording of that work (master) and who has the right to profit it economically.

1.2-Property and profit rights

In property and profit rights, we can differentiate 2 parts:

–The ownership of the original recording of the musical work (master)

–The right to commercially profit that work (sale, licenses, assignment, …)

We have seen previously that the composers are the authors of the musical work, but they do not have to be the owners of the recording of that work, also known as the master. For instance:

-If I make an instrumental, I put it up for sale and an MC buys a license of that instrumental for $100 to make a song with it, 2 things happen:

1-Being the owner of the instrumental (master), I have exercised my right to profit it commercially, selling a license of use for $100.

2-With the purchase of the license for those $100, the artist has the right to record his voice on the instrumental to create a new song (derivative work) of which he would be the owner (master) and also has the right to commercially profit that derivative work (sales on iTunes, streaming on Spotify, …).

Summarizing and as a general rule, the owner of the master of a song is the artist (or the label company) that buys the license of use, and it is that same license of use that specifies in what way, the artist, can commercially exploit the derivative work.

Hence, I always place so much emphasis on reading the conditions of use of the license of an instrumental. If you are not clear about how instrumental licenses work, you can read an article on my Blog where I explain it by clicking here.

To monetize the profit rights, you have to distribute your music through a label company or a digital distributor (CDBaby, Amuse, Distrokid, …).

The profit rights generate mechanical royalties that are collected by the label company or digital distributor and then distribute a percentage with the artist.

To simplify it a bit:

–The copyright defines who has created the work.

–The property and profit rights define who owns the work and who can commercially profit it.

If you’ve never heard of all this, your head may be hitting you, but believe me it’s much easier than it sounds and knowing all this gives you an advantage over other artists.

2. Royalties generated by a musical work

Royalties are the money that a musical work generates through record sales, streams, ticket sales, publicity, …

Depending on whether it is generated by copyright or profit rights, we can differentiate royalties into 2 categories:

–Publishing royalties (generated through copyright)

–Mechanical royalties (generated through exploitation rights)

2.1-Publishing royalties:

Publishing royalties are those that are generated through copyright, that is, they will be distributed among the composers of the music and the lyrics of the song.

To get these royalties, it is necessary to be registered as an artist in the authors’ society of your country and also register each song that you are going to publish. It is crucial to register correctly, indicating who each percentage corresponds to, since it will be the authors’ society that collects the publishing royalties and distributes them among the different authors of the work.

Publishing royalties are generated each time the work is reproduced in for-profit settings:

-Concerts.

-Radios.

-Television or internet (advertising, series, movies, …).

2.2-Mechanical royalties

The mechanical royalties are those that are generated through the profit rights and are for the owner of the master.

You can generate mechanical royalties through:

-Sale of physical or online CDs.

-Selling songs on iTunes.

-Streaming services (Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, …)

To generate mechanical royalties, you must distribute your music through a label company or through a digital distributor. These will collect the royalties, and they will enter the part that corresponds to you. In this case, the label company or distributor usually keep a percentage, so it is important to know these details to know which distributor gives you the most benefit before publishing your music.

3. The importance of legally registering your music

The Internet has made life easier for all of us. But there will still be people who take advantage of these facilities to cheat, steal or cheat.

Imagine the following:

-You are a very talented amateur artist who is starting his musical career. A big clothing brand finds a song of yours on the internet, and they like it for its next publicity campaign. Looking for some information, they find out that neither you nor your song are registered in the authors’ society, so they decide to save the money it costs to hire an artist, they download that song and use it for their publicity campaign that generates Thousands of dollars.

In this case, if you want to claim what is yours, you would have to hire a lawyer, report that company and go to court against them and their entire legal team. Basically, it would be a David vs. Goliath fight.

With a bit of luck, the brand would offer you to reach an economic agreement for you to withdraw the complaint, but if you have bad luck, you would have to go to court against them, making a large financial outlay and without guarantees of winning.

This would not happen if you register your songs in the authors’ society, since this offers you legal support in any dispute over the authorship of your work.

That is, registering your music in the authors’ society gives you 2 great advantages:

1-Raise the money that your music generates around the world through publishing royalties.

2-Legal support on the authorship of your music.

Registering your music in the authors’ society hardly costs money and is a guarantee that no one will be able to appropriate your music or use it without you obtaining financial benefit.

The first thing you have to do is register as an artist in the authors’ society in your country. You only have to pay a one-time registration fee by filling in the corresponding forms and then registering each song before publishing it.

Even if you think you are at the beginning of your musical career, and you don’t need it, something as simple as this can help you in the future and get rid of many headaches.

It is critical to know that if you are going to register your song in the authors’ society, you have to make sure that there are no third-party samples that are not authorized. That is, you cannot register a song that has melodic samples of other songs or recordings (except if they are royalty-free samples)

I know that all this can be difficult to understand and assimilate, but it is an essential part of music, and knowing it will help you both legally and financially.

Finally, to tell you that I am not a lawyer, I have not studied law and all this information that I provide you is information that I have been collecting through the internet and through mentoring courses. So if you experience any legal problem, I recommend that you hire a specialized lawyer and tell him about your case. He will be more informed about current laws and will know which path is the right one for each situation.

If you have any doubts, questions or need advice, don’t be shy. Write me an email at info@cuttyreferenzbeats.com, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.