Andrew Gould - Publishing 101:: Watch Full Length Video
A Night to Honor the Artists:: It's inspiring to be surrounded by people who are so excited about creativity A lot of times the music industry tells you you can't do both. If anyone ever tells you that, just politely walk away and get out of the room.
Copyright Law: Music Publishing:: Music publishing is just weird. It is archaic. The way it runs and operates are based off of rules and technology that go back 100 years. Most of those points, I encourage everybody to read contracts.
What is Music Publishing?:: What is music publishing? Songs are copyrightable, theyre intellectual property, they are protected by law. Music publishing is the exploitation of a songs copyright. When compositions are exploited, financial transactions occur behind the scenes.
Copyright Explained:: You cannot copyright chord progression. Think of twelve bar blues. Chord progression is a determining factor of how you split ownership of the copyright. But you cant copyright the chords and the music, right?
Copyright Basics, 100% or 200%:: Every song will have two parts to that song and they will always be equal. A writer share and a publisher share. We can talk about songs in terms of 100% or 200%. Does that make sense?
Song Split:: In song splits, youll always determine song splits in the room. In Nashville, typically the method is three people go into the room, pull up a guitar or piano and just write a song. There are a few different methods for determining song splits.
Hip Hop Songs: The Split:: In hip hop, song splits can also be negotiated by each songwriters contribution. Splits must be agreed upon by the songwriters. Dont get hung up on splits. You want people to love to work with you, make business easy.
What About Samples and Derivative Compositions?:: Every songwriter of the original I Heard It Through The Grapevine has to approve the new usage. If one writer of theOriginal says, I dont like it, its dead. Theres nothing really you can do about know if somebody feels that strongly.
How To Clear The Master Side of a Derivative Composition:: When you grab lyrics and melody and dont use the master, sample the master as a sample. How much are they going to own of the derivative composition? There are two ways to do it. The easiest way is more expensive.
A Songwriting Deal: What Is It?:: The five critical time periods for a songwriters publishing deal. Everything that you write while youre in term, your publishing company is going to co own with you. Most often when you sign your new publishing deal, everything that you wrote when you werent published comes into that deal.
How Long Does My Contract Retention and Reversion?:: When you sign a new publishing deal, all of the work that you did before doesnt come with you to the next. For a newer songwriter doing an earlier deal, youre going to see longer attention periods, maybe even life of copyright. The best deals are the ones that are just simple.
Use your previous catalog on your first publishing deal:: Do you have a catalog for a first deal that deal finishes still retained by the previous publisher. Is it usual to use that previous income generated by that catalog as leverage for a new publishing deal?
Copyright retention periods and collection periods:: Collection periods are usually twelve months for the US and 18 months for international. And then your collection period ends. Its full expiration. I have as your publisher, no claim on any more of your income ever unless we do another deal.
What Does a Publishing Company Do?:: What does a publishing company exactly do for you? You have a bunch of different departments that youll see in publishing companies. You have your creative department. We sign, develop, manage the relationship, create opportunities. Your publishing company hopefully does a lot for you.
Do You Need A Publishing Deal?:: You can have a record deal and a publishing deal at the same time. When one deal ends, do people typically stick with the same people for the deal after that, or do they go elsewhere? It depends on a few things.
Copyright Income:: Theres actually four types of publishing income. Mechanical performance and sync are your main sources of income. For me, its just easier to conceptualize through a physical transaction.
How Much Does a Songwriter Get in a Mechanical Royalty?:: A mechanical royalty is either at or approaching twelve cents per song for, like, a download or buying a CD. For decades, that number was actually nine cents, and only very recently did songwriters get a raise. It actually changes from year to year.
How To File Your Taxes on Songwriting:: Performance. We love performance money. Radio stations have to pay a percentage of their revenue to the songwriters of the songs their music they broadcast in order to have a license to play your songs. The easiest way to do it would be to register your own music. Its expensive to collect money.
Performance Income and Synch Income:: Every time your music gets cut to film and TV, theyve got to pay you for that. Sync income, we love. One of the reasons is because the money can be really good. Any questions on performance? Sorry, on sync?
Songtrust collects your money so you can do an admin deal:: Whats the difference between a co publishing and an admin deal? All you need is somebody to collect your money so you can do anAdmin deal, which is basically what Songtrust does.
What Things Publishing Companies Do:: The majors all have their own in house administration because as we said, its expensive to administer worldwide. There are two different types of licensing, top one and the bottom one. Nashville is one of those places that just kind of operates by its own rules.
What Do You Look For When Signing a New Artist?:: Aaron Burr: What do you look for when youre starting a deal with new artists? Burr: Most people at music companies have neither studied music nor studied business. He says many businesses are run by people who dont know music or business personally. Burr: For you, do you like to start from the ground up?
How Long Does a Songwriting Deal Last?:: Most of the deals that I do are two periods. If they have periods after your initial periods, those are called options. All of the terms of your subsequent periods are pre negotiated in your original songwriter agreement. Is that chosen totally by the publisher?
So with options in a publishing deal:: When you sign a publishing deal, its going to be spelled out in that deal. What falls under the deal. Is it all my songs in my Schedule A? Is it just this one song? Every song you write while youre in term retention reversion. How do you get out of something if its up to the publisher?
Advance Payment:: Every time youre in a new period or you got into a period, you are due money. The follow on advanced payment is like the second payment or following payments you might get in your deal. Spreading money out gives me assurances that in a years time youll have another check coming into you.
What is Earnings Definitions?:: Writer earnings equals writer royalties. Publisher earnings is the same as publisher royalties. Net publisher share NPS refers to how much money your publishing company makes off of a catalog of work. Anyone got any questions on this?
How Money is Distributed under ASCAP:: All right, lets talk about how money is distributed. Do you remember we were talking before about copublishing where your publisher buys 50% of your publisher share? This makes sense now. Once the full advance is recouped, youre getting that three quarters dollar period.
Songtrust vs. Publishing vs. DistroKid: Whats:: Whats the point of distribution platforms like DistroKid, that kind of stuff? Because they take care of mechanical distribution. How does the performance how does that make so much money? Well talk about joint ventures.
Songwriters Contract:: All compositions will be owned 50 50 between publisher and writer in perpetuity. Publisher would have exclusive administration rights with respect to 100% of the compositions. Only one bonus paid per qualifying composition. Anyone have questions?
Should You Take a First Publishing Deal?:: Im always looking for new, amazing people to work with. Are you shopping for writers at the moment? Im never not. I help them with the creative. Im definitely not managing them. You know how to negotiate your first publishing deal.
How Do I Get A Label Deal?:: You can get a publishing deal by not thinking about getting a deal by writing. Just go make great music and make some noise and then let those people find you. Dont sign a deal with somebody who youre going to come to reset because that will affect your creativity.
How Does a Record Label Make Money?:: If youre an indie artist, you most likely own your master. But that they still take some of the publishing income, correct? No. Its confusing. I think the things that would make the most sense would just be to scrap this whole system and rebuild it with a little bit of sense.
Blockchain and Music:: What are your thoughts on web three and NFTs and music in that space? I think theres a lot of potential. I think were probably 15 to 20 years behind on it or maybe five to ten. Somebody could come along and really shake things up.

Andrew Gould - Publishing 101