The world is moving and with it, music and every form of art stand a greater chance of yielding financial fruit. Music is a cornerstone of cultural life and as local popular music grows at an unstoppable rate, songwriters have the possibility to emerge or burst through into a significant economic industry by means of live music, local and national broadcasting, the establishment of a domestic music industry and access to the international music market. These profits, however, cannot be realized without the use of the key player in the music business – music publishing.
What is Music Publishing?
Music publishing is the owning and exploiting of songs in the form of musical copyrights.” – Randall Wixen, Founder of Wixen Music Publishing, Inc.
A musical copyright is a designation of intellectual property similar to a patent or trademark. For a composer to get exclusive rights to a unique piece of music, the composition – that is, the music and the lyrics – must have been fixed in a medium from which it can be reproduced (as reproduction of a piece of copyrighted composition, by another composer, is beneficial to the original composer).
This means the owner of that particular composition is putting the song to use in a way that generates money. Money from a piece of composition is generated in the form of:
All the above mentioned types of royalties cannot be obtained if the composer has no music publishing rights. Music Publishing Rights refer to the bundle of exclusive rights that are associated with a musical copyright. These rights include:
