Music publishing functions

When the music publishers dominated the music industry at the end of the nineteenth century, their main aim was to sell sheet music. As mentioned in Chapter 1, “After the Ball” became the first million seller in 1893 and others followed. Today, however, sheet music sales are just a side business for music publishers. The main function of a music publisher in the digital age is the acquisition and exploitation of copyrights.

Copyright acquisition

The traditional way of obtaining copyrights is to contract a songwriter for a specific song (individual song contract) or for a specific period of time to compose and/or write songs (exclusive songwriter's contract). In an individual song contract, a songwriter assigns all the copyrights of a single song to a publisher in return for a non-returnable advance that is fully cross-collateralized with any royalties earned by the songwriter as long as the production cost is not recouped. Several hundreds of dollars or euros are the usual advances for a single song contract (see Hull et al. 2011: 122– 3). In an exclusive contract, a songwriter agrees to exclusively compose and/or write music for a publisher for a certain period. Such a contract lasts usually a year, but longer contracts – up to seven years – are possible should the publisher wish to develop an artist (developmental deals), especially when the publisher expects the songwriter to become a recording artist. Thus, singer/songwriter Alanis Morissette was initially signed for seven years by MCA Music Publishing before her album debut in 1995 (ibid.: 121). During the contract period the songwriter receives a weekly or monthly advance that is fully deductible from any royalties received from record sales, sheet music sales, synchronization fees, etc. (see Brabec & Brabec 2004: 13). In both cases the copyrights can be exploited by the publisher as long as the author is alive and for the period of 70 years after her/his death.

The traditional model of copyright acquisition is typical for small music publishers. Larger companies usually purchase smaller song catalogues from successful songwriters and music producers who run their own publishing companies.