The Art of Music Monetization: “Splits”
Forgive my absence from writing this blog. You, my people, have never been far away from my thoughts. But I have been busy CREATING music and given that there’s only 24 hours in a day — well, you get it…
Let’s talking about “slicing up the monetization pie…”
I have been talking to a lot of friends about splits recently. If you’re in a band or group and you’ve been creating music together you probably haven’t dealt with splits. The term “splits” deals with the percentage of writer’s share and publisher’s share each writer has on a song.
“Writer’s share”? “Publisher’s share”? What are you talking about? Find out more about music publishing HERE.
People are weird about getting the splits on their music — — an essential part of music creation dealt with with clarity and integrity. Don’t be awkward. Be straight. I know, self-expression (even for your own interests) can be tricky for some folks. Addressing this issue can be a VERY telling way of seeing what the state of your creative “union” is with your collaborator, bandmates or more. Some bands go YEARS not dealing with this and then they have a hit single and the whole thing is blown-away.
Some people deal with splits based on how much “work” you did on the song. That’s actually not the most accurate measure of what you should get or not. For example, John Lennon and Paul McCartney had a standing 50/50 split no matter what their actual contributions were from song to song. You’ll have to work out a structure for you.
For example, if you wrote a song by yourself — you have 100% of both the writer’s share and the publisher’s share. If you co-wrote it, most people go 50/50. Three or more writers gets interesting. Stories of writers, producers and band mates fighting to the death over misunderstandings on splits are well documented and legendary (Google search Beyoncé’s first solo album). These conflicts are also an issue that can prevent you from collecting ANY money. If one of the parties files a formal complaint, the money collected may be held in escrow by your performing rights organization (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC), SoundExchange, your label, publisher or more. If you self-release your material, it’s even MORE important to have the details worked out.
The psychology of people asking for what’s theirs or what’s “fair” or even what is so (factual) has been fascinating to me. Many people regard making these requests as “confrontational”. I am not sure why. Frankly, being straight about this can be the difference between a collaboration that WORKS and one that does not.
Here it is: unless ALL the writers agree to how their contributions will be split, it will be impossible for any of you to make a dime on sales, streaming or anything else.
Here’s the solution: sign a collaboration agreement. Simple. Your name. Their name. Addresses. Last 4 digits of your Social Security numbers. Date. Working title of song/composition. Agreed to splits. Don’t be weird. Do it. Or, if you are super lazy, the nice people at The Music Site have written a more voluminous (but still good) collaboration agreement HERE. Use it as a starting place. Every agreement will need to be tailored and tweaked for the individual situation. Still confused? Contact an attorney.
Many songwriters START writing sessions by handing their collaborator an agreement. When I write with people I can tell almost immediately how serious they are by how they deal with the business. With the splits managed, all that’s left is to write a great song and get it out to the world!
