Somebody wants to buy the right to perform my song - now what"?

by Sheldon
(Montreal, Canada)

I have an artist who is charted on major AC charts who wants to do a series of my songs on CD. They are asking me for a terms memo. What would some standard financial considerations be?


Sheldon,
Congratulations this sounds like a very good thing for you. Until you know the answers to some basic questions, its hard to say what "Terms" to put into a the memo that's been requested.

Getting legal advice from an entertainment lawyer is always the best route. In this case if your songs are put on the artist's record you should get income from record sales and airplay (paid to you in about a year or so after the songs are released). You also will need to ensure you register the copyright of your songs.

The amounts paid are set, for example its about $.10 per song for each song that is on a record times the number or records sold. The issue is, do you assign any of your copyright (50% songwriting & 50% publishing) to others to help you in the music business. You should always keep the songwriting portion of your copyright. Spending a few hundred dollars right now on a lawyer is probably a very good investment.

If you don't want to contact a lawyer, you should do some entertainment contract homework. You could start here: http://www.taxi.com/faq/songwriting/songwritingbusiness/typesofsongwriteragreements.php. This will give you a start on basic information on song contracts with publishers.

You need to know if the artist (or the artist's publisher) is asking for publishing or co-publishing on your songs. It is very common for a new writer to assign publishing rights (up to 50%) of the songs income to a publisher. Its a very good thing if they (the artist) let you keep your this or take less than 50%. However, having a publisher is not a bad thing. One of the many jobs they will do for you is registering the copyright of your songs.

You also need to be a member of a performing rights organization to collect your income from your songs. In Canada it is SOCAN, in the USA it's ASCAP, BMI or SESAC.

These are only a few suggestions. But they are only suggestions, they are not legal advice. For legal advice you need to talk to a lawyer.

John Cowell - Webmaster
GreatSongWriting.com