Music Management Report: UK Music Publishing Industry Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the UK music publishing industry, focusing on key aspects relevant to songwriters. It begins with an introduction highlighting the industry's significance and provides context through examples of successful songwriters. The report then delves int...Read More

Running head: MUSIC MANAGEMENT
MUSIC MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student:
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Copyright....................................................................................................................................4
Income streams...........................................................................................................................5
Mechanical royalties..............................................................................................................5
Synch licensing......................................................................................................................5
Performance royalties.............................................................................................................6
Self publishing.......................................................................................................................6
Collection societies....................................................................................................................7
PRS.........................................................................................................................................7
MCPS.....................................................................................................................................7
PPL.........................................................................................................................................8
Music Publishing Companies.....................................................................................................8
Publishing contracts...................................................................................................................9
Analysis....................................................................................................................................11
Tool of analysis....................................................................................................................11
Analysis................................................................................................................................11
Conclusion................................................................................................................................13
References................................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
The music publishing industry in the UK has been one of the most significant
industries in the field, after the US music publishing industry. There have been a range of
musicians and songwriters who have been in the limelight in this industry, namely Ed
Sheeran, Bruno Mars and more. Th6e reason why these two songwriters have been
mentioned at the start is because of the fact that they both have one thing in common. That is
how fast they have grown into being worldwide sensations. Bruno Mars, hailing from the US,
had written songs for major artists at the time, including Akon, Taylor Swift and B.O.B. Most
of them were hits on the US and UK charts, because of the fact that his songs were in
compliance with the trends at the time, which was love themed pop and RnB (Mars 2016).
The publishing industry is a complex structure and it could confuse any songwriter
with the formalities and regulations associated with it. It is for this reason that this report
details the fundamentals of the publishing industry, for a songwriter to be able to make future
decisions based on it. This report would provide a deep understanding of the various concepts
related to music publishing and would give a detailed idea about how a songwriter could use
this information to generate income. Concepts of copyright and collective societies would be
able to provide an insight on the share of ownership to a particular intellectual property and
its relevant income share. This report would also be taking into account the various
contemporary issues that are affecting the music industry at present, for the songwriter to be
able to make correct decisions, and real life cases in the industry for him or her to be able to
understand how the various regulations in the music industry work, and to be able to abide by
them in an efficient manner. The various aspects of a publishing contract would also be

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discussed, for providing the ability to identify which aspects to prefer and to be careful of
while signing with a publishing company.
Copyright
As a songwriter, the main job is to write songs, which is an art form. Therefore, it has
to be said that the main thing that has to be noted in this regard is the fact that the songwriter
is in fact a creator of a property, which is called intellectual property in this context. He or
she possesses all of the rights to this property to be used and performed at events or
elsewhere. It is the creator’s exclusive right to this intellectual property, and exists to him or
her by default once the piece of work is documented, that is in form of a written piece or a
recording. Nobody has the rights to use this piece of work for any purpose unless licenced by
the owner of the copyrighted piece. It usually lasts for 70 years after the death of the last
surviving author (Arewa 2017).
There are two types of copyrights in the music industry, namely the musical
composition copyright and the sound recording copyright. While musical composition
copyright involves the piece of raw work that only has the written lyrics and composition to
it, the sound recording copyright involves the copyright of the recorded and performed
product of that raw piece of work. As this report is targeted towards a songwriter, the focus
would be on composition copyright. In this, by default the songwriter and the composer of
the song share a 50-50 split in the ownership of the song, unless mutually agreed upon. When
there are more than one writers or composers, there is an equal split by default, unless equally
agreed upon. The publishing company of the musical work simply takes partial ownership of
the work, to commercially publish it. This is generally a 50-50 split between the creators and
the publishers, unless the contract says otherwise, which is a different topic altogether
(Towse 2017).

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Publishers take this partial ownership of the work, and in exchange, grant a stream of
royalties to the creators of the work. When an artist wants to cover an existing song, the
rights of which is not owned by him or her, or by the publishing company he or she is
associated with, mechanical license has to be sought for from people who do own the rights
to that piece of work.
In the UK, the Copyright and Design Protection Act (1998), is the legal framework
for all copyrighted pieces in the country. It basically lays out the rules and regulations for the
copyrighted works, and frames a setting in a holistic view of copyrights for musicians and
publishers alike to follow. Violating this is a legal breach and is therefore, punishable by law
(Muir 2017).
Income streams
It is a common question for the public regarding how songwriters actually make
money from the songs that they write. The answer is that there are a multiple ways in which
money could be generated from these works, and the most common ways are listed in the
following sub sections.
Mechanical royalties
The first and most common form of income for the songwriters is that of mechanical
royalties. When a song is written, it gets converted in a written song and it is therefore copied
and distributed in many forms to the public. This could be in the form of CD’s, or online
streams, or any medium that has a copy of the song to be distributed to the public. Here, it is
important to remember and note that the composition rights still belong to the original writers
of the song, and to the publishing company that published the written piece in the first place.
Therefore, a part of the sales revenue from this form of sales is given out to the publishers,
and a certain amount of it drips down to the songwriters, based on the royalties cut agreed

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upon mutually. This fee is typically 9.1 cents for every copyrighted song, that a music retailer
has to sell in CD tracks or online, and it goes to the publisher (Hughes et al. 2016).
Synch licensing
Often times, audiences get to see that a particular song plays on TV shows,
commercials and even films. The question that often strikes the audiences in most of the
cases, is how they got to legally access and use the song when it is not rightfully theirs. Here
comes the concept of synch licensing. When these musical pieces are played, there are often
in the form of synchronization or synch. This music is licensed from the publishers, which
could be a nominal fee, or even up to a few hundred thousand euros, depending on the
purpose and the reach. In exchange of this license, the users of this music pay the
composition publisher and the recording publisher, a sum of which drips down to the
songwriter, based on the royalty cut. To track these broadcasts, the publishers and the
songwriters become members of the performance rights organizations such as BMI or
ASCAP, which brings the discussion into the next sub section (Hughes et al 2016).
Performance royalties
Broadcast does not simply mean playing through TV or radio, and has a much wider
scope than that. This can include jukeboxes, public events and more, who have to seek
licenses from the publisher in order to make sure that the song is legally distributed to the
public through them. For such purposes, like a radio station that has to be playing a series of
songs, it would be a hectic task to make sure that every song is licensed by them, since it
would be a time consuming process. This is the reason why performance rights organizations
provide something called a blanket license, under which, license to use a set of songs is
granted to the party wanting to use that song (Hughes et al. 2016).

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Self publishing
The most financially efficient way of publishing would be for the songwriter himself
or herself to get a piece of his or her work published to the public. These are called
independent songwriters, and can sign up as publishers by registering themselves with the
performance rights organizations. In this way, songwriters get to keep the 100% of all the
revenues that come out of their songs, and therefore, it is worth putting in the extra effort.
However, it has to be noted in this regard that for this to happen, the songwriter must be
aware of all of the rules and regulations in the industry and a perfect knowledge of how the
publishing industry works (Hughes et al. 2016).
Collection societies
As discussed earlier, the performance royalties and mechanical royalties are paid out
to a songwriter in advance usually bought through blanket licenses. However, the fact that
has to be noted is that there are two parties of copyright owners. One involves the lyrical and
composition party and the other involves the copyright owners of the recorded and performed
piece of song. Hence, both of these parties have to be paid.
PRS
PRS stands for Performing Right Society. This is collective society that is responsible
for collecting revenues for the songwriters of songs that are played out to the public by
external agents, such as radio stations, juke boxes at public events, and more. All of this
revenue goes out to the PRS and from there, are paid out to the songwriters. Every venue and
streaming service around the globe playing songs to the public, must have a PRS license.
ASCAP and BMI are societies that have agreements with the PRS to collect royalties for the
songwriters for getting their songs played to the public (Laing 2009).

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MCPS
The Mechanical Copyright Protection Society is responsible for collecting revenues
for songwriters, just like the PRS. Every piece of music that is reproduced for distribution,
through the use of mechanical tools, such as CD’s Video games, Telephone ringtones, and
more, earns a royalty from the music retailer, and that money goes out to the MCPS. The
MCPS in turn has two aspects:
 The right to copy the piece of work.
 The right to issue out the copy of the work to the public (Laing 2009).
PPL
PPL is a collective society that is not concerned with paying the royalties to the
songwriters of the song, and hence, is not a concern for this report. However, just to know the
basics in the business, it is important for the songwriter to know that this is a collective
society that is responsible for collecting performance royalties on behalf of performers of a
recorded song (Laing 2009).
Music Publishing Companies
Many wonder what a music publishing company actually does or how it works.
Firstly, the primary thing that they have to do is to sign talents and get their work published,
through the exploitation of the copyrights. It is for this reason that the main thing that has to
be noted in this regard is the fact that it is through the music publishing companies that
revenues are generated for a songwriter, unless the piece of work is a self published one.
Music publishing companies is all about copyrights and songwriters. It is tasked with the
responsibility that a particular work of a writer is not used freely and illegally, and every
penny worth it is paid to the publisher who published the song and the writer who produced it

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in the first place. Licensing, acquiring and paying royalties are all the work of the publishing
company (Tessler 2017).
Just like any other market, the publishing industry also has sectors within it, based on
the scale of operations that it has to do in the music industry. The first are the majors. These
music publishing companies are responsible for dealing with songwriters that have
tremendous talent, and work with the best in the industry. They often have the best placing
strategies, and a much better reach to the audiences. Some of these companies include
SONY/ATV, EMI, Warner Music, and also MCA Music (Cihak 2019).
Followed by this, come the mini majors. These companies also have a large scale
operations across the globe, but is a little less than that of the majors in the industry. It is for
this reason that they are tasked with songwriters who considered to be next to the best, and
understandably, generates a lesser amount of revenues due to a near perfect placing strategy,
and lesser area of operations. Example of a mini major music publishing company includes
Famous (Tessler 2017).
The indie and other smaller publishing companies are known as the minors. These
companies do not have a high reach to the audiences, and generally, do not work with the
best of the talents across the world. These companies are responsible for publishing lesser
popular music, and an example include Mushroom Music Publishing (Tessler 2017).
Without these music publishing companies, it would not be possible for the
songwriters to get their songs played in the public, and it is for this reason why these
companies exist. The self publishers exist too, who get to keep the hundred percent of the
revenues for their songs, but music publishers have a better reach to the audiences, which is
crucial for the career growth of the songwriters, and for a better revenue generation as a result
of the better reach and placing strategy.

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Publishing contracts
There are various types of publishing contract agreements that exist out there in the
music industry. Each of them have their own characteristics and purpose. At most times, the
type of contract that is to be signed with the songwriter, depends on the sole discretion of the
music publishing company. Throughout all of these contracts, there are a couple of key terms
in the publishing contract that stay just the same, and are important for the songwriter to
know about.
First is Grant of Rights. Grant of Rights refers to the songwriter assigning his or her
rights to the publishing company, for the purpose of publishing their work. Through the
exploitation of these rights, the publication publishes the work of the songwriter. Hence, in
simple terms, the writer simply sells the rights to the publication company, in exchange of
money and popularization of the work. The second thing is Rights period. This refers to the
time period till which the grant of rights would be valid, after which, the ownership of the
work belongs to the writer, unless renewed. Since it is the songwriter who grants the rights to
the publishing company for the company to run, the songwriters do exercise a good amount
of power (Baskerville and Baskerville 2015). However, with the increasing number of
songwriters in the market, the publishing companies do not have a small pool of options that
grants more power to the publishers.
The various types of publishing contracts that exist in the market are as follows:
Single Song Agreement: In this form of an agreement, the songwriter only grants certain
rights to the music publisher, in return for royalties, the range if which does not include more
than one to two pieces of songs. In this, a one time recoupable advance by the publisher of
the song (Levine and Kost 2018).

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Exclusive song writer agreement: In this form of a contract, the writer grants all of the
share of rights, and therefore income, to the music publisher. There is a fixed period of time,
till which the works of the writer will belong to the publisher completely, and this time period
has to be negotiated and mutually agreed upon by both the writer and the publishing
company. This obliges the publishing company to pay a wholesome amount to the writer in
advance against the future royalties, and therefore, is much more expensive. This is the
reason why such agreements are only signed with well reputed writers. The amount to be paid
to the writer throughout the period depends on the negotiation power of the writer (Levine
and Kost 2018).
Co-Publishing: This is perhaps the most common form of agreement. The writer and the
publisher are both owners of the song. The writer, despite giving away the publisher’s share
to the publisher, retains 100% of his own shares. This is typically split in a 50-50 deal. In a
75-25 deal, the writer has all of his 100% shares, and also 50% of the publisher’s share,
meaning 75% of the total amount of shares (Tschmuck et al. 2015).
Admin Agreement: In this form of agreement, one writer or one publishing company merely
grants the rights of a work or a set of works to another publishing company, for a specific
tenure. It is only for that time that the company can exploit the copyrights to that piece of
work. This again mainly involves the most reputed writers in the industry (Levine and Kost
2018).
Contemporary issues
The recent developments in the publishing industry include a range of issues that are
important for a songwriter to know about to be able to make future decisions.
The battle between the Department of Justice and ASCAP, which is placed outside of
UK but is known to harbour a major chunk of British writers, has been going on for some

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time now. ASCAP and BMI pleaded to the DOJ to reform the decrees based on the digital
age of today. However, ignoring it altogether, the DOJ instead declared that a performance
rights organization can grant performance license only if it has 100% share of the work. The
BMI appealed against it and immediately got the decision ruled in its favour. The DOJ
appealed again and now the case could go anywhere. If the DOJ wins, the music industry
would be having to come up with a new business model, which could reshape the industry
altogether. However, if ASCAP and BMI win, the system would be unchanged and could be
improved in the future (Forbes.com 2019).
The issue of booming sales of catalogues have been an issue for the music industry as
well. A lot of outside investors are now investing in the majors to acquire substantial
catalogues. In fact, rumours suggest that publishing giant EMI might be up for sale at a total
validation of $3bn. What this means for the publishing industry is that the industry would
grow smaller and smaller, with only the majors ruling over, and the indies falling in numbers.
The outside investors do not have any expertise in music and therefore, it is viable that record
labels would soon be ruled by large MNC’s and venture capitalists. However, because these
capitalists do not have expertise in the field, it would be said that experts would be hired for
the running of these companies, meaning that income flow in the industry would be stable
(Forbes.com 2019).
In the recent times, there have also been a large number of lawsuits filed against
Spotify. The claims suggest that the platform has been illegally using music to stream to the
public, without paying mechanical royalties. Spotify CEO, in 2018, claimed that it does not
require to pay the royalties at all. Hearings are still going on, with a final settlement yet to be
met. If the verdict is ruled in the favour of Spotify, it could mean mass losses to the music
industry (Forbes.com 2019).

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Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it could be concluded that the publishing
industry is vast and there are a lot of rules and regulations that have to be kept in mind for a
songwriter to progress in the music industry. To recap, copyright refers to the exclusive rights
of the intellectual property that defines ownership of that property, and comes in two forms.
The first is the property that refers to the raw lyrics and composition, while the other involves
the recorded and performed piece. PRS is the collective society that is responsible for
collective revenues for the song writers associated with the body, from the songs that are
licensed to play out to the public or get broadcasted to them. These royalties are dripped
down to the songwriters based on the royalties cut. MCPS is responsible for making sure that
the various mechanical tools such as CD’s and tapes through which a work is copied, is
licensed and the royalty of it drips down to the songwriter. There are three types of
publishing companies that exist in the market: the majors, like EMI and Sony, the mini
majors, like Famous and the minors like Mushroom Music Publishing. Each of them offer a
range of agreement type, the most common of which is co publishing. In this, the writer
retains all of his shares, and could even have the shares of the publisher in the property’s
ownership. A songwriter, despite knowing these fundamentals, have to be able to look out for
the contemporary issues in music publishing, like the battle between ASCAP and DOJ,
lawsuits against Spotify, and also the sudden booming sales of catalogues, each of which
could immensely affect the landscape of the publishing industry.

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References
Arewa, O.B., 2017. Copyright and Cognition: Musical Practice and Music Perception. St.
John's Law Review, 90(3), p.3.
Baskerville, D. and Baskerville, T., 2018. Music business handbook and career guide. Sage
Publications.
Cihak, L. (2019). The Latest Ranking of Music Publisher Gold & Platinum Certifications.
[online] Digital Music News. Available at:
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/05/31/nmpa-music-publishers-songwriters/
[Accessed 31 Jul. 2019].
Forbes.com. (2019). Music Industry Cases And Issues To Watch In 2018. [online] Available
at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/legalentertainment/2017/12/08/music-industry-cases-and-
issues-to-watch-in-2018/#5dc629575066 [Accessed 1 Aug. 2019].
Hughes, D., Evans, M., Morrow, G. and Keith, S., 2016. The new business of music. In The
New Music Industries (pp. 17-35). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Laing, D., 2009. World music and the global music industry: Flows, corporations and
networks.
Levine, M. and Kost, K., 2018. Rights and Publishing Contracts: What Authors Need to
Know. In Medical and Scientific Publishing (pp. 157-166). Academic Press.
Muir, A., 2017. Copyright and digital academic library development in the UK. Journal of
Librarianship and Information Science, p.0961000617732380.
Tessler, H., 2017. The new MTV? Electronic Arts and'plying'music. In From Pac-Man to
Pop Music (pp. 13-25). Routledge.

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Towse, R., 2017. Economics of music publishing: copyright and the market. Journal of
Cultural Economics, 41(4), pp.403-420.
Tschmuck, P., Pearce, P.L., Campbell, S., Tschmuck, P., Pearce, P. and Campbell, S., 2013.
Music business and the experience economy. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer-Verlag.
Southbank, Victoria: Arts Victoria. Retrieved January, 20, p.2014.

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Appendices
Appendix 1
Factors affecting music publishing industry (PESTLE analysis)
Political: The current legal framework that oversees the protection of copyrights of
intellectual property in the UK is the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act (1988). It has to be
strictly followed by and adhered to in order to avoid legal trouble.
Economic: An estimated $3Mn Euros are spent to launch a new songwriter or singer. This is
the reason why scouting is the new trend in the industry to sign reputed musicians.
Social: Collective societies like ASCAP and BMI have had a lot of problems and issues with
the DOJ as of late, which could change the landscape of the music industry.
Technological: With digital advances, mechanical licensing is becoming more important
than ever, and hence, PRS has been more careful in tracking and monitoring use of
intellectual properties.
Legal: Several laws in the contract of music publishing could work as opposing forces to
make a songwriter decide on an agreement.
Environmental: Environmentally, there are no apparent forces affecting the music
publishing industry.