Publishing Split
How composition rights are divided between writers and publishers — in writing
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A publishing split is how the composition rights in a song are divided between writers and publishers. A song may have several writers, and each share must be set down in a split agreement; a publisher usually takes a share or administers the whole under contract.
It covers the composition, not the recording: the recording's share (the master split) is a separate agreement. The usual mistake is to think "whoever wrote it takes all" — credit and share are not the same thing; co-writing, work-for-hire, sampling and adaptation can all change the split. A split that is not written down leaves the future to luck.
Read deeper → copyright
Sources
- 词曲版权分割与出版合同结构，参通行音乐产业教材与 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Publishing"；本文为通识说明，不构成法律意见
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.