From the course: Music Law: Managing a Band's Business

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Who owns your band's songs?

Who owns your band's songs?

From the course: Music Law: Managing a Band's Business

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Who owns your band's songs?

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- U.S. copyright law awards two music related copyrights. One to the writers of the songs, the songwriting copyright, and the others to the owners of the recordings, the sound recording copyright. As a result of this, the songwriting members of the band can earn a great deal more than other members. In my course Copyrighting a Song, I provide an explanation of how songwriter contributions are evaluated within a band. And you can review that course for more detail on this topic. For now, I'll summarize some of those issues. Historically, songwriting revenue is paid to the people who wrote the words, melody, and chord structure. A more modern approach is to include contributions from memorable drums, bass, keyboards, and other parts as well. Regardless of these approaches, there is no mandatory standard as how to divide it up. It's whatever creative solution the co-writers agree upon. If your band wants to avoid songwriting disputes down the road, here are some suggestions. After a song…

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