Ten Tips for Songwriters: Credits, Copyrights, and Coauthors
by
Attorney Richard Stim
Songwriters are often ill-equipped to handle the many business and legal issues that arise in their work. Here are ten tips to make your songwriting a success.
You may have written an outstanding song with a fabulous melody, great lyrics, and memorable hooks. Yet your work doesn’t stop there. Songwriting raises many legal issues such as: who gets the credit for a song, how are royalties split, can you claim tax deductions for home studios, and should you register a copyright. Here are ten tips to help manage the legal and business side of your songwriting.
1. Figure Out Songwriting Credits, Now!
If you’re writing songs with others, as soon as you finish the song, agree with your collaborators as to how to split potential revenues. If you wait until after you have a deal or record the song, you could end up sorting out credits and payments with band members who have long since left the group. Many bands also include non-writing members in the income. You don’t need a formal contract on who gets the credits; an informal written agreement will suffice.
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If you’re in a band that’s earning money, owns equipment, and has a working career, use a band partnership agreement. For help on creating a band partnership agreement, including blank agreements on disk, see Music Law: How to Run Your Band’s Business, by Rich Stim (Nolo).
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2. How to Decide Who Gets Songwriting Credits
A songwriting copyright is awarded to those who jointly contributed to the song’s structure, chord progressions, and lyrics. This can be anyone, even the members of the rhythm section (in many songs -- especially in rock, pop, and dance music -- a bass or drum part is so integral to the song that it becomes as important as the melody). The best way to decide:
- the members of the band determine who wrote the songs, or
- throw out traditional rules and share equally (or by some other formula) in all band-written tunes.
3. Publicize Songwriters' Names
Once you’ve established who wrote a song, publicize the names and how to contact you or your music publisher. When preparing music for downloads -- for example MP3s, AACs, or WMAs -- make use of the text tags that allow you to encode the names of the songwriters and any related copyright information.
4. Consider Cowriting With a Dead Songwriter
Having trouble writing a catchy tune? You might consider trying the approach of Vera Matson, who took a civil war song, "Aura Lee," and added her own lyrics. The result was "Love Me Tender," a monster hit for Elvis Presley and many other artists. Older music (published before 1923) like "Aura Lee" isn’t protected by copyright, and therefore is said to be in the “public domain.” It's free for anyone to copy.
Others may use these tunes as well but cannot copy the unique elements that you add. For more information about locating tunes in the public domain, consult Steve Fishman’s book The Public Domain: How to Find Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art & More (Nolo).
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