Types of Music Rights and Royalties: Understanding Master, Common, and Music Publishing Rights in Song Ownership

Unlike film and television, which have a relatively short history in the grand scheme of things, the art of music-making is about as ancient as humanity itself. Because of this, while the art of music-making is still quite simple in many ways, the world of music licensing is anything but simple and direct.

Exploring how music rights work, the different types of music rights, and trying to understand who owns different parts of a song’s composition, recording, and distribution can quickly become very complex.

However, regardless of your purpose for wanting to learn a bit more about how music rights work and why licensing is so important, we’re here to help explain the basics of music rights and royalties. Let’s take a look at the different types of music rights – master recording rights, song publishing rights and common rights and royalties, to understand the many sides to every song.

Sound Recording Rights (aka the “Masters”)

Let’s start by explaining sound recording rights, which are also sometimes called “the masters” or “master rights.” These types of rights cover when a song (or sound in this definition) is recorded.

Masters can be owned by record labels or artists themselves if they are unsigned or independent. A good rule of thumb is to follow the money, as whoever paid for the music to be recorded most likely owns the music master recordings (aka masters).

Here are some examples of record labels who usually own sound recording masters:

• Major Labels - Republic Records, Warner Records, Sony
• Indie Labels - XL Recordings (Adele, Radiohead, Vampire Weekend, etc.), Domino (Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, etc.), Glassnote (Childish Gambino, CHVRCHES, Mumford & Sons, etc.), SM Entertainment (K-pop)

If an artist is unsighted, though, they are essentially their own record label and will generally need to work with distributors to release their music. These unsigned artists need help and infrastructure to get their music released on platforms like Spotify or Apple Music; distributors can do that for them.

Also, again, generally speaking, there can usually be only one owner per master recording, which is why this is the simpler side of a song’s licensing rights. However, as we’ve seen with recent examples like Taylor Swift’s “Taylor’s Versions” songs, there can be infinite master recordings of the same song (which we also call “covers”).

Publishing Rights

After master rights, the next type of music licensing rights we’re going to cover are song publishing rights. Publishing rights are the underlying copyrights of a song’s melody and lyrics. Music publishers or the songwriters themselves, again, if they are unsigned or independent, can own publishing rights.

Some examples of music publishers who often own publishing rights for songs include:

• Major Publishers - Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell, Sony Music
• Indie Publishers - BMG, Reservoir, Kobalt, Concord

If a songwriter is independent, they are essentially the music publisher. They will generally work with a publishing administrator to register their songs globally and collect royalties. Unlike master recordings, though, there can only be one underlying copyright owner.

Now, publishing rights are inherently complicated because they can—and often do—have multiple co-writers and co-publishers per song. For example, artists like Beyond often have songs with as many as 12 publishers on them, sometimes even more.

Common Rights and Royalties

Finally, to fully understand how music licensing works, we need to explore common rights and the different types of royalties in music—you know, how a song makes money. Simply put, every song has 4 types of royalties and common rights, which can be a bit complicated to sort through, but here are the basic definitions for each.

Mechanical

Starting with the most complicated one (mainly because it comes from a bygone era in the music industry), mechanical royalties are paid whenever a copy of a song is created and sold. The traditional example of this would be a vinyl record pressing, a CD being manufactured, or now a digital file being downloaded. In modern times, this mechanical royalty now extends to streaming. This means that a royalty is paid every time a song is streamed.

Performance

This type of royalty is pretty straightforward and is paid whenever a song is played in public. Some main examples of performance royalties would be when a song is played in a coffee shop or bar, when a song is used in a TV show or film, or when a song is played on the radio.

Sync

Now, while performance royalties overlap here a little bit, upfront sync fees are paid whenever a song is used in a visual medium like a TV show, a movie, a video game, an advertisement, etc… And it’s not just one fee but two, as traditionally, the master owner and the publisher both receive sync fees—usually in the same amount. You can find more info on sync licensing on our blog.

What to Know About Rights and Royalties

Hopefully, this primer on the different types of rights and royalties associated with a song has been helpful in informing you about how music licensing in general works. In summary, traditionally, there are many different parties involved and many mouths to feed.

That being said, if you’re looking to license music for your own various uses or are interested in how to license music for video, we’re here to help. If you’d like to learn more about Soundstripe’s music for video offerings, check out our guide on how to use Soundstripe here.

If you’d like to speak to a sales representative about more nuanced music licensing opportunities, please contact us.