Music Publishing

Introduction

Music Publishing—the business of acquiring copyrights and promoting, protecting, and collecting the royalties for millions of songs throughout the world—generates the largest source of income for songwriters and composers. With well over nine billion dollars a year (CISAC, 2005) flowing to songwriters and publishers throughout the world, the U.S. Copyright Act (Title 17, U.S. Code) establishes the foundation of laws and rights which serve as the roadmap for monetizing the ownership of creative works in the United States. And not unlike the U.S. tax code, copyright laws can be seen as a complex set of guidelines, fraught with arcane terminology and technical authorizations. This book provides practical explanations of the seemingly ...