The role of the Music Publishing company is to exploit musical copyrights to generate royalties.
Pre-20th century, before music was recorded, publishing companies made their income (and income for the songwriters and composers they represented), by publishing sheet music copies of musical works. Today, publishers are involved in licensing the use of their catalogues of musical works in a vast range of scenarios: from sheet music to mobile ringtones, including the reproduction of the musical work on albums, and the use of the musical work in advertisements on TV, the internet or in a Film soundtrack.
The traditional scenario is that publishers will pay an advance to the songwriter/composer in order to obtain a percentage of that artist's musical copyrights. They will then keep a percentage of royalty money these songs earn - which they expect will enable them to recoup their advance and then provide them with a profit. These percentages are stated in the contract signed by both parties. These percentages will also appear as the song 'splits' in the APRA and AMCOS databases (given that publishers own copyright in musical works, they are also members of APRA and AMCOS).
It is important to note that publishing companies exist separately to record companies, although there are many instances where a record label has established a publishing company, or vice versa.
Music Publishers generally perform the following main functions:
- Administration of copyright: collecting royalty income on behalf of the songwriter for the use of his or her songs, negotiating licensing deals with music users, possibly registering new musical works with collecting societies
- Prevention of infringement of the songwriter's copyright
- Assisting the creative development of the songwriter
- Promoting the use of the songwriter's work
APRA|AMCOS Publisher Services delivers a range of services including:
- admission of new APRA|AMCOS publisher members
- administration of agreement and title registrations submitted by APRA|AMCOS publisher members
- management of APRA|AMCOS database relating to publishers' copyright ownership and royalty payments
- administration of copyright ownership disputes between members
- education and provision of information to publishers e.g. bi-monthly email bulletin Antenna, regular seminars on industry issues, online access to lists of unidentified works/films for which APRA|AMCOS is holding royalties
- servicing the needs of publisher members
View the Services for Music Publishers brochure (pdf).