Imagine looking up your song in The MLC database and finding a company name sitting against it, holding a 100% publisher share. You’ve never agreed to sell your song to anyone. Is someone taking your song from you in broad daylight?
The answer is no.
You’re seeing the “100% publisher share” because the word “publisher” means two different things in the music business. Your database search does not tell you which one it is.
The two kinds of publishing deal
There are two broad kinds of publishing deal: administration and ownership. Both put a company’s name against your song, so from the outside they look the same.
When a collecting society or The MLC lists a publisher against your song, it is naming the company authorized to collect the money your song earns on the songwriting side. The company’s name works like the address on an envelope. Your royalty goes to it, and it pays that royalty to you, minus the service fee you agreed to.
Under an administration deal, that is all the company does. The song stays 100% yours, your administrator collects the full 100% on your behalf for a fee, and when the contract ends, you keep everything. If you see Highvibes Digital LLC as your publisher on the MLC, this is our job description.
The ownership deal is different. The most common one is a co-publishing deal, where you sell part of the song itself, usually in return for an advance. An advance is cash paid to you now and taken back later out of your own royalties. The part you sold keeps earning for the publisher, sometimes for years after you stop working together.
Only your contract can tell you which of the two you signed, since a database search shows them the same way. So when you see that 100%, open the agreement before you panic and look for two words: administration, or assignment, the legal term for handing over part of your song.
What the 100% at The MLC actually covers
The MLC is an American body, set up under US law, and it collects one kind of songwriting money: mechanical royalties from streams and downloads in the United States. Performance royalties, the money from radio, clubs and public play, are collected by other societies, such as MCSN in Nigeria, GHAMRO in Ghana or BMI in America. So a 100% publisher share at The MLC tells you who collects your American streaming mechanicals, and nothing about who collects your money anywhere else.
The MLC collects on streams by listeners in America, whatever country you live in, so a songwriter in Accra with fans in Houston has money waiting there. When someone in America streams your song, the streaming service pays the MLC, The MLC pays whoever is registered against the song, and that company pays you.
Your home society will not reliably reach that money on its own. Societies collect abroad through agreements with partners, and American streaming mechanicals are one of the harder pots to reach from Lagos, Accra or Johannesburg. CAPASSO in South Africa signed a deal with a New York administrator for exactly this reason. That gap is why administrators register African songs at the MLC, and why you may find a company name against yours: without a registration, the American money has nowhere to go.
What if you joined BMI directly?
Some African songwriters sign up with BMI, the American society that collects performance royalties: the money earned when your song is played on radio, TV or in public in the United States. If that’s you, there is something worth knowing.
BMI pays every performance royalty in two equal halves, one for the writer and one for the publisher. If you register a song with no publisher, some administrators will tell you the publisher’s half is being lost, and that you should add them as your publisher to collect it. At BMI, that isn’t true. BMI’s own guidance says that when a writer has no publisher, BMI pays both halves to the writer.
So at BMI, you don’t need an administrator to get that half. Where an administrator earns its fee is money BMI never touches: your American streaming mechanicals at the MLC, royalties from countries where you hold no membership, and licensing deals for films, TV and adverts. Before you sign with any administrator, ask them to name exactly what they will collect that you can’t collect yourself.
But note: this is BMI’s rule, and other societies handle it differently, so check yours. And if you already belong to MCSN, GHAMRO or SAMRO, ask them before joining BMI. Societies usually expect you to belong to only one for the same rights, and joining two is a common cause of payment disputes.
Never register twice
If an administrator handles your catalogue, it registers your works. If you then register the same works again yourself, you have created two competing claims on one share, and payment stalls while the dispute is sorted out. Money that cannot be matched to a clear owner is held rather than paid, and The MLC holds unmatched royalties for at least three years while it looks for the rightful party.
Co-written songs need the same care. Each writer’s share should be registered by whoever administers that writer, and the percentages have to add up. Where two parties claim the same share, the money stops moving until the conflict is resolved, so settle your splits in writing with every co-writer before anybody registers anything.
Pick one path for each song and stay on it. If you are unsure which path you are on, that is the thing to fix as soon as possible. Use this checklist:
- Search your song on The MLC public database and see who is claiming the publisher share.
- Check your registration with your home society, and with any American society you have joined, and make sure the writer and publisher entries agree.
- Find your agreement and look for the words administration or assignment.
- Check the term, what happens when it ends, the territories covered, the fee, and whether your registrations come back to you when you leave.
- Confirm your splits with every co-writer in writing.
Questions to ask before you sign
An administrator worth signing with will answer these in writing and will not be irritated by the asking. How long is the term, and what happens at the end of it? Do my registrations come back to me when I leave, and how long does that take? Which territories and which societies do you actually collect in? Do you collect my American mechanicals from the MLC? What is the fee, and is it taken before or after the society takes its cut? Do you take any ownership share, or administration only? Anybody who will not put those answers in writing has told you something useful.
NB: This article explains how registration and collection generally work. It is not legal advice and does not describe the terms of any particular agreement. Society rules change, so confirm the current position with your own society, and take advice on your contract if anything in it is unclear.
