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Hi,

Got a couple of questions concerning making a non-exclusive deal with a publisher.

If he gets the publishing, and it's non-exclusive, how do you keep track of it? Does he register it with BMI, ASCAP, etc?

If it's already registered by me with BMI, does he rename it and register it himself?

I'm just confused because if it's non-exclusive, and he goes down as the publisher, how do you license it to some other publisher. Or how do you license it to a music sup without the publisher getting royalties on someone else's job?
Thanks.

Hey Neal, the way this works is like this: a track can only have one name associated with your unique composer ID (your "IPI number" that you get through your PRO). So, let's just say you have a track called "Sneaky Snoop", but you want to sign it to five different libraries. You (or they) would have to come up with a different title. It would look like this:

Original Title: Sneaky Snoop
XYZ Music Library retitles it "Sneaky Dude"
ABC Music Library retitles it "Sneaky McSneak"
Another Music Library retitles it "Snoopy Snake"
Another Library retitles it "Snoop It Up"
and another Music Library retitles it "Sneaky Like a Snoop"

In each case, that music library would register themselves as the publisher for that specific title only, so if the track was used on a TV show then there wouldn't be any confusion as to who gave the show the piece of music, since there's only one "Sneaky McSneak".

Let the music library handle all of the registration.

Hope that makes sense.

~~Matt

Matt nailed it right on the head.

There are other instances where multiple Non-Exclusives keep your original title but put a code (Usually their Lib name) before your song in your PRO catalogue. For example:

NealsSneaky Dude

NeallibrarySneaky Dude

NealpubSneaky Dude