Who Owns the Master?

[LoveToLearn]

"You'll get 100% of the Writer's share, and the Publisher will get 100% of the Publisher's share"


Who Owns the Master?

[superkons]

Whoever produces the music.
If I produce my own music, I own the masters, if I am collaborating, we split the ownership equally

[RPaul]

In the context of the listings, they usually also have a comment about splitting any upfront sync fees 50/50. Though sync fees technically typically refer to the song, while master use fees would refer to the recording, I'm guessing TAXI's listing references are including both under the same roof, with the publisher/writer share references referring to performing rights (i.e. which apply to the song since recordings in multimedia don't generally get performance royalties to the best of my knowledge).

Of course, if you own everything, it may not matter what the breakout is between master and song. However, if there are collaborations, and you only control the rights, this may make a difference for paying your collaborators. For example, if you have a 2-way co-write on the song, but a 4-way collaboration (and not work-for-hire) on the recording, the upfront fees would gross you 50%, but you might divide that into 25% for the song and 25% for the recording, in which case you and your songwriting collaborator would each get 12.5% of the upfront piece, while you and your recording collaborators would each get 6.25% of that upfront piece. But only your songwriting collaborator would share in the (writer's share of the) backend performance rights.

I am usually explicit with my songwriting collaborators (and occasional recording collaborators) that, if I get a placement with a song we wrote together, and the upfront fee for a placement is not specified by the licensor to be a specific amount for the recording and a specific amount for the song, then the amounts for each will be interpreted as being split 50/50 between song and recording.

Rick

[superkons]

Thanks for breaking it down in such detail, Rick