Publishing Company Requirments/Questions

Dec 29, 2011, 06:20 AM

All responses to the questions below will be greatly appreciated. Please respond to each ? sepeartley in an organized manner. Links are appreciated but in addition, please try to explain it yourself briefly. Thanks.

1.) I will be registering w/ BMI as a Publisher to collect the “Publisher’s Share” of performance rights royalties (radio spins, tv, performances). I am registering as “Individual Owned” (Business Structure). After completing the application and paying the fee what else is required? Legally must I also register w/ my state and local governments as well? Or is the BMI Affilated company sufficent?

2.)Does BMI remove taxes from royalties payed to publishers and writers?

3.) In the following situation would the writers receive the remainder of the Publishing income, when registering a work w/ BMI, although they do not have Publishin companies established?

-Writer #1 = 50%
-Writer #2 = 50%
Writer’s Share Total = 100%

-Publisher (Third Party) = 50%
-Writer’s Do Not Have Pub Companies…

4.)To receive other Publishing income, not collected by BMI, such as Mechanicals, Print and Synch Royalties, must I legally set up a publishing company via my state and local governments?

Jan 01, 2012, 01:00 PM

http://www.bmi.com may have the answers to some of these.

The writers still ‘own’ the other 50% of Publishing Royalties. Without a Publishing Company BMI could collect those royalties, but could they pay them to the writers? I don’t know how it would work.

Jan 02, 2012, 10:21 AM

I don’t believe that state and local governments have anything to do with it, although you will be responsible and owe taxes on whatever royalties you collect.  Just make sure all your BMI paperwork is in order and all your songs are registered with them properly.  If you have specific questions about filling out your application, I’d call the Performing Rights or Writer Publisher departments in Nashville.  For contract specific questions between the parties, it’s always better to have a music attorney involved.  Good luck!

Jan 09, 2012, 05:03 PM

3.) In the following situation would the writers receive the remainder of the Publishing income, when registering a work w/ BMI, although they do not have Publishin companies established?

-Writer #1 = 50%
-Writer #2 = 50%
Writer’s Share Total = 100%

-Publisher (Third Party) = 50%
-Writer’s Do Not Have Pub Companies…

4.)To receive other Publishing income, not collected by BMI, such as Mechanicals, Print and Synch Royalties, must I legally set up a publishing company via my state and local governments?

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With Regards to question’s 3.) and 4.) above an excellent resource to answer those two questions is:
“The Craft And Business Of Songwriting” 3rd Edition
A Practical Guide To Creating And Marketing Artistically And Commercially Successful Songs
By John Braheny.  ISBN: 1-58297-466-7

Further Amplification for question 3.) The only time a writer will receive access to the remainder of Publisher income is if the writer has their own publishing company and has a Co-Publishing deal signed with a Publisher. (In that instance the publishing income is split 50/50 between both publishers) Also in this instance the amount of administrative responsibility is discussed (who will pay what portion of the expenses to market and promote the completed work; or will the Primary publisher pay these expenses and then recoup them back before splitting the publishing income with the co-publisher.)

Further Amplification for question 4.)  The Representative that you will be given after BMI approves your Publishing Company name is going to be the best person to help you in answering question 4.  Keep your eye peeled to the email address that you gave BMI when sending in your application as this will be the first place they will communicate to you with the status of your BMI Publisher application and which one of the Names you submitted for a Publishing company got approved.