Co-Publisher Contract

[Jose]

Hi there.
Thank you all for the informative and helpful forum.
I’ve got an opportunity to sign for a co-publishing agreement. i believe this is pretty standard agreement but i want to make sure not to do something that i would regret.
Here is the main part:

A track licensed through <Company> will be tagged with a “CM” at the front of the title. For example, we will title the track entitled “Uptown Funk” as “CM Uptown Funk” in our library. If we license the track, we will register the publishing with your performing rights organization as follows: 50% of the publishing to <Company>’s publishing entity and the other 50% of the publishing to your publishing entity. Please understand this is only for tracks with a CM title that <Company> licenses. We will not register, license, or collect from the original title or from any other outside activity (separate from our licensing efforts) that the track may generate. You also retain 100% of the writer’s share, essentially a 75-25 split of the royalty stream.
On the front end, you will receive 50% of the total “Gross Receipts,” i.e. the Sync Fee. This split will happen every time your track is licensed or renewed.
Your original composition with the CM title will be part of our library for the life of our catalog, unless the Reversion of Rights terms are met and agreed upon. Basically, if any one of your tracks fails to get licensed in a 2 year period, you may break the agreement and we will release the song.

[Art Munson]

They are really collecting 50% of the publishing income on anything they place. I would think the impact could be if you had an opportunity to want to place the track with an exclusive library somewhere down the road. If CM had placed it within the 2 year time frame it would probably inhibit a deal with an exclusive library.

I’m NOT a lawyer though just my 2 pennies worth.

[Author]

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