Squeezing Ever Last Bit Out of Music Publishing

In a time of economic uncertainty, one thing is certain - you can always rely on the music industry to come up with creative solutions. The latest of the endeavors takes the form of SongVest, a company that is auctioning off 50% of the writer's share of famous songs. There is a great article here that explains how publishing royalty for a song is allocated between the publisher and the songwriter. If you'd like the condensed version, here it is: In order to a get a song placed with an artist (ala Britney Spears), a song writer will look for a publisher. Typically, these publishers will agree to find placement for the song (whether with another artist, a commerical, etc), but in exchange will take over copyright ownership of the song and give the original songwriter 50% of the publishing income. So, if a dollar comes in, the publisher gets 50 cents, as does the writer. However, the percentages don't always work that way; sometimes the artist gets less.

SongVest is purporting to sell 50% of the writer's share of a song, but, as I demonstrated above, that doesn't mean you own 50% of the song. If the writer only gets 20% of the income, you only get 10%. AND, income does not mean ownership - you don't "own" a part of the song; you're simply entitled to 10% of the INCOME.

Nevertheless, if you do the research, it could be worth your while to bid on the % and "purchase" the income for some of these songs; after all, it gives you a great passive stream of income. However, one should not go willy-nilly buying up portions of songs for the royalties. Some of these songs are fetching substantial sums on the auctioning block, but what kind of income as they actually still producing today? Royalty calculations are extremely complicated and depend substantially on the forum (i.e., radio stations are charged a different rate than streaming online content or downloads, all of which are distributed to songwriters and publishers differently as well!). Without the proper due diligence, a music "fan" (the traget market for SongVest) could really get ripped off!

Am I telling you to give up your lifelong dream of "owning" a bit of a Bon Jovi song? No. I'm simply saying, it's an investment, like any other, and shouldn't be undertaken until you understand the nature of your investment and whether it's actually going to produce a return for you.