When conversations about music catalogue sales and royalties emerge, two terms that almost always come up are: publishing rights and master rights.
These terms may sound technical, but they describe two fundamental aspects of music ownership.
Understanding the difference is crucial for artistes, songwriters, producers, and even fans who want to grasp how money moves within the music industry.
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About publishing rights
Think of a song in two stages. The first is its creation, when someone writes the lyrics, produces the beat, arranges the melodies, and builds the composition.
This is where publishing rights come in. Anyone who contributes to the writing process, whether it’s the songwriter, lyricist, or producer, is entitled to publishing royalties.
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About master rights
The second stage is the final recording, the polished version that ends up on streaming platforms, radio, or physical formats.
This is where master rights apply. The artiste who performs the song, and usually the record label that finances and releases it, benefit from the master royalties.
Using Becca’s “Da Ke Da” as an example. Becca performed the song, but she did not write it. That means she does not earn publishing royalties.
Those go to the people who created the lyrics and composition. However, because she is the performer, and her label owns the recorded version, she earns from the master rights.
Publishing rights reward the creators of the song’s blueprint, while master rights reward those who own the finished product that fans hear.
The importance
Publishing ensures that the hidden architects, the writers and producers, are paid, while masters ensure that the recording artiste and their label are paid for the version that circulates commercially.
How a music publisher broke it down
Music publisher, Mark Darlington, in a discussion on GhanaWeb Entertainment’s X space, explained, “So, when someone creates music, it is in two parts. The composition aspect, where the lyrics and the creation of the beat and the melodies come into place, that’s the composition of the song. And then the final product, where everything has been put together and it’s put on DSPs, etc. The song you hear, that is the record.
“So, when the melodies, the beat, instrumentation, and lyrics come together to form a song, that’s what you call the record. And then publishing is the aspect where whoever wrote the song, whoever composed it, whoever arranged it, is a contributor to the creation or the composition of the song, that is where the publishing comes in.
“So, someone might sing a song, for example, Da Ke Da by Becca. Becca didn’t write it, so she doesn’t get publishing from it. The people who wrote the song, the producers and the (songwriters, the lyricists, etc of the song are the ones who are going to benefit from the publishing.”
He explained further, “However, Becca as an artiste will benefit as a performer of the song and also because her label got people to write the song and she releases it, she gets royalties from the master recording as well, as per the agreement between her and the record label.
“Publishing has to do with the composition and the masters has to do with the record that is put out, the income from the streams, anything that exploits the song is what is called the master.”
AK/EB
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