JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Mentor Questions Forum Our Stage - New JPF Community Partner (Feedback!)

Yes, very interesting points raised on this top of recording and right's ownership. In my case, I have a "mix" of talent resources that I've managed over the years to create my recordings. They include: a few "for-hire" vocalists, one or two volunteer singers, one guitarist (Rob Cambell) and a drummer (Sub Studio), but these comprise less than 25% of my total material.

The rest is all my own work recorded and produced in my own studio. For the situations where I paid other musicians, the "proof" is with my payment checks. Obviously, strictly "works-for-hire" and nothing else.

Most of my songs are now officially registered with the U.S. copyright office and my CD (with 16 tracks) is posted at CD Baby for official retails sales, distribution and licensing.

On several songs I also have a lyrics co-writer in which case the split is a basic 50/50. We all have "split letter" forms on file, but (strangely) it's rare that anyone insists on actually signing and filing them, though the option is always open; so it's more like an "implied" agreement, plus it's usually mentioned by phone or maybe in an email.

Regardless, the 50/50 split is probably one of the most standard practices in the songwriting industry.

If I have a doubt about contest prize "splits", I would simply contact my co-writer or collaborator, before uploading to Our Stage, to agree on our prize split. Most likely it will be 50/50, so of course we'd both have equal incentive for success.

Beyond what I described above, I'm not sure how I would best "prove" to Our Stage that I'm the actual author, composer, copyright owner, producer and true authentic owner of my own music. At the very least, I'd be willing to sign a document that states that indeed I am the true and original copyright owner and publisher of any song in question, for example, if it won a huge cash prize or something. Nice "problem" to have, eh?

Michael