What is a music publishing administration deal?
A publishing administration deal is an agreement between a songwriter and a company for publishing royalties to be collected on behalf of the songwriter in exchange for a percentage fee kept by the company.

The agreement is a partnership that allows a company to work on the songwriter’s behalf to collect any and all publishing royalties agreed upon. Publishing royalties are divided into two categories: performance and mechanical.

Depending on the agreement, the company will collect one or both types of publishing royalties in exchange for a percentage which they will keep as a fee for the service. Typically the revenue split is somewhere around 80% to the songwriter and 20% to the company. This is negotiable though and can be anything the writer and the company agree upon.

A songwriter is owed publishing royalties based on the percentage splits he owns on songs he’s worked on. Most songwriters know how to register and collect the writer’s share of their performance royalties from ASCAP or BMI, but collecting mechanical royalties is a little more difficult and tedious.

Mechanicals for physical sales and digital downloads are collected from the record label that released the song. A writer or company must register as a vendor with the record label in order to be paid these mechanicals.

Mechanicals generated by songs streamed on music streaming services, called ‘streaming mechanicals,’ are collected by registering works with Harry Fox Agency (HFA).

Streaming mechanicals from YouTube generated from the ad revenue are collected by registering works in YouTube’s Content ID database.

Publishing administration companies ‘administer’ these processes for a songwriter so all publishing royalties are collected and maximized.

The difference between a publishing administration deal and a traditional publishing deal is the songwriter retains ownership of his publishing rights in an admin deal.

This is important because publishing rights are a songwriter’s most valuable assets — these assets generate royalties for as long as a song streams or plays in public, which can be years or decades.
['Taylor Hange']
['Songwriter', 'Music Business', 'Music Industry', 'Music', 'Music Publishing']