What are Split Sheets? Why Music Professionals Should Familiarize Themselves with This Type of Agreement

Creating music is often a collaborative process. For example, an artist may bring in a producer-created beat into a studio to be recorded, mixed, and mastered by a sound engineer. But who owns the copyrights in the resulting song in this scenario? Executing a Split Sheet can help promote communication, ensure fair ownership splits, facilitate the realization of royalties, and prevent future disputes or issues.

1.     What Is a Split Sheet?

A Split Sheet is a simple but important agreement that specifies who owns what percentage of copyright(s) in a song. A song has two different copyrights: one for the composition and one for the sound recording. Different people can own different percentages of each of these copyrights.

a.     Composition: This copyright includes contributions to the composition of a song. This includes things such as melodies, instrumentation, lyrics, and the arrangement of these things. Contributors are typically, but not limited to, producers, artists, songwriters, and lyricists contribute to the composition of a song.

b.     Sound Recording: Sound recordings, sometimes referred to as “masters” are the actual recording of the song. Contributors often include, but are not limited to, featured artists, session musicians, backing vocalists, producers, and sound engineers.

Split Sheets can but do not necessarily always address both copyrights. Some music professionals use “Split Sheets” to refer to a document that only addresses the composition ownership and “Master Sheet” to refer to a document that only addresses the sound recording ownership. Care should be taken to review precisely which copyright is at issue.  

Split Sheets usually list all the copyright owners for a song, their ownership percentages, and Performing Rights Organization (PRO) affiliations. An executed Split Sheet contains the signatures of all copyright owners.

2.     Why Do Split Sheets Matter?

a.     Communication: Often, contributors to a song don’t think about ownership percentages until disputes arise over royalty distributions or placements. The process of creating and executing a Split Sheet requires contributors to communicate and negotiate ownership splits. This is good practice for music professionals in general and helps to maintain professional relationships in the industry.

b.     Fair ownership splits: Without any agreement, ownership of a copyright is split evenly across the contributors.[1][2] This is the same whether or not one contributor, in reality, did most of the work on a song. Split Sheets can make sure that the ownership split reflects the actual contributions of the parties.

c.     Facilitate realization of royalties: Music royalties are notoriously complicated. In short, there are four different types of royalties. Each of these is distributed through a different organization. Most of these organizations require that a song be registered with them for any royalties to flow. For certain contributors, such as producers and sound engineers, the featured artist needs to file for the direction of royalties. Split Sheets provide a single document that can be referenced when filing the corresponding song with the organizations in charge with various royalty distributions. Additionally, Split Sheets can facilitate discussions and agreements between contributors regarding which contributor will register the song with which organization. This can help to facilitate distribution of royalties because the contributors will not receive all possible royalties unless proper registrations are conducted.

d.     Prevent future disputes or issues: Disputes usually arise when a song gains traction and contributors want to make sure that they are receiving royalties. A Split Sheet can help to prevent disputes over ownership by documenting agreed upon ownership percentages by all contributors. Additionally, disputes over ownership could cost contributors lucrative business deals such as synch licenses as third parties may decline to enter into an agreement if there is an ownership dispute over the song.

A Split Sheet is simple but effective document that can help relieve any confusion as to ownership and ensure that contributors aren’t missing out on deals or royalties due to avoidable disputes or lack of communication.

If you are interested having a split sheet prepared for your music, please feel welcome to book a Consultation with us! 

[1] 17 U.S.C. § 201(a).

[2] Davis v. Blige, 505 F.3d 90, 98 (2d Cir. 2007).