Music Copyright Ownership

Let's say you're a songwriter, but you don't play any musical instruments, and you of course can't put music to your song. So you meet a guy that plays keyboard very well. Even better, he has a computer with digital audio workstation software and is a MIDI sequencing genius. The two of you get together and you show him your lyrics and give him an idea of how you want your song to. You work on the song a while and eventually come up a musically arrangement that you think is satisfactory, or if you're lucky, perfect.

Or, let's say you went to one of those recording studios that offered preproduction services, which is the same thing; creating music for your song.

Now we go back to our title question: If someone created the music track to the song, do they (or should they) own any part of the copyright to the song? If so, why? And, how much of the song do they own?

The short answer is yes, they do own a piece of the copyright. Why? Because they made a creative contribution to the work, which is the music portion. How much of the copyright do they own? A copyright is usually shared equally between all the individuals that contributed creatively to the work. If we're talking just 2 people (in this case the writer and the composer/music creator), then the copyright will usually be divided 50/50.

However, there are some exceptions to this (did I just hear a sigh of relief?). Here are just a couple:

If you, the songwriter, paid the person that created the music, and there is a written agreement stating that the person is in fact being paid for their musical contribution to the work in full, and the agreement is signed by both parties. This makes the musical contribution a 'work-for-hire', therefore, the music creator owns no portion of the copyright.

If you, the songwriter, paid the music creator a certain amount of money upfront, and decided to allow the music creator a small share of the copyright (whatever amount you agree to), you may do so. But, as in the previous example, there must be a written contract signed by both parties. In this case, the contract needs to state what percentages of copyright is owned by each party.

Of course, this article does not begin to cover the full scope of copyright ownership. I wanted to address this particular scenario because it relates to most questions I'm asked about copyrights.