Who Owns Your Recording? The Paperwork for Producers, Engineers and Session Players

You licensed the song. Now you are booking a producer, a mixer and two background singers for a holiday session. Before anyone plays a note, one question is worth ten minutes: who will own the recording?

The song license covers the song. The recording is a different work, and the people who help make it can have rights in it. Here is how to settle that on paper.

The song and the recording are two works

The Copyright Office's circular on sound recordings says the copyright in a recording covers the recording itself and does not cover the music or lyrics inside it. Your license comes from the song's writers, so it does not settle who owns the master, meaning the finished recording. Your agreements with your own team do.

Who counts as an author of a recording

The same circular says the author of a sound recording is the performer featured in the recording and the producer who captured and processed the sounds in the final recording. It adds that a recording typically includes the contributions of the people whose performance is captured and the people who captured and processed those sounds. If you sing and produce, that may be you alone. If someone else shapes the sounds, they might be an author too.

When two or more authors create a single work and intend to merge their contributions into one whole, the Copyright Office calls them joint authors with an indivisible interest in the work as a whole, and the Copyright Act says the authors of a joint work are co-owners. Co-ownership with no written plan is a hard place to be when the recording starts to earn, or when someone wants to license it.

The circular names the featured performer and the producer. It does not discuss side musicians or background singers, so ask a music attorney how to cover them. A short signed note is a sensible minimum: what they played or sang, that you may use it in the recording, and how they want to be credited.

Why "work made for hire" may not be enough

Many producer and session agreements say "work made for hire." The Copyright Office explains that a work is made for hire in two situations: an employee makes it within the scope of the job, or it is specially commissioned in one of nine listed categories and both sides sign a written agreement saying so. If any requirement is missing, it is not a work made for hire.

The list includes a contribution to a collective work, a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, a translation, a compilation and an instructional text, among others. A stand-alone song recording is not named on it. The Office's sound recording circular describes one route: a recording made for a third party as a compilation or contribution to a collective work, with a written work-made-for-hire agreement. So that line in a contract may not do what everyone assumes.

The clearer tool is a written transfer. Section 204(a) of the Copyright Act says a transfer of copyright ownership is not valid unless it is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights being conveyed. A short signed agreement in which each contributor assigns their rights in the recording to you puts the answer on paper. A music attorney can draft one that fits your project.

What to put in a one-page agreement

• Who is involved, and which song and recording the agreement covers.
• What each person does: produce, mix, master, play or sing.
• Payment: a flat fee, a share of recording income, or both, and when it is paid.
• Ownership: who owns the finished recording, and a signed transfer from each contributor if that is you.
• Credit: how names will appear, such as produced by or mixed by.
• Anything they bring: confirmation that loops, samples or parts they supply are theirs to use.
• Signatures and dates from everyone.

Three cautions

If you have already recorded without paperwork, do not wait for a platform to ask. Ask each contributor to sign now, and ask a music attorney how to handle a session that has already happened.

If part of your track comes with the license, such as an instrumental, the license sets what you can do with it, so do not promise a producer or mixer more than it gives you. The license agreement lists what each package grants.

If a contributor wants to add new melody or words to the song itself, that touches the writers' rights, not just yours. Ask the writers first, as we describe in our guide to changing a licensed song.

Splitting what the recording earns

Ownership and income are different questions. SoundExchange collects digital performance royalties when recordings play on non-interactive services like SiriusXM, Pandora and iHeart Radio. It says that under the law, 45 percent goes to the featured artists on a recording, 5 percent goes to a fund for non-featured artists, and the other 50 percent goes to the rights owner of the sound recording.

Recording artists and sound recording owners must register with SoundExchange to receive these payments, and registering is free. Its Letters of Direction program also lets an artist redirect a share of their royalties to producers, mixers or engineers who worked on the recording, if the artist chooses. Our guide to crediting the songwriter mentions it too. Streaming income from your distributor is separate, and you split it by whatever you agreed in writing.

Credits and record keeping

Write down every contributor's name and role before you upload, so your distributor's contributor fields match your agreements. Credits on streaming services come from the metadata your distributor sends, and entering songwriter info covers the writer side.

File the signed agreements next to your license certificate and receipt. Together they show who wrote the song, that you have permission to record and release it, and who made the recording. If a platform asks for proof, you have both halves ready. See what to send when that happens.

If you ever register the recording with the Copyright Office, the application asks you to identify the authors and the owner. These agreements are the paperwork behind those answers. This is general information, not legal advice. For anything involving a label, an advance or a co-owned master, ask a music attorney.

Sources

• U.S. Copyright Office: Circular 56, Copyright Registration for Sound Recordings
• U.S. Copyright Office: Circular 30, Works Made for Hire
• U.S. Copyright Office: Circular 1, Copyright Basics
• U.S. Copyright Office: Title 17, Chapter 2, Copyright Ownership and Transfer
• SoundExchange: Digital Performance Royalties
• SoundExchange: Artists, Labels and Producers