Publishing Is Like Hit Song With a Bullet

“Music publishing is the sleeping giant in the record world,” says David Pullman of the Pullman Group.

He should know. Pullman caught the music industry’s attention in 1997 by raising $55 million in investment bonds for David Bowie based in part on the future royalties and performance fees of his songs.

“It usually takes even people in the business time to realize that the real money isn’t on the record side, it’s in the music side. Records go up and down the chart,” he adds, “but the publishing goes on forever.”

One reason it takes people in the business time to understand publishing is the complicated finances surrounding it.

Under U.S. copyright laws, songwriting royalties are broken into a writer’s share (50%) and a publisher’s share (50%). In the Tin Pan Alley era, giant publishers, for their 50%, provided essential services for songwriters, including getting their music into the hands of hot artists and, possibly, the movies.

Publishers continue to offer those services today, and they can be helpful in launching careers and in getting songs to other artists and into films and commercials. But their value is reduced, many observers feel, once writers become established.

An increasing number of hit recording artists in the ‘70s and ‘80s, including Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, decided to open their own publishing companies to handle their future compositions--and pocket 100% of their songwriting income, not just 50%.

They either hired someone to run the company or hired a major publisher to “administer” the company for a negotiated fee. Even Diane Warren, who has her own publishing company in the U.S., hires EMI Music Publishing to represent her in other countries. The world’s largest publishing company, EMI has more than 1 million song titles, from the music from “The Wizard of Oz” to Carole King’s “Tapestry.”

Evan Lambert, executive vice president, creative, North America, with EMI Music Publishing, says one of the lucrative things about publishing is that songs continue to generate money over decades. One of the fastest-growing areas of income for songwriters today is the use of songs in movies, TV or commercials.

While there was once a strong stigma against rock writers allowing their music to be used in commercials, the practice has become increasingly common in recent years, with such tunes as John Lennon’s “Imagine,” Bob Seger’s “Like a Rock” and Sly Stone’s “Everyday People” showing up in ads for such products as American Express and Chevy trucks. A one-year contract can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in the most high-profile cases.

Todd Brabec, senior vice president, membership, of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, highlights some of the ways songs can produce income in “Music, Money, and Success: The Insider’s Guide to the Music Business,” a book he wrote with his brother Jeffrey. They range from sheet music and karaoke jukeboxes to having lyrics reprinted in a novel. Most radio, TV, concert and jukebox performance fees are collected for writers chiefly by ASCAP or Broadcast Music Inc.

Del R. Bryant, senior vice president, performing rights and writer-publisher relations, for BMI , says that decade-old songs can continue to generate big bucks.

“A song may be 30 or 40 years old, but if it is one of the true standards of our business, it can still generate $100,000 to $200,000 worldwide in performance fees alone,” says Bryant, who grew up in the music business. His parents, Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, wrote such hits as “Bye Bye Love” and “All I Have to Do Is Dream.”

“A great song becomes part of our cultural fabric,” he says. “It doesn’t disappear once it goes off the charts. It is part of us forever.”