ampsuite’s Publishing Admin Service allows you to create Publishing Contracts alongside Recording Contracts. Setting up Publishing Contracts is essential for registering works, managing income splits, and generating royalty statements seamlessly.
Once your system is enabled for publishing, you will see a new tab in your accounting settings for "Default Publishing Contracts".
Note: If you were a publishing admin client prior to September 2024, please note that the previous "Label + Pub" should no longer be used. You should now always be assigning recording and publishing contracts separately, as detailed below.
How Are Publishing Contracts Different from Recording Contracts?
The key distinction between Publishing and Recording Contracts lies in the types of income they cover. Publishing Contracts are configured to manage various types of publishing income, such as mechanical, performance, and sync royalties.
Setting Up Default Contracts
The first thing you will need to do is set up a Default Publishing Contract in your system. This contract can be reused across multiple works, ensuring consistency and saving time.
You can see in the image below an example of a standard publishing contract set up:
We've included standard deal rates, but you can of course change those depending on the deals you would like to sign with your writers.
We recommend setting up multiple default contracts with adjusted splits for multi writer deals as above.
If you need help or advice on creating these contracts please reach out to our label support team and we'd be happy to help and advise you.
Note: The performance income rate of 20/80 also represents a 60/40 deal between writer and publisher. By law, publishers can only claim 50% of the writer’s performance share. Therefore, a 20/80 split means:
- The writer claims 50% directly.
- The publisher claims the other 50% on behalf of the writer.
- 20% of the publishers 50%, equates to 10% of the total. Combined with the writers share, this adds up to a 60% deal.
Adding Contract Text
It's important to ensure your contracts contain legal text outlining the terms of your agreement with your writers, and that they are signed and stored in your ampsuite system for your records.
If you would like some standard text for your agreements then we can provide this for you, please reach out to our label support team for more information.
Historical Catalogue
If you were using our Publishing Admin Service prior to September 2024, we have automatically set up Publishing Contracts for your historical catalogue. These contracts follow the 'standard deal' format, which splits income between the writer(s) and the publisher in the following way:
- Mechanical: 60/40
- Other: 60/40
- Performance: 20/80
- Sync: 50/50
Important:
If you previously established non-standard deal rates directly with Sentric and would like to maintain those rates for previously registered catalogue, please contact us so we can help adjust your contracts accordingly.
For previously registered catalogue with more than one writer, this standard deal rate may differ. This is explained further below.
Multi-Writer Deals
For songs with multiple writers, the publishing contracts must account for each writer’s ownership percentage. Publishing contracts relate to the total revenue for that song, so you’ll need to ensure that each writer’s deal rate reflects their ownership share. For example, if two writers share a 50/50 ownership and you want them both to be on the standard 60/40 deal, you would set their individual deal rates to 30/70 to split the revenue correctly.
We’ve automatically applied this setup to your back catalogue. However, when registering new multi-writer works, please proceed with caution, as the process can become complex. If you need assistance, feel free to contact Label Support.
With your publishing contracts set up, you’re now ready to begin creating and registering your works.