HOW TO RESOLVE SPLIT DISPUTES IN SONGWRITING

Today's international music industry is extremely dynamic. Such a large and evolving industry comes with questions of song contribution, so how do you determine who created what? Two words: Split Sheets.
It is extremely common for songwriters to collaborate with other co-writers to create new pieces. Many songwriters are left unpaid as a result of split disputes when co-writers cannot agree on split portions. The performing rights organization and record company involved will withhold royalties for a song if a dispute involving ownership arises.

Split sheets are used as an agreement to ensure each contributor they will be awarded with reasonable compensation contingent on their percentage of contribution. This is where it gets tricky. Ownership percentages differ depending on what you have contributed to the song, whether it's the beats, lyrics, core, melody, or hook. The dilemma is that perceptions of how valuable each contribution is to a song differs. For example, one co-writer may believe the beat is more valuable than the hook, while another disagrees. The percentage of contribution must be formulated and agreed upon by all contributors, which may raise conflict and take a great deal of time.

Certain information is vital to the split sheet including each songwriter's publisher information and if different versions of the song were created. If you do not create a split sheet your share is at risk because any co-writer can claim your contribution is theirs. To establish your share of your creative work be sure to identify your portion of contribution on a split sheet.

Author

Hangi Tavakoli is our in-house established and professional music producer with more than 14 years of experience in music production, mix and mastering, recording engineering, live sound designing/engineering, lyrics writing and music arrangement. He has produced more than 800 and written more than 2000 published songs to-date, including some major hits in international scale.Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.