Music Publisher
A publisher of popular music, commonly called a music publisher, deals in the marketing and commercial exploitation of songs and music catalogs. While the term originally referred to publishers of sheet music, today's pop music publishers rarely deal with printed music or scores. (Those who do have come to be known as "music print publishers".)The primary job of the music publisher is to link up new songs by songwriters with suitable recording artists to record them, with the intent of creating a hit record and generating large numbers of sales and airplay. Promoting such songs, supervising the collection and payment of publishing royalties for sales to their writers, placing writers' songs in other media such as movie soundtracks and commercials, and handling copyright registration and "ownership" matters for published songs, are among other jobs handled by a music publisher. Music print publishers also supervise the issue of songbooks and sheet music by their artists.
Traditionally, music publishing royalties are split fifty/fifty, with half going to the publisher (as payment for their services) and the rest going to the songwriter – or songwriters, as the case may be. Other arrangements have been made in the past, and continue to be; some better for the writers, some better for the publishers. Occasionally a recording artist will ask for a co-writer's credit on a song (thus sharing in both the artist and publishing royalties) in exchange for selecting it to perform, particularly if the writer is not well-known. Sometimes an artist's manager or producer will expect a co-credit or share of the publishing (as with Norman Petty and Phil Spector), and occasionally a publisher will insist on writer's credit (as Morris Levy did with several of his acts); these practices are listed in descending order of scrupulousness, as regarded by the music industry.
The most unscrupulous type of music publisher is the songshark, who does little if any real "legwork" or promotion on behalf of songwriters. Songsharks make their profit not on royalties from sales, but by charging inexperienced writers for "services" (some real, such as demo recording or musical arranging, some fictional, such as "audition" or "review" fees) a legitimate publisher would provide without cost to the writer, as part of their job. (By comparison, a bonafide publisher who charges admission to a workshop for writers, where songs may be auditioned or reviewed, isn't wrong to do so.)
Some music publishers also fill other business roles, with regard to writers and artists – many serve as record producers, and vice versa, or as artist managers. This is generally considered acceptable, although sometimes aspects of one role can negatively impact other dealings a publisher or manager may have with their client. Rock-n-roll pioneer Buddy Holly split with longtime manager Norman Petty over publishing matters in late 1958, as did the Buckinghams with producer James William Guercio almost a decade later. John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival was sued by his former publisher Saul Zaentz (who'd also served as his manager) over a later Fogerty song that sounded slightly like a CCR song Zaentz published. (Fogerty won in court.)