What is a rights assignment?
In the music industry, rights assignment is the process of granting a third party the right to manage or in a , , or on behalf of the original .
In particular, , , and the owners of sound recordings, such as , , and , often assign some of their rights to a .
When assigning your rights, you remain the rights holder, but you no longer manage those rights yourself. The third party to whom you have assigned your rights, typically your CMO, is exclusively entitled to manage and those rights on your behalf and will pay you when your musical work, performance, or sound recording is used. But in some cases CMOs will agree that you still manage some of the assigned rights yourself, for example, that you may perform your own musical works without needing a license.
Image credit: Martin Fabricius Rasmussen