The most commonly used term songwriter refers to many different roles involved in creating a An original musical composition with or without lyrics.. On this page, we're using it to describe a Anyone who contributes to creating or performing a musical work, a live performance, or a sound recording. who writes both the A collection of notes, melodies, chords, rhythms, arrangements, instrumentation, and more, excluding lyrics. and The words written to be performed by singers, rappers, and other vocalists. of a particular musical work, as opposed to other creator roles, like A composer creates the melodies, chord progressions and other elements of a musical work other than the lyrics. or A type of creator that writes the words of a musical work., who may only write the composition or the lyrics of a particular work.
Copyright ownership for songwriters
Songwriters and all additional collaborators, such as lyricists, A songwriter that focuses primarily on writing the vocal melody and, in most cases, also the lyrics of a musical work., A type of creator that composes instrumental music, which lays the foundation for new musical works., etc., who make an A creative contribution to a musical work that is sufficiently distinct from any pre-existing musical work contribution to the musical work are considered under National laws that protect creators' and other rights holders' moral and economic rights in musical works, performances, and sound recordings.. Therefore, they can all own a share of the The controls creators or rights holders have over what they have created or produced and over their identity and image. in the musical work; it's like sharing a pie.
Agreeing and properly documenting each author's share, also called Also sometimes referred to as shares, the portion of ownership a rights holder has or the portion of income they are entitled to., is the first step for each author to receive a share of earnings if the musical work is used. Learn more about this in the Songwriter Splits and Registering Musical Works topics.
Songwriters who have multiple creative roles
If you are a songwriter, you might also have additional roles when writing or recording a musical work, in which case you might also have additional shares in the ownership of that musical work and the Typically, the recorded performance of a musical work protected as a phonogram under copyright law..
Find out more about how this works in the Recording topic. To understand authors' rights in more detail, visit the Music Creators' Rights topic.
Video credit: Tiffany Orvet, Dilun Riad Edmon, Daniel Hjellum, Tim Ljungstedt, David Lebna, Artu Kontkanen, Tobias Leo Nordquist, Ponny Höijer, William Engström, Parapix