The Private Brief · Explainer

    The Split Sheet, Explained

    A split sheet is a single page recording who contributed to writing a song and in what proportion. It takes five minutes, it is free, and it is signed in the room while everyone still agrees about what happened.

    Almost every songwriting dispute we are asked about is a dispute that a split sheet would have ended before it began — not because the document is clever, but because memory is worse than people expect and the conversation is far harder two years later, once the song is worth arguing about.

    First, two different copyrights

    Nothing about music royalties makes sense until this is clear, and a great deal of confusion comes from treating one song as one asset.

    The composition
    The underlying song — melody, harmony, lyrics. Owned by the songwriters and their publishers. This is what a split sheet divides.
    The sound recording
    The particular recorded performance of that song, often called the master. Typically owned by whoever paid for the session, or by the label.
    Why it matters
    The same song can have five writers on the composition and one owner of the master. They generate different income, are licensed separately, and are frequently transferred to different people.
    A producer’s share of the master is a different negotiation from a producer’s share of the composition. Agreeing one does not settle the other, and assuming it did is a common and expensive error.

    What belongs on the sheet

    Song title, and alternates
    Including any working title the song was registered or circulated under.
    Date and place
    The session the sheet documents.
    Every contributor’s legal name
    Legal name, not only the artist name. Registrations and payments run on legal names.
    Each writer’s percentage
    Of the composition, totalling exactly 100%. Percentages, not vague descriptions of contribution.
    Performing rights organisation and IPI/CAE number
    ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or another society, with each writer’s member number, so the registration can actually be filed.
    Publisher, if any
    The publishing entity for each writer, and its own society affiliation.
    Contact details
    An email that will still work in two years. This is the field most often left blank and most often needed.
    Signatures from everyone
    Every contributor, on the day. An unsigned sheet is a note about an intention.

    How the percentages usually get expressed

    Two conventions are in circulation and they are easy to mix up, which produces a document that is internally inconsistent.

    The 100% convention
    The composition is one hundred points and the writers divide them. Three equal writers take 33.34 / 33.33 / 33.33.
    The 200% convention
    The writer’s share and the publisher’s share are counted separately, each totalling 100, for 200 in all. The same three writers hold 33.33 of the writer’s share each, with the publisher’s share allocated to their publishers.
    State on the sheet which convention it uses. A number that means one thing to a writer and another to a publishing administrator is worse than no number, because both sides believe they have agreed.

    Where it goes wrong

    Nobody signs in the room
    The single largest cause. Everyone agrees verbally, the session ends, and the document is never made.
    The moment to do this is while the session is still warm and nothing is at stake. It is a courtesy then. It is a negotiation later.
    Contribution is described instead of divided
    ‘She did the topline, he did the beat’ is a description. It is not a percentage, and two reasonable people convert it into different numbers.
    The producer is left off
    Production and songwriting are distinguishable in principle and entangled in practice. If a producer wrote part of the composition, that belongs on the sheet; if the arrangement was a producer’s contribution to the master alone, that belongs in the producer agreement.
    Nothing is ever registered
    A signed sheet that stays in a camera roll pays nobody. It has to reach the societies and any publishing administrator, and the registrations have to match each other.
    Conflicting registrations from different writers on one song can freeze distributions until the conflict is resolved.

    After it is signed

    Register the composition
    With each writer’s society, in the agreed shares, and with any publishing administrator.
    Keep it with the session files
    Stored where it can be found by someone who was not there — not only in the phone of whoever happened to photograph it.
    Handle changes in writing
    If a later contribution changes the shares, amend the sheet and have everyone sign again. A superseded sheet and a current one should be distinguishable at a glance.

    This is general information about how these instruments and obligations usually work, not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not make you a client. Deadlines and requirements turn on facts particular to you — your fiscal year, your state, the agreement actually in front of you. Confirm your own before you rely on any of it.

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