When the master and the publishing disagree about who owns what

61 · 2026-09-29 · 22 min read · Español

The master and the publishing are two copyrights with two owner lists, so the two records disagreeing is normal and usually means nothing is wrong. Something is wrong only when two records describe the same copyright and cannot both be true — and then the order is fixed: a signed writing beats an unsigned claim, authorship beats a registration, a registration is evidence and never a verdict, and no collector decides anything. The money on the disputed side freezes. The other side keeps paying.

• A sound recording and the song it embodies are two copyrights, each with its own authors, its own register and its own collectors. The two owner lists can differ, and a difference between them is not a dispute.
• Ownership comes from authorship and from signed transfers. A Copyright Office certificate, a PRO or MLC registration, a distributor account, a SoundExchange claim, a YouTube asset and a ℗ line are each a record of what somebody told that system, and none of them is the ownership itself.
• A conflict is real only when two records describe the same copyright and cannot both be true — two registrations of one song over 100%, two claimants on one recording, or one right assigned to two people.
• Between conflicting documents the order is fixed: a signed writing, then authorship and its statutory defaults, then a registration as evidence, and between two signed transfers of the same right, the one recorded first in good faith. Collectors verify nothing and decide nothing.
• The collector on the disputed side holds that copyright’s royalties until every claimant signs a resolution or a court rules. The collector on the other side never hears about it and keeps paying.

Is it actually a disagreement, or two answers to two questions?

The master and the publishing are two copyrights with two separate owner lists, so the lists can differ and both be correct.

Start there, because most of what gets brought to this question is not a disagreement at all. A released song is two works. The recording’s authors are the performers featured on it and the producer who fixed the sounds; the song’s authors are whoever wrote the music and the lyrics — the Copyright Office says so in one paragraph of its own circular, and the piece that draws the line between the two quotes it. Those two rosters are written by two different rules, and nothing in either rule says they have to match. The bassist who played every note on the record and wrote none of them is on one list. The friend who wrote the second verse from another city and never heard the session is on the other. The producer who wrote the hook and then built the track around it is on both, twice, for two different reasons. Einstein got a whole theory out of two observers disagreeing about when something happened, and neither of them wrong.

So the first question is never which record is right. It is are these two records about the same copyright? If one is about the recording and the other about the song, both may be right, and you have finished. Write three lists for the song in front of you: who authored the recording, who authored the song, and who holds a signed paper that moved any part of either. The recording’s list has its own rules, starting with the fact that paying for the session puts nobody on it. The song’s list has its own test, and being in the room fails it. The third list is the only one that can move a name, and it is the shortest.

Which record is the ownership, and which are only claims about it?

Ownership comes from authorship and from signed transfers; every registration, account, claim and ℗ line is a record of what somebody told that system.

Both countries start in the same place. In the United States copyright “vests initially in the author or authors of the work” — section 201(a) — and in Canada “the author of a work shall be the first owner of the copyright therein” — section 13(1). From there it moves in exactly one way: a US transfer “is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed” — section 204(a) — and in Canada “no assignment or grant is valid unless it is in writing signed by the owner of the right” — section 13(4). That hinge has its own page. What matters here is what it excludes: nothing on the list below is a signed transfer, so nothing on it is ownership.

A Copyright Office certificate is evidence. Under section 410(c) a registration made within five years of first publication is “prima facie evidence of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate,” and a later one carries whatever weight a court gives it — the five-year clause is walked in full where it matters most. A Canadian certificate “is evidence that the copyright subsists and that the person registered is the owner of the copyright” — section 53(2) — and in court the author is presumed the owner “unless the contrary is proved” — section 34.1(1). Evidence is the right word and the whole word: a certificate is the strongest record on this page, and a signed transfer or the facts of who wrote what can still contradict it.

Everything else is weaker, and the systems say so themselves. A PRO or MLC registration is a claim to a share, and The MLC’s policy states that it “does not verify or approve Substantiating Documentation or the merits of Claims.” A distributor account is a licence to distribute, not ownership. A SoundExchange claim is a claim. A YouTube asset is a claim. And the ℗ line is, by statute, “the name of the owner of copyright in the sound recording” — section 402(b) — and is also, on every release you have uploaded, whatever was typed into the P-line field. A claim in the shape of a notice; whose name belongs on it is a separate question, and no system checks the answer.

Notice that the recording and the song never share a register. The recording is registered at the Copyright Office as a sound recording and then claimed at a distributor and at SoundExchange; the song is registered as a musical work and then at a PRO and at The MLC. Two registers, two claim systems, two sets of collectors, and none of them reads the other’s. This is a business where two sets of books is the compliant option.

Which disagreements are real, and which side are they on?

A disagreement is real only when two records describe the same copyright and cannot both be true, and each real one sits on one side.

Here are the eight that actually get brought to this question, sorted. The middle column is the only test that matters.

The first three rows are one non-event three times over. A ℗ line names the recording’s owner and a writer credit names the song’s authors; a producer who says half the song is theirs is making a claim about the song, and your answer that the master is yours is a claim about the recording. Each is tested on its own side — what the money bought and what the clause did for the recording, who actually wrote what for the song — and both tests can come out in the other person’s favour without touching each other. Nobody is lying to anybody. The work-for-hire row is the one people find hardest to believe, and the instrument comparison is exact about it: the clause decides who authored the thing it names, and if it names the recording, the producer’s writer share never heard of it.

Rows four, five and six are real, each on one side only. Two registrations of one song adding up to more than 100% is the conflicting claim that freezes the song, and the overclaim’s arithmetic is its own page. A sheet that says one thing and a registration that says another is a wrong registration, because the sheet is the agreement and the registration is the claim made from it — the amendment walk is short. Two claimants on one recording at SoundExchange over 100% is an Artist Dispute, settled by whatever the artists signed about the master. None of the three reaches across the line. The recording-side twin of a duplicate registration is two ISRCs on one recording: a different registry, a different fix.

Row seven looks like the worst case and is the cleanest. YouTube keeps two asset types for one piece of music: a Sound Recording asset, carrying an ISRC, and a Composition Share asset — “an ownership share of a musical composition” — carrying an ISWC and the writers, and “one or more Composition Share assets can be embedded in a Sound Recording asset.” A distributor’s claim on the recording and a publisher’s on the composition, on one video, are the two copyrights doing what they always do, in the one place you can watch them do it. Row eight is the only one with a race in it, and it gets the next section.

When two documents about the same copyright disagree, which one wins?

A signed writing beats an unsigned claim, authorship beats a registration, a timely registration is evidence, and no collector decides anything.

Rung one is the writing. Section 204(a) and section 13(4) are the only doors a copyright can leave through, so a signed split sheet, a signed assignment, a signed producer agreement — signed in the sense that page defines — outranks every record that contradicts it. A society registration that disagrees with a signed sheet is the wrong record, not the sheet, and the fix is to amend the registration, never to argue with the paper.

Rung two is authorship and its defaults, where there is no writing: equal undivided shares between US co-authors, consent of all co-owners in Canada. Both defaults have their own page, and whether a contribution was authorship at all has another. What matters here is their position: below a signed writing, above everything that follows.

Rung three is the certificate, and what can and cannot be done to it. A registration inside section 410(c)’s five years is prima facie evidence of its own contents; the Canadian certificate is evidence of ownership under section 53(2). A wrong one can be corrected, within limits the Copyright Office states plainly. Circular 8 says a supplementary registration “may be used to correct an error in a copyright registration or to amplify the information given in a registration,” that it “does not cancel or replace the original registration,” and that one of its proper uses is “to add a missing author or provide the name of the correct author.” Then the two things it refuses. It cannot be used “to reflect the division, license, or transfer of rights in the work” — for that, “you should record the assignment, license, or other legal document that transferred the copyright from one party to another” — and it cannot be used “to question or challenge the validity of a basic registration.” The Office adds that it “may request documentation … especially when the correction or amplification implicates authorship, ownership, or eligibility.” Read together, the rung describes itself: a certificate records who claimed to be the author, a transfer is a separate document filed beside it, and which of two certificates is right is not a question the Office will referee.

Rung four is the one race in the whole subject. When the same right has been transferred twice, by two signed writings, to two different people, the statute picks. Section 205(d): “As between two conflicting transfers, the one executed first prevails if it is recorded … within one month after its execution in the United States or within two months after its execution outside the United States, or at any time before recordation in such manner of the later transfer. Otherwise the later transfer prevails if recorded first in such manner, and if taken in good faith, for valuable consideration or on the basis of a binding promise to pay royalties, and without notice of the earlier transfer.” Section 205(e) protects the small case inside the big one: a nonexclusive licence in a signed writing, taken before the transfer or in good faith before it was recorded, survives it. Canada runs the same rule through its own register — section 57(3) makes an unregistered assignment “void against any subsequent assignee or licensee for valuable consideration without actual notice” unless it was registered first. So the one place first-past-the-post decides anything is between two people who both hold paper, and the post is the register. Recordation is the same office a termination notice goes to, and the step self-releasing artists skip because nobody told them there was a race. Record the transfer, and record it damn quick. Inside the month, the first paper wins outright.

Rung five is the collectors, and they are not on the ladder. The MLC’s ownership dispute policy opens with it — “The Collective does not judge or resolve Conflicts or Disputes, or participate in the substantive resolution of Conflicts or Disputes” — and its list of what counts as evidence is the ladder above, written by an organisation that has to apply it. Substantiating documentation is, first, executed agreements — “Publishing Agreements, Co-publishing Agreements, Sub-publishing Agreements, Administration Agreements, Songwriter Agreements, Signed Split Sheets and Letters of Direction” — and only then “additional documentation … such as a US copyright registration, a confirmed PRO registration or a musicologist report.” The agreement is primary; the registration is additional. A collector that will not decide anything has still told you, in its filing rules, which document it expects to win.

What happens to the money while it is unresolved?

The disputed side’s collector holds that copyright’s royalties until every claimant signs a resolution or a court rules; the other side keeps paying.

The MLC’s machinery is the most fully described, so take it as the model. A Conflict is claims to one work that exceed 100% of its shares, or to one share that exceed it. Claimants with new claims get “30 calendar days from the date of Notice” to update the claim or send documentation; if any does, claimants with existing ones get thirty days of their own. While that runs, the share’s royalties sit in Interim Suspense. If the substantiated claims still exceed 100% at the end, the share goes into Dispute and the royalties into Suspense; at 100% or less, the claims are accepted and the money released. The MLC will try to narrow a conflict “to specifically identified Shares rather than an entire Work,” so a fight over ten per cent need not freeze the other ninety, and the moment it hears of a court or arbitration case it places a Legal Hold. Two exits, and only two: “written documentation that evidences a resolution by all Dispute Parties,” or a legal order. The MLC’s own summary of what it does not do is one line.

The PRO side holds the same way, each society to its own policy, and the piece on a refused signature quotes ASCAP’s and BMI’s. On the recording side, an Artist Dispute at SoundExchange is claims to one recording’s featured-artist share that exceed 100%; the royalties go on hold, and the page ends with a sentence every collector could sign: “SoundExchange doesn’t judge, and we don’t take sides.” YouTube is the same shape with a different word for it. A conflict there is when “multiple content owners assert over 100% ownership of an asset in a specific territory,” “active monetization claims based on the asset’s reference are typically postponed until the conflict is resolved,” and where the claimants set different policies, “the most restrictive policy gets applied.” Hold the money, take no side, wait for the parties or a judge. Every collector in this business is Switzerland.

Now the sentence this page exists for, which none of those policies states because none of them can see it. A hold on one side does not reach the other. The MLC pays for the song and reads nothing about the recording; SoundExchange pays for the recording and reads nothing about the song; the distributor pays the account that delivered the recording and has never seen a PRO registration in its life. Each stream has one collector, and each collector sits on one side of the line. A song in Dispute at The MLC is a song whose mechanicals have stopped and whose master royalties have not noticed; an Artist Dispute at SoundExchange stops a recording’s statutory money and leaves the writer’s performance royalties where they were. If you are being told a fight on one side has frozen everything, look at the statements. One of them is still arriving.

One thing is not stated here because no source states it: whether a Canadian collector’s hold runs on rules like The MLC’s. SOCAN and CMRRA each have their own, and neither is quoted on this page, so nothing above should be read as describing them.

How do you fix the record that is wrong?

Fix the record on the side it sits on, with the document that decides it, and change nothing on the other side to match.

The song side first. A society registration is amended at the society and The MLC’s at its portal — the walk is written, and it starts with the agreement, not the form. If The MLC has opened a conflict, the thirty-day window is the whole game: the signed sheet or the agreement goes in as substantiating documentation, and a claimant who sends nothing “may have their claim rejected.” A certificate naming the wrong author, or missing one, takes a supplementary registration under Circular 8; a transfer since is recorded, not corrected. In Canada an assignment is registered on “the original instrument or a certified copy of it” under section 57(1), and a wrong entry on the Register itself is rectified by the Federal Court under section 57(4), “retroactive from such date as the Court may order.”

The recording side runs in parallel and never crosses. The ℗ name and the rest of the delivery are corrected through the distributor’s metadata, and what the line should say is decided before you type it. A SoundExchange claim is updated at the claim, and an Artist Dispute closes when the artists direct the collector together. A YouTube conflict has three routes on its own page: remove a claim made in error, request an ownership transfer, or message the other claimant. The two copyright offices take the same two filings for a recording as for a song — a supplementary registration for the author line, a recorded transfer for a change of hands.

Then the rule that is the section’s whole point. A mismatch that was never a conflict gets no fix. The temptation, when the ℗ line says one name and the writer credits say three, is to make them agree — add the writers to the line, or register the producer as an author of the song because they own a piece of the master. Each turns a correct record into a wrong one, on the side where it was correct, and the collector there will act on the new wrong record with the same lack of judgment it applied to the old right one. Correct the record that is wrong. Leave the one that is right alone. The audit checklist has a line for each side, on purpose.

When does it stop being paperwork?

When two people claim the same share of the same copyright and no document settles it; then the exits are a signature or a judge.

The test is the one the refused-signature piece already draws, carried across the line: a stall is a calendar problem and a dispute is a lawyer’s. If the person on the other side will sign, the paperwork above is the whole job. If they will not, and the two of you claim the same share of the same work, no registration, no supplementary filing and no email to a society will end it, because none of those organisations will decide who is right and all of them have said so in writing.

What you take to counsel is the three lists from the first section with the paper behind each name: every signed writing, every certificate and registration with its date and who filed it, and the ℗ line as delivered. The reconstruction piece is the guide to gathering it when the song is old; where counsel comes from and what they do with the file are each their own page.

This week: take the last release and write the two owner lists — the recording’s and the song’s — with the paper beside each name and a note of who typed which record. Most of the mismatches you find will be the first three rows of the table, and those you leave alone. The rest now have a side, a document and a window, and you know which collector is holding what.

FAQ

Can the producer own half the song and none of the master?

Yes. The song and the recording are two copyrights with two sets of authors, and a producer who wrote part of the song is a co-author of the song whether or not any agreement gave them a share of the recording. A work-for-hire clause or an assignment on the recording moves the recording only; it says nothing about the song unless it says so in words.

If my co-writer registered the song as 100% theirs, have I lost my share?

No. A registration at a society or at The MLC is a claim to a share, not a transfer of one, and a transfer needs a signed writing. What the registration creates is a conflict: the society holds the royalties on the disputed share until the claimants resolve it in writing or a court does. Your share is still yours; it is not being paid.

Does the name on the ℗ line decide who owns the master?

No. The statute says the notice names the owner of copyright in the sound recording, but the line is typed by whoever delivered the release and no system checks it against a transfer. It is a claim in the shape of a notice. Ownership of the recording comes from who authored it and from any signed transfer, and a wrong name on the line changes neither.

If I register my version of the split first, do I win?

No. Between two people who each claim to have written the song, being first to file decides nothing; the signed writing, if there is one, and the facts of authorship do. First-to-record decides exactly one case: two signed transfers of the same right to two different people, where the transfer recorded first, taken in good faith and for value, prevails.

Sources

• 17 U.S.C. § 201 (Cornell LII) — (a): copyright vests initially in the author or authors; (d)(1): ownership may be transferred by any means of conveyance or by operation of law.
• 17 U.S.C. § 204 — (a): a transfer of copyright ownership is not valid unless in a writing signed by the owner of the rights conveyed.
• 17 U.S.C. § 205 — (c): recordation gives constructive notice only where the document identifies the work and the work is registered; (d): priority between conflicting transfers, quoted in full; (e): a signed nonexclusive licence prevails over a conflicting transfer if taken first, or in good faith before recordation and without notice.
• 17 U.S.C. § 402 — (b): the notice on phonorecords is the symbol, the year of first publication, and the name of the owner of copyright in the sound recording.
• 17 U.S.C. § 410 — (c): a certificate of a registration made before or within five years after first publication is prima facie evidence of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in it; the weight of a later one is within the court’s discretion.
• US Copyright Office, Circular 8, Supplementary Registration (PDF) — what a supplementary registration is for and that it does not cancel or replace the original; adding a missing author or the correct author’s name as an appropriate use; that it cannot reflect the division, licence or transfer of rights, for which the document is recorded, nor question or challenge the validity of a basic registration; that the Office may request documentation where authorship or ownership is implicated. Read from the PDF, decoded locally; nothing is quoted from its numeral font, and no revision date is stated for it here.
• The MLC, The MLC Dispute Policy: Musical Work Ownership (PDF, February 2021; linked from its policy page) — §1.2, that The MLC does not judge or resolve conflicts or disputes; §2.1–2.2, work overclaims and share counterclaims, and narrowing to identified shares; §4.2, the thirty-day documentation periods; §5.1–5.3, executed agreements including signed split sheets and letters of direction as substantiating documentation, a registration as additional documentation, and that The MLC verifies neither; §5.5, a claim may be rejected for want of documentation; §6, Interim Suspense, Dispute and Suspense, and release at or under 100%; §7, Legal Hold; §8.1, the two exits. Read from the PDF, decoded locally; the decode was clean end to end, numerals included.
• SoundExchange, Artist Disputes (20 March 2024) — the definition as featured-artist shares claimed over 100%; royalties on hold pending resolution among the parties; that SoundExchange does not judge or take sides.
• YouTube Help, Resolve asset ownership conflicts — a conflict as multiple content owners asserting over 100% of an asset in a territory; monetization claims postponed until resolved; the most restrictive policy applied; the three routes to resolution.
• YouTube Help, Create an asset — the Sound Recording asset with its ISRC and the Composition Share asset as an ownership share of a musical composition with its ISWC and writers; that composition share assets are embedded in a sound recording asset.
• Copyright Act (Canada), s. 13 — (1): the author is the first owner; (4): no assignment or grant is valid unless in writing signed by the owner.
• Copyright Act (Canada), s. 34.1 — (1)(b): where title is put in issue, the author, performer or maker is presumed the owner unless the contrary is proved.
• Copyright Act (Canada), s. 53 — (2): a certificate of registration is evidence that copyright subsists and that the person registered is the owner; (2.1): a certificate of registration of an assignment is evidence of the assignment and of the assignee’s ownership.
• Copyright Act (Canada), s. 57 — (1): the Registrar registers an assignment or licence on the instrument or a certified copy and the fee; (3): an unregistered assignment or licence is void against a subsequent assignee or licensee for value without actual notice; (4): rectification of the Register by the Federal Court, retroactive from a date the Court orders.

Every page cited here was read on the date at the top of this piece. Collectors’ policies change without notice, and two of the sources are PDFs read through a local decoder rather than as text — where that mattered, the piece says so beside the citation. SoundExchange’s pages on rights-owner disputes did not resolve and nothing is claimed about them. Nothing here is legal advice, and a conflict over the same share of the same copyright is the case this page hands to counsel by name.

Keeping the register

Every section above ends with the same instruction: keep the two owner lists apart, with the paper behind each name. CatalogTracker keeps master splits and publishing splits per track separately, each summing to its own 100; a collaborator is a Party with roles, so one person can hold a position on the recording side, the song side, or both, in whichever capacity they actually held; an agreement uploaded beside a split is hashed and flagged when the split or a party changed after it was signed; and every change is in the history with its old value and its new one. In development for iPhone.