A session musician assignment

Clauses 1 and 6 say what they say. The other four are doing work that is not visible from the words, and one of them is only there because of where you are standing.

Why an assignment, and not a work-for-hire clause

A work-for-hire label on a sound recording may transfer nothing, and an assignment is the part that actually moves the rights. That is why clause 1 reads the way it does.

This is not a subtlety we invented for a template. It is the reason who owns the master is a live question at all for anyone who paid for a session and assumed that settled it, and the argument — which categories a work-for-hire clause reaches, what the 1999 amendment did and what repealing it in 2000 left behind — lives in that piece, in full, with its sources. Take the conclusion and the document. Read the argument if somebody disagrees with you.

It has to be signed, and by the player

Under United States law, a transfer of copyright ownership “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.” The player is that owner. Canada names the same owner outright — “a performer has a copyright in the performer’s performance” — and reaches the same requirement by a longer route: section 25 of the Copyright Act carries the Act’s writing rule for assignments across to the rights performers hold.

What makes a signed document enforceable is its own subject and this page does not relitigate it. The practical half is short enough to fit here: sign it before the session, not after. Everyone in the room is agreeable at ten in the morning with the fee still unpaid and nothing recorded. That is the cheapest hour this document will ever cost you.

The credit line is not decoration

Clause 3 exists because most session arguments are about acknowledgement rather than ownership, and settling both on one page removes the reason the ownership question gets raised at all.

Fill in the credit as the player wants it spelled and the role as the stores will take it — Musician, Background Vocalist, and the difference between a side artist and a featured one, which is a difference with money behind it. A player who knows their name is going on the release has no reason to relitigate the paperwork in eighteen months, and a player who was promised a credit in a text message has every reason.

Moral rights, and why clause 5 exists

Canada gives performers moral rights in their performances, and clause 5 is a waiver because those rights cannot be assigned. The Copyright Act is explicit in both directions:

Moral rights may not be assigned but may be waived in whole or in part.

An assignment of copyright in a performer’s performance does not by itself constitute a waiver of any moral rights.

Sections 17.1(2) and 17.1(3), in that order, and the second one is why this is a separate clause instead of a phrase inside clause 1. An assignment that says nothing about moral rights has, by the statute’s own words, waived nothing.

The comparison people reach for is the United States, where the federal attribution and integrity rights run to the author of “a work of visual art.” A recording is not one. That is what the section reaches, stated as such — and if your session is in Toronto and your template came from Los Angeles, clause 5 is the line it was missing.

One recording, one player, one fee. Being exact about the edges is what makes a one-page document safe to sign, and two of these edges protect the person who did not print the page.

It does not cover the song

If the player wrote any part of the song — a topline, a chord progression somebody kept, a bridge that survived — this document does not record that, and clause 4 says so. The recording and the song are separate copyrights and they are lost in different ways.

Writer shares go on a split sheet, which is the other free document on this site and takes about the same ten minutes. A player who played the part as written needs this page. A player who wrote something needs both.

It does not stop the non-featured royalties

Non-featured performer royalties in the United States are allocated by statute and administered by an independent fund, and in Canada the performer and the maker are both entitled to equitable remuneration when a published recording is performed or communicated in public. Clause 4 declines both, on the paper, where a printed copy carries it.

This matters more than it looks. A player handed a page that quietly hoovers up every stream of income attached to their performance is a player who signs nothing next time, and tells the other four players in town why. What each credit category actually pays is worked through elsewhere, with the numbers; the short version is that a side artist’s money does not come from the master, so taking the master does not require taking it.

If the session is under a union agreement, this is the wrong document

Where a union agreement governs a session, its terms govern and this page does not. The AFM’s Sound Recording Labor Agreement covers, in its own words, “the performance of instrumental musicians, or leaders, arrangers, orchestrators, and copyists in the production of recorded music intended for commercial sale or distribution,” on sessions in the United States and Canada.

Ask the question before the session rather than after: are you working under a union agreement for this? It takes four seconds and it decides which paper is the real one.

More than one player

One page per player, each signed by that player and by you. Do not list four musicians on one sheet: they are agreeing separately, they are paid separately, and a single page with four signatures is four arguments waiting for one of them to say they never saw the clause above their name.

This is a template, not legal advice, and it is written against US and Canadian practice. It has not been reviewed by a lawyer for your situation, your territory or your deal, and clause 5 is drafted for Canada. If real money is involved — a sync, a label, a catalogue sale — have a lawyer in the relevant territory read it before you use it, and read it yourself before you sign it.

Do you need this if you already paid the session musician?

Yes. Paying someone is not a transfer of copyright, and a transfer has to be in a signed writing. The invoice proves the fee was paid; it does not say who owns what afterwards, and those are different questions with different answers.

Does this make you the author of the recording?

No. It moves the player’s rights in the recording to you. Who authored the recording is a separate question, and nothing on this page claims to change the answer to it.

Does the player still get paid by SoundExchange?

This document does not touch that money. Non-featured performer royalties in the United States are allocated by statute and administered by a separate fund, and Canada pays performers a share of equitable remuneration. Clause 4 says so on the paper itself.

Can you sign it after the session?

You can, and the odds get worse every week you wait. That is our recommendation and not a rule: the price of a signature rises the moment the recording turns out to be worth something, and a player who has left the room has no reason to prioritise your paperwork.

The statutes and agreements the clauses are built on. Verified live 2026-08-16.

• 17 U.S.C. §204(a) — the writing-and-signature requirement for a transfer of copyright ownership. The reason this document exists in this form.
• 17 U.S.C. §114(g)(2) — the statutory allocation of digital performance receipts, and the independent administrators appointed for the non-featured shares. What clause 4 declines to touch.
• 17 U.S.C. §106A — “Rights of certain authors to attribution and integrity,” which run to the author of a work of visual art.
• Copyright Act (Canada), s. 15(1) — the performer’s own copyright in the performer’s performance. The right clause 1 assigns.
• Copyright Act (Canada), ss. 17.1, 18 and 19 — performers’ moral rights and the waiver rule; the maker’s copyright; equitable remuneration for performer and maker.
• Copyright Act (Canada), s. 25 — subsections 13(4) to (7) apply, with modifications, to the rights this Part gives performers and makers. The Canadian route to the same writing requirement.
• American Federation of Musicians, Sound Recording Labor Agreement — what the agreement covers, and the session structures under it.

Canadian consolidation current to 2026-06-17, as stated on the Justice Laws pages.

CatalogTracker does not generate this document — it generates the master royalty agreement and the publishing split agreement, and a session assignment is neither. What it does is hold the signed scan against the party who signed it, with a content hash and a warning when the party or the split moved after signing, so the page you print today is findable in four years next to the track it belongs to. Signing is print-and-sign; there is no signature capture. In development for iPhone.

Once there are forty of these, the paper is one layer of a larger question — the catalogue audit checklist is the rest of it.

This page stays here either way, free and ungated, because a template behind an email form is not a template.