Songwriter, composer, arranger: the metadata distinction

45 · 2026-09-13 · 19 min read · Español

In the systems that read a credit, “songwriter” is not a role. It is a word for two of them — the composer, who wrote the music, and the lyricist or author, who wrote the words — and the person who did both is filed under one name or another depending on the form. An arranger is a third role, for someone who modified a work that already existed, and it is the only one of the three that is not by itself a claim on the song. The word you type decides which of those registrations your name lands in, and what, if anything, it pays.

• A composer wrote the musical elements of a work and a lyricist wrote the words. Every register and every store keeps those two apart.
• “Songwriter” is Apple Music’s role for a contributor who did both or whose contribution is unknown. The MLC’s equivalent is Composer/Author; DDEX’s is ComposerLyricist, with ComposerAndOrLyricist for the unknown case.
• An arranger modifies an existing work. Arranging a protected song needs the owner’s permission, and the arranger’s share is whatever the owners agree; no society publishes a default.
• An arrangement of a public-domain work can be registered: SOCAN pays a credit that varies with the arrangement, BMI credits it at 20% of the popular-song rate, and The MLC accepts it but pays nothing on works it identifies as public domain.
• Every registration needs at least one Composer or Composer/Author. A contributor to a new song is a co-writer on the authorship test or is not on the work at all; the arranger role is not the middle ground.

What is the difference between a songwriter, a composer and an arranger?

A composer wrote the music, a lyricist the words, a songwriter both or an unknown share, and an arranger modified a work that already existed.

Take the definitions from the organisation that files them. The MLC’s writer roles: a Composer is “One who writes the musical elements of a musical work,” an Author is “One who writes the text (lyrics) of a musical work,” a Composer/Author is “One who writes the musical elements and text (lyrics) of a musical work,” and an Arranger is “One who modifies the musical elements of an existing musical work.” Four definitions, and every one of them is a sentence about a musical work — the song — and not about any recording of it. Every system agrees on the two jobs. What they disagree on is whether the person who did both gets a word or a slash.

DDEX’s dictionary, which is the vocabulary a delivery travels in, says the same thing in different casing. A Composer is “A Creator of the musical elements of a MusicalWork,” a Lyricist “A Creator of the Lyrics of a MusicalWork,” a ComposerLyricist “A Creator that plays the roles of Composer and Lyricist of a MusicalWork.” And its Arranger carries a note the others do not: “A modifier of musical components of a Work. Note: The arranged MusicalWork may or may not result in a new copyright Creation.” Hold on to that note. It is the whole reason the arranger is a different kind of word.

All of these are roles on the work. DDEX draws the layers itself: “A musical work (the composition and lyrics of a song); A resource (the sound recording or video that an artist has created by performing and recording a Musical Work); and A release” that groups resources into something you can sell. The producer, the engineer and the featured artist are roles on the second layer — the production words have their own page, and so do the performer credits. Nothing on this page reaches the recording.

And nothing on this page decides who goes in the boxes. Whether what you contributed was authorship at all — original expression, plus everyone’s intent that it be merged into one song — is the authorship test, and that test sorts the people. This page is about the words the forms have for the people it sorted.

Which writer role does The MLC or your PRO register?

One of The MLC’s writer roles, Composer, Author, Composer/Author, Arranger, Adapter or Translator, and every registration needs at least one Composer or Composer/Author.

The full list, with the two-letter codes it is filed under: Author (A), Composer (C), Composer/Author (CA), Arranger (AR), Adapter (AD) — “One who modifies/adapts the text (lyrics) of an existing musical work” — Translator (TR) — “One who modifies text (lyrics) into a different language” — Sub Arranger (SR) — “One who creates arrangements authorized by the Sub-Publisher” — Sub Author (SA) — “One who writes text (lyrics) which substitutes or modifies the existing text of musical work” — and Income Participant (PA), “A person that receives royalty payments for a work but is not a copyright owner.” Nine roles. The list has a box for the sub-arranger of a sub-publisher and no box for a songwriter, because the person who did both is a Composer/Author.

That is the role most self-releasing writers are: “One who writes the musical elements and text (lyrics) of a musical work,” and the code is CA.

The requirement is stated once and it is not soft: “At least one composer/author or composer writer role is required” to register a work. A registration made of arrangers, adapters and translators alone does not exist, because every one of those roles describes a change to something, and the register wants to know what the something is and who wrote it. Which is also why every role is filed against a party with a number rather than against a name — CISAC’s own statement of what an IPI is for lists “different roles in relation to a work (composer, arranger, publisher, etc.),” and a work cannot get an ISWC until the numbers and roles of all its creators are on the form. The role and the number travel together. Which number is that page’s subject; the role is this one’s.

Which writer roles do Apple Music and Spotify accept?

Apple’s writer roles are Composer, Lyrics and Songwriter; Spotify requires composer and writer information with proper roles and shows what the delivery carried.

Apple Music’s style guide gives the writer roles one section, 2.15, and it is worth reading whole, because it is the only place either store defines the words:

Roles related to the underlying composition or lyrical content of a recording must have the appropriate roles listed at the track level. If a single artist has written all words or lyrics for all recordings on an album, the appropriate roles must be listed at both the album and track levels. If an artist is also a composer, credit them with the Composer role as well.

When the breakdown of contributions to a work is known, use the Composer role to credit the creator of the music composition, and the Lyrics role to credit anyone who contributed to drafting lyrics of a song.

If a contributor was involved in both composition and lyrics, or if their specific contribution to the work isn’t known, use the Songwriter role.

If the album contains selections of unknown authorship, such as a folk song or Gregorian chant, use Anonymous or Traditional as the composer. Any delivery found using this role erroneously will be hidden.

Three roles and a tie-break. Composer for the music, Lyrics for the words, Songwriter when one person did both — or when nobody wrote down who did what, which is the half of that sentence most deliveries are using. Apple is the one system here with a word for the whole job, and it hands it out for the same reason it hands out Anonymous: the form has to hold something when the truth was not recorded.

Spotify’s metadata style guide does not define the words. It requires them: “All applicable artists, both performing and non-performing, must be entered with proper roles, which includes composer/writer information.” Its definitions arrive sideways, in the classical section, where the rules are strict enough to show what the roles mean everywhere else: “Classical content must list at least one composer at track level,” and “Librettists, lyricists or arrangers must not be listed as composer.” Three roles named in one sentence, and the sentence says they are three different things.

Underneath both stores sits DDEX, and its own guidance on writer roles gives the four cases a delivery can state: Lyricist, Composer, ComposerLyricist, and ComposerAndOrLyricist for a writer who is known to have contributed “but not whether they contributed to the lyrics or the melody/tune.” All four “can be communicated in all standards published in 2020 or later”; before that there were three, and the unknown case had no word. Songwriter at Apple, Composer/Author at The MLC, ComposerLyricist in the delivery: one person, three spellings, and a fourth spelling for not knowing.

What Spotify then shows is whatever the delivery carried, and a wrong credit is a redelivery — the production-credits page has Spotify’s own sentence on that, and it applies to the writer line exactly as it does to the producer’s. Where the writer block sits among the twenty-odd other fields is the field-by-field walk.

When is a composer credited as the artist?

Only when the composer also performed, except on scores, soundtracks and musicals, where both stores require the composer as a primary artist.

Apple’s rule for classical is section 13.4, and it comes with its own example: “Composers may never be marked as Primary unless they are also performing as the Soloist, Accompanist, or Conductor. For example, Beethoven was deceased prior to recording technology and can never be a primary performer.” Beethoven cannot be your primary artist. He has a note from Apple.

The rest of the classical section is the same rule from other angles. Section 13.3: “At least one composer must be provided at the track level,” up to ten at album level, and “Lyricists or librettists cannot be credited using the composer role.” Spotify, section 29.4: “Composers must not be listed as main artist, unless they also performed on the content.” A composer is a writer role and a primary artist is a performer role — what that credit is and what it costs is its own page — and a famous name does not convert one into the other.

Then the inversion, which both stores state as an exception rather than leaving you to discover it. Apple, section 2.10: albums of film score “must credit film score composers at the album and track level as Primary artists and the Composer role.” Section 2.11, musicals: “The composer and lyricist (or Music Director) must be listed with the Primary artist role at the album level,” and with the composer and lyricist roles at the track level. Spotify, section 18.4: “Soundtrack, film score and musical products must list the composer(s) as main artist(s) and composer at product level,” and its general rule carries the same carve-out in its own text — “Except for soundtracks and musicals.” Same composer, same store, opposite instruction, and the genre field decides which one applies.

One more place the word arranger lives, and it is the only one either store gives it. Apple, section 13.15: “If a work has been altered from the original composition, the instrumentation must be noted and the Arranger credited at the end of the title,” as in “(Arr. for Piano by Arthur Smith).” Not a role. A parenthesis in the title. Outside classical, neither store has an arranger box at all.

Does an arranger get a share of the song?

Of a protected song, only what its owners agree, and arranging it needs their permission; of a public-domain work, a share each society sets itself.

Start with what an arrangement is in law, because the register is only copying the law. 17 U.S.C. §101 defines a derivative work as “a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization” — the arrangement is the statute’s second example.§103(b) then says what the arranger owns: “The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material.” And §103(a) says what happens when the permission was never asked for: protection “does not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully.” The arranger’s copyright, where there is one, is in the arrangement. It reaches nothing underneath it, and without consent it may not exist at all.

The permission is not a courtesy. SOCAN’s FAQ answers the question in one sentence: “If you wish to arrange or adapt an original copyright-protected musical work, you must obtain permission from the copyright holder of that work.” The Music Publishers Association puts the same fact at the scale it actually has: in every country that is a signatory to the Berne Convention, “it is an infringement of copyright law to create or distribute an orchestral arrangement, orchestration, or transcription of a copyright work (regardless of genre) without the copyright owner’s consent.” There is no country where you can do this without asking. Check the list; it is the list of countries.

So what does the arranger of a protected song get? Whatever the agreement says, and nothing else. No society publishes a default share for it, because the share is not the society’s to set — it is the copyright owner’s, and the MPA describes where that usually lands: “it is common practice for publishers to insist on owning the arrangement as a work made for hire.” A protected song, a permitted arrangement, and the arranger paid a fee for a work the publisher owns. That is the normal shape, and every departure from it is a clause somebody negotiated.

Public domain is the other case, and it is where the arranger role earns its keep. SOCAN again: “Yes. You can claim shares if the work is in the public domain. SOCAN’s distribution rules provide for credits that may vary depending upon the nature of the arrangement,” with the clock stated on the same page — in Canada a work enters the public domain “70 years after the year of the death of the last surviving writer/composer/author of the work.” BMI’s Royalty Policy Manual, dated on its face, gives a number: “Copyrighted arrangements of works in the public domain (classical and popular) will be credited at 20% of the otherwise applicable rate of payment for popular songs for all performances, with the exception of the Live Classical Concert distribution, where no payment is made for performances of arrangements of public domain works.” A fifth of the rate, everywhere but the concert hall. ASCAP’s equivalent page refuses to be read by anything but a browser, so its figure is not here.

The MLC takes the registration and draws its own line. Its public-domain page says to register such a work only “if you have created your own unique arrangement,” and how: “You can register the work with the original writer name listed in the Composer/Author or Composer writer role (no writer IPI is needed) and credit yourself in the Arranger writer role,” or, if nobody knows who wrote it, “list ‘Public Domain’ for the Composer/Author or Composer writer role.” Then the limit: “royalties are not allocated or paid to identified public domain works.” What it pays on the arranger line it does not say, and neither does this page. Three systems, three names for a writer who is not there — Anonymous, Traditional, Public Domain — and each one is the composer box being filled so that yours can be.

What does not count as arranging, since the word is about to carry money. SUISA, the Swiss society that runs the IPI system, publishes the test its distribution rules apply — an arrangement is a “recognisable transformation, changing, or extension, of the musical substance of an existing work” — and the list of things that are not one: transposing to another key, writing it out for other instruments, adding dynamics, phrasing or fingering, correcting clerical errors. Its share percentages are not here on purpose; they are one Swiss society’s tariff and you belong to a different one. Changing the key is not arranging. Neither is writing it out for guitar.

The cover is the case that looks like an exception and is not. A compulsory licence lets you arrange a song to fit your performance and forbids the arrangement from taking any copyright of its own without the owner’s express consent — the clause is quoted in full where the two copyrights are set side by side, and this page does not repeat it. The cover artist is a performer on a recording. On the song, they are nobody.

What about the producer who “arranged” your song?

Either co-writing, if original expression went into the song with everyone’s intent, or an arranger credit, which pays only what the writers agree.

Put the two definitions of the role side by side. The MLC: a modifier of the musical elements “of an existing musical work.” DDEX: “A modifier of musical components of a Work,” whose result “may or may not result in a new copyright Creation.” Both describe something done to a work that is already there. Neither describes a share of it.

Now the room. Somebody changed the chords under the chorus, moved the hook to the front, wrote the counter-melody on the second verse. If that was original expression and everyone in the room meant it to become part of the song, that person is a co-writer — the test has a section on the producer specifically — and a co-writer’s role is Composer. If it was not, they are not on the work, and what they are owed is owed on the recording: a production credit, and the money behind it. The arranger box is not the middle ground. It describes a change to a work that existed before the person arrived, and on a song being written in front of them there was no such work.

You will be offered the arranger credit as though the word were a share of the song under a different name. Bullshit. The credit describes a modification to a work, it pays what the writers agree and nothing by itself, and a co-writer’s name goes in the composer box. Decide which of the two it was, in the room, and write it on the sheet before anyone leaves; the register will ask for a role, and “we said we’d sort it out” is not one.

What to check before the next registration

Decide every role from the definitions, file at least one composer, credit an arranger against a work that existed, and use the same role everywhere.

• Start from the definition, not the job title. Music is Composer, words are Author or Lyrics, both is Composer/Author or Songwriter depending on the form. Nobody is a “writer” in a register; they are one of these.
• Put a Composer or Composer/Author on every work. The MLC will not take a registration without one, and a work made only of arrangers has no author on file.
• Use the arranger role only where a work already existed. Protected: with the owner’s permission and the share they agreed. Public domain: with the original writer, or “Public Domain”, in the composer box beside you.
• Same person, same role, everywhere. The society, The MLC and the delivery each read a different form, and a Composer in one who is a Songwriter in another and an Arranger in the third is three different claims about one song.
• Check the genre before a delivery with a composer on it. Classical: never primary unless they played. Score or musical: primary and composer, both. The store does not ask; it applies.

That covers the next form. For the catalogue behind it — every work filed with whatever role felt right at the time — the audit checklist’s registrations layer is where the roles get read back against the definitions, one work at a time.

FAQ

Is “songwriter” a role anywhere?

At Apple Music, yes: Songwriter is the role for a contributor who worked on both the composition and the lyrics, or whose specific contribution is not known. At The MLC there is no such role; the equivalent is Composer/Author, code CA. In DDEX, the vocabulary a delivery travels in, it is ComposerLyricist, with ComposerAndOrLyricist for the unknown case in standards published from 2020 on.

Can I register my own arrangement of a public-domain song?

Yes, at a performing rights organisation: SOCAN states that you can claim shares on a public-domain work and that its credits vary with the nature of the arrangement, and BMI credits such arrangements at 20% of the popular-song rate. The MLC accepts the registration with you in the Arranger role and the original writer, or “Public Domain”, in the composer role, and states that royalties are not paid on works it identifies as public domain.

Does a translator or adapter of the lyrics get a writer role?

Yes. Translator, code TR, and Adapter, code AD, are writer roles at The MLC, and DDEX carries both. Changing a protected song’s words needs the same permission that arranging its music does: SOCAN’s answer says “arrange or adapt” in one breath, and the permission comes from the copyright holder.

Sources

• The MLC, What is a writer role? — the nine writer roles with their codes and definitions, and the requirement that at least one composer/author or composer writer role be present to register a work.
• The MLC, Can I register a public domain work with The MLC and collect royalties? — registering only a unique arrangement; the original writer or “Public Domain” in the composer role with no writer IPI needed; yourself as Arranger; and that royalties are not allocated or paid to identified public domain works.
• Apple, Apple Music Style Guide — §2.15 (Composition and Lyrics: the Composer, Lyrics and Songwriter roles, the track- and album-level rules, and Anonymous or Traditional with its hidden-delivery consequence); §2.10 (film score composers as Primary and Composer); §2.11 (composer and lyricist as Primary on musicals); §13.3 (at least one composer at track level, up to ten at album level, no lyricist or librettist in the composer role); §13.4 (composers never Primary unless performing, with Beethoven as the example); §13.15 (the arranger credited at the end of a classical title).
• Spotify, Metadata Style Guide, v2.3 — §4.1 (all artists entered with proper roles including composer/writer information, and composers not listed as main or featured artist except on soundtracks and musicals unless they performed); §18.4 (soundtrack, film score and musical products list the composer as main artist and composer); §29.1 (at least one composer at track level for classical, Traditional or Anonymous for unknown authorship); §29.3 (librettists, lyricists or arrangers must not be listed as composer); §29.4 (composers not main artist unless they performed).
• DDEX, Data Dictionary, AVS Edition, Version 11 — MusicalWorkContributorRole — the definitions of Composer, Lyricist, ComposerLyricist, Arranger (with its note that the arranged work may or may not result in a new copyright creation), Adapter, Translator and SubArranger. Read from the served HTML on the date at the top of this piece; the site refuses non-browser fetch tools.
• DDEX Knowledge Base, Writer roles — the four cases Lyricist, Composer, ComposerLyricist and ComposerAndOrLyricist, available in standards published in 2020 or later; the three values older standards carry; and that DDEX also supports Adapter and Arranger.
• DDEX Knowledge Base, Why artist information is in multiple places — the three layers a music product carries: a musical work, a resource and a release, each with its own artist information.
• 17 U.S.C. §101 — the definition of a derivative work, naming a musical arrangement among its examples.
• 17 U.S.C. §103 — (a) no protection for any part of a work in which preexisting material has been used unlawfully; (b) the copyright in a derivative work extends only to the material its author contributed and implies no exclusive right in the preexisting material.
• SOCAN, Frequently Asked Questions — permission from the copyright holder to arrange or adapt a protected work; that shares can be claimed on an arrangement of a public-domain work and that the credits vary with the nature of the arrangement; and the 70-years-after-death rule for the public domain in Canada.
• BMI, Royalty Policy Manual — the 20% credit for copyrighted arrangements of public-domain works and the Live Classical Concert exception, at the last-updated date the document carries on its face.
• SUISA, Arrangement of works in the public domain — the test for an arrangement, the list of changes that are not one, and that unprotected works can be freely arranged while protected ones need consent. SUISA’s share percentages are deliberately not carried; they are one society’s distribution rule.
• Music Publishers Association of the United States, Creating, Licensing & Distributing Authorized Orchestral Arrangements — that arranging a copyright work without the owner’s consent is an infringement in every Berne Convention country, and the common practice of publishers owning the arrangement as a work made for hire.

Every page cited here was read on the date at the top of this piece. Style guides, help pages and distribution rules change without notice, and several could not be read at all — ASCAP’s pages refuse automated reads, PRS for Music’s arrangement page served only a title, and SOCAN’s distribution rules PDF would not decode — which is why no ASCAP, PRS or SOCAN percentage appears here. Confirm anything operational against your own society’s pages before you act on it.

Keeping the register

Every form on this page asks the same question of the same record: who is this person on this work, and which role is that. CatalogTracker keeps people as parties with a role from a defined contributor vocabulary, per track and per release, rather than as a name typed into whichever box was nearest, and keeps the publishing split beside the role so that a Composer and an Arranger cannot quietly carry the same claim. It registers nothing with anybody. It means the role is decided once and read the same way by the next form. In development for iPhone.