What a split sheet does not cover, and which agreement does
21 · · 13 min read · Español
A split sheet covers the writer shares of one musical work. That is the whole of it — who wrote the song and in what proportions — and it says nothing about the record you made of it, the producer who made it with you, the people who played on it, or who gets to say yes when a licence request finally arrives. Every item on that list has a document. Not one of them is the sheet you signed.
- A split sheet allocates the writer shares of one musical work. The recording is a separate copyright, and the sheet does not reach it.
- Under US law any exclusive right, including any subdivision of it, may be transferred and owned separately — so dividing the writer shares leaves every other division unmade.
- In Canada the copyright in a sound recording belongs to its maker, which is a position no split sheet assigns to anyone.
- A split sheet is not a registration. The MLC and your PRO read the filing you make, not the document your co-writers signed.
- Producer points, session players, featured guests, publishing administration and samples all sit outside the sheet, each under its own agreement.
What does a split sheet actually cover?
The writer shares of one musical work: who wrote the song, and in what proportions.
That is a real job and the sheet does it well. It replaces a default nobody chose — because the law already split the song the moment it existed, in equal undivided shares, whether that matches what happened in the room or not. It settles the one question co-writers argue about most. It is also, on its own, a single number written down by people who mostly agree, and who counts as a writer at all is the harder half of getting even that right.
What it is not is a settlement of the song. It is one clause of a settlement, and everyone treats it as the whole thing because it is the only piece of paper anybody hands you.
So this is the scope note that the template does not carry, and that nobody selling you a template has any reason to write. Whether the sheet you signed binds anyone is its own question with its own answer. This one is narrower and it comes first: binding about what?
Does a split sheet say anything about who owns the recording?
No. The recording is a separate copyright with its own authors and its own owner.
This is not a technicality and it is not an American quirk. It is the structure of the statute. Section 102(a) lists the categories of works copyright protects, and two of them are on your release: “musical works, including any accompanying words” at (2), and “sound recordings” at (7). Two entries on one list. Two copyrights in one song.
The Copyright Office says what follows from that in one sentence, in the page it wrote for musicians:
A sound recording and the music, lyrics, words, or other content included in the recording are separate copyright-protected works. […] These works are subject to different rules and are commonly owned and licensed separately.
Commonly owned and licensed separately. Your split sheet is an instrument of the first work. It has no jurisdiction over the second one, and signing four names to it does not give it any. Who ends up owning the recording is a genuinely difficult question with a producer clause usually sitting in the middle of it, and it is the subject of its own piece rather than a paragraph in this one.
Canada draws the same line from the other end. Section 18(1) of the Copyright Act:
Subject to subsection (2), the maker of a sound recording has a copyright in the sound recording, consisting of the sole right to do the following in relation to the sound recording or any substantial part thereof: (a) to publish it for the first time, (b) to reproduce it in any material form, and (c) to rent it out, and to authorize any such acts.
The maker. Not the writers, not whoever signed the split sheet, and not whoever assumed. A Canadian release with a perfect split sheet and no recording paperwork has a copyright sitting in it that nobody has ever discussed out loud.
Does it cover what the producer is owed?
Only if the producer wrote part of the song. Producer points come off the recording, and a split sheet has no recording side to take them from.
Two different things get called “the producer’s cut” and they live on opposite sides of this wall. If the producer wrote — a topline, a chord change that survived, anything that clears the authorship bar — they are a writer, and they belong on the sheet like anybody else. If the producer produced, they are owed points, and a point is one percent of a recording’s royalty before any of the deductions that make the percentage mean something.
One producer can be owed both, from both copyrights, under two agreements. Writing 20% on the split sheet and considering the producer paid is the most expensive misunderstanding in this entire piece, because the person who accepted it usually finds out at the first statement and by then the record is out.
Does it cover the people who played on the record?
No. Session musicians and featured guests sit on the recording side, under credits and agreements a split sheet does not contain.
The bass player who did not write anything is not on your sheet, correctly. What they are is a performer on a recording, which in the US is an unresolved co-authorship question until somebody signs something, and the fix is a one-page assignment at the session rather than an argument two years later.
A featured guest is a third thing again. Featured, “with,” and side artist are three different credits with three different payment consequences, and none of those consequences is decided by the writer shares. A guest can be on your split sheet, off it, or on it for a share that has nothing to do with what their feature is worth.
We do not yet publish the side-artist agreement this keeps pointing at. That is a gap on our side and it is worth saying so plainly rather than leaving the reader to notice.
Does a split sheet register anything?
No. It is a private agreement between the writers, and a registration is a separate filing you make yourself at every society that pays.
Nobody at The MLC has read your split sheet. Nobody at BMI has either. What they have is whatever you typed into a portal, and The MLC’s own instructions show how little that overlaps with the document on your desk: only the work title is required, “at least one Composer/Author or Composer writer role is required for all new registrations,” and each publisher is entered with a collection share “between 0.01% and 100%.” Different fields, different parties, a different number.
And a registration only covers what that society does. BMI states its own limit: BMI royalties “are performing right royalties, which are earned when a musical work is performed publicly.” The mechanical right — “the right to reproduce a piece of music onto CDs, DVDs, records or tapes” — is somebody else’s to license, and where music is reproduced onto a film or television soundtrack, “the reproduction is called ‘synchronization’” and BMI does not license that either.
So the sheet is the agreement behind numbers that have to be filed, register by register, by you. Where each register sits and what it actually pays is the map for that. Changing numbers you have already filed is a procedure with an order to it, and it is considerably more work than getting them right the first time.
Does it decide who can license the song?
No. It states shares, and a share is not authority. Nothing in a split sheet says who may grant a licence or whose agreement is needed first.
Here is the sentence the whole piece rests on. Section 201(d)(2):
Any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright, including any subdivision of any of the rights specified by section 106, may be transferred as provided by clause (1) and owned separately.
A copyright is not one thing you hold or do not hold. It is a stack of rights that can be split apart, handed to different people, and held separately — and a split sheet performs exactly one of the available divisions. Every other one it leaves in the default position, which is where the surprises come from.
What fills that silence is not in your document. In the US a co-owner can grant a non-exclusive licence on their own, and in Canada they cannot — one country where your co-writer can put the song in an advertisement without calling you, one where you can freeze it by not answering the phone. Neither rule is written on the sheet. Both apply to it.
If you want a different answer, somebody has to grant something, and granting is a different legal act with a higher bar than agreeing. And if two writers both start telling societies they have the authority, that is a conflicting claim, which is how the money stops. Decide it while everyone is still pleased with the song.
Does it cover the publishing side?
Only the writer half, and only if the sheet says so. Publisher shares, administration, and who actually collects are a separate agreement, on a separate copyright from the one the recording sits in.
A song carries a writer share and a publisher share, and the template explains both conventions and the arithmetic. Your sheet almost certainly divides the first one. The second is the half that gets collected, and if nobody is named to it, nobody is collecting it — which is why The MLC asks a publisher for a collection share rather than an authorship share. Those are two different numbers describing two different jobs.
Self-published is a real answer to this. It is just an answer somebody has to give, in writing, to each register, rather than a thing that happens because no other name was mentioned.
So which agreement covers what?
One document per gap. This is the whole map, and the sheet is the last row because it does its one job properly.
| What is outside the sheet | The agreement that covers it | Where it is explained |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the recording | An assignment, signed by everyone with a claim on it | Who owns the master |
| What the producer is owed for producing | A producer agreement | Producer points |
| A session player’s contribution to the recording | A one-page assignment, signed at the session | Who owns the master |
| A featured guest’s credit and fee | A feature agreement, before delivery | Featured, “with,” side artist |
| Who administers and collects the publishing | A publishing or administration agreement | Why your statement is short |
| Who may grant a licence, and who must agree | A co-writer or co-publishing agreement that says so | If you never signed one |
| A sample of somebody else’s record | Clearance from that recording’s owner and that song’s publisher | Not yet published here |
| What the writers agree the shares are | The split sheet — its one job, done properly | The template |
Nobody needs all eight on every song. A solo writer recording alone at home needs one row and can ignore the rest for life. The point is that you find out which rows apply to you by reading them now, and not by having a publisher’s lawyer read them to you during a deal, in the week you were supposed to be enjoying the fact that somebody wanted your song.
Go and look at the last release you put out. Count how many of these eight you can produce a document for. If the answer is one, you now know what your fucking weekend looks like — and it is a considerably better weekend than the one where a supervisor asks and you start typing an apology.
FAQ
If everyone signed the split sheet, do you still need a separate agreement for the master?
Yes. The recording is a second copyright with its own owner, and a split sheet neither records nor transfers anything about it. Who ends up holding the recording is decided by a different document entirely.
Does a split sheet cover producer points?
No. A producer point is a share of the recording’s royalty, and a split sheet allocates writer shares of the song. They are different money coming off different copyrights, and one document does not reach the other.
Do you send your split sheet to your PRO or to The MLC?
No. You register the work, and the registration is what a society reads when it pays. The split sheet is the agreement behind the numbers you file, and it stays with the writers.
Does a split sheet cover a song that samples somebody else’s record?
No. A sample is two more copyrights belonging to other people — the recording and the song underneath it — and permission for both is obtained from those owners. Your own sheet divides what is left.
Sources
- US Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 102(a) — the categories of works of authorship, including “musical works, including any accompanying words” at (2) and “sound recordings” at (7). Two separate categories, which is where the two copyrights in one song come from.
- US Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 201(d)(2) — that any exclusive right, including any subdivision of the rights specified by section 106, may be transferred and owned separately. The divisibility rule this piece is built on.
- US Copyright Office, What Musicians Should Know about Copyright — that a sound recording and the content included in it are separate copyright-protected works, subject to different rules and commonly owned and licensed separately. The Office’s two PDF circulars on this subject would not extract on the machine this piece was written on; this HTML page states the same propositions and was read end to end.
- Copyright Act (Canada), section 18(1) — that the maker of a sound recording holds the copyright in it, and what that copyright consists of. Consolidation current to 2026-06-17.
- The MLC, how to register works in the MLC Portal — that only the work title is required, that at least one Composer/Author or Composer writer role is required for a new registration, and that a publisher’s collection share is entered between 0.01% and 100%.
- BMI, the difference between performing right, mechanical and sync royalties — that BMI royalties are performing right royalties, and that the mechanical and synchronization rights are licensed elsewhere.
This is not legal advice. Everything above is US and Canadian law, stated generally, and which agreement you actually need turns on facts this page cannot see — what was agreed, where you are, and who else already has paper. Every page cited here was read on the date at the top of this piece. Before you sign one of these documents or accept one, have a lawyer in the relevant territory read it.
Keeping the register
The reason this piece is a list of eight documents is that the song is a stack of separate positions, and CatalogTracker holds them the way they actually exist: master splits and publishing splits are kept per track, separately, each summing to their own 100. It generates two typeset agreements from them — a master royalty agreement and a publishing split agreement — with the governing law set from four options, United States (New York or Delaware), Canada (Ontario), or Other. They print with “template only” on them, because that is what they are, and they are signed on paper. In development for iPhone.