What you are failing to mention here though is that the publisher would have paid the writer an advance which has to be clawed back. This is the reason for the 50/50 split. However, what you are offering is 40% to me, which would have to be split between me and my publisher, while your artist 'Refracture' gets 60% to himself. Once again I reiterate that this is a rotten deal. I can see where some unpublished writers might take a gamble, after all, 40% of nothing is nothing. But for a published writer to take this sort of deal on he would have to be really stupid.
A good remixer should be taking a maximum of 30%, and that is the maximum which any decent publisher would allow one of their tracks to go for. So the deal is not a good one.
Hi Mark, I appreciate your comments, but what needs to be kept in mind here is that this is an opportunity for a single mechanical release through a label, in which case the publisher only plays a small role due to the way in which the copyright of the master recording plays a bigger role than the copyright of the song for a mechanical release.
To quantify this, each time a record is sold through a digital outlet, the label must pay a fee to the songwriter/publisher to the amount of 8% of the retail price of the record.
So this is how the revenue generated by a mechanical release of a remix would usually be split...
Label: 42% (50% minus the 8% fee to be paid to the writer/publisher)
Original recording artist/s: 25%
Remix Artist: 25%
Songwriter & publisher: 8%
In our case, the label and the remix artist is the same party, Refracture. So by the industry rule of thumb this would
usually net Refracture a total of 67%, leaving 33% to be split amongst the other parties.
Our deal is 60% to Refracture and the remaining 40% is to be split amongst the recording artist, the songwriter and the publisher, providing these parties with 7% more than what is usual for a mechanical release.
However, what can complicate this further is that the roles of publishers and labels are becoming more blurred/entwined and DIY artist culture complicates the picture too. So perhaps your publisher also overseas your master copyright, in which case the publisher and label are one and the same. It really depends on what deals you have in place, who is responsible for what and who represents the master rights and who represents the song rights.
In any case we believe that our deal represents good value for the artist and the songwriter (who are likely to be the same person in this case), based upon a comparison with the industry norm for mechanical releases.
