Songwriters beware of re-titling compositions for publishers

Attention songwriters: beware of publishers who offer to solicit your works to third parties by re-titling your compositions. Seek advice from a lawyer before signing into such a deal.

A songwriter client of mine has been approached on several occasions by outifts who propose to "place" his music with television studios, movie studios, and producers. In order to do this, these outfits require the songwriter to sign a "non-exclusive publishing agreement" wherein they re-title the subject compositions for submission to the given studios/producers. The sales pitch goes something like, "you continue to own 100% of the copyright, and the deal is non-exclusive, so you can enter into as many publishing agreements as you like with your songs as long as the titles are not the same as the titles under our agreement". In my opinion, such arrangements are a pitfall for aspiring songwriters, and a risk of litigation down the road.

I take serious issue with this business model, and unless the publisher agrees to some sort of buyout/escape clause and co-administration language, I advise my songwriter clients to be very wary of such deals. My reasoning is based upon copyright law. Under copyright law, you own protection for the underlying composition of the musical work you authored. Therefore, if you are granting a license to one of your compositions, the license is for the composition itself, regardless of the name of the composition. If you enter into a publishing agreement like the one described above, you have licensed your compositions under such agreement. Re-titling the same compositions does not change the underlying work itself, therefore any subsequent license of the same songs (even with different titles) may infringe upon the rights granted in the prior license.

Further, if a different [more prominent] publishing company subsequently offers you an exclusive publishing deal for the songs that you have already licensed in the aforementioned manner, I propose that you would never be able to grant such exclusive license without first terminating the original "non-exclusive" license! This could significantly hinder the career of an up-and-coming songwriter who is duped into signing such a "non-exclusive" re-titling publishing agreement.

Please seek the advice of a lawyer before signing any contract, especially a publishing agreement like the one described above.