WHAT IT IS
One sheet, signed by everyone present, on the night.
Not a rights management platform and not a collection society. Those exist and do their job. This is the piece that comes before either of them, and its only claim is that it was agreed at a time when nobody had a reason to lie.
- 1
Written at the session
Song title, date, everyone in the room, and the split they agree. Takes about four minutes if the conversation is easy and it should be easy that night.
- 2
Everyone signs
Each writer confirms from their own device. It is not a sheet one person made and the others were shown.
- 3
It stops being editable
Changing an agreed split needs everyone who signed it to sign again. One person cannot revise it later, which is the entire point.
- 4
It sits there
Doing nothing, possibly for years. If the song never earns anything, it cost four minutes. If it does, the argument is already settled.
What the sheet does not do
It does not leave the room
The sheet covers one song and reaches the people who wrote it. There is no directory, no public catalogue, and no page anyone can look you up on.
It does not follow you between songs
A writer who took ten percent on one song and forty on another has shown you exactly how to negotiate with them. Your other sheets are not visible to the people on this one.
It does not decide anything
If four writers agree a split that a court would call wrong, the sheet records what they agreed. It is evidence of the agreement, not a ruling on authorship.
It does not need to be right the first time
A split can be changed. It just takes everyone who signed it signing again, which is the difference between an agreement and one person's version of one.
A songwriter's splits across a catalogue is a picture of their bargaining position. Publishing that, even to the other writers in the room, would stop anyone using this at all.