When a publisher own the song it is put in to their catalog. Merchandise retailers have catalogs of their goods just like publishers have a catalog of songs that they own rights to. Publishing firms such as Warner/Chappell, BMG Music, MCA Music, and Sony music have catalogs of many styles of music. These companies are referred to as “full-line companies.” A broad repertoire allows them to market their music to many audiences. Most of these full-line company’s roots can be traced back to the music of Hollywood and the show music of Broadway. Publishers today may have thousands of songwriters in its catalog including all styles of music from around the globe. Representative Warner/Chappell owns, administers, or sub-publishes more that a million copyrights here and abroad.Today’s full-line publishers have many different divisions to their company. Large publishers handle virtually every aspect of a writer’s music, it’s recordings, distribution, sales, promotion, advertising, touring, and legal affairs. This figure lays out all the divisions a full-line publisher may have.The administration division is the division that handles the operations of the firm. All business affairs go through administration. When money is received from or paid to customers the firm the accounting divisions keeps all the financial records of these kinds of operations. The accounting division also would handle loans given to artist that are signed to the firm under the publisher’s record label. When a band records an album under a label they become a liability to the label because money has to be spent to record, produce and promote a artists music. Full-line publisher’s front this money and all profits from the artist come back and are split 50-50 with the publisher and the writer. If the artist maintains the rights to their songs the record contract will include a controlled composition clause that calls...
