What is Music Publishing?

Music Publishing is the business of promotion and monetization of musical compositions: music publishers ensure that songwriters receive royalties for their compositions, and also work to generate opportunities for those compositions to be performed and reproduced.

Publishing is the oldest vertical of the music business. It was there long before the first recording mediums came around, and in the early 20th century, sheet music publishing pretty much ran the music business. Publishers were in charge of putting compositions to paper, producing songbooks, distributing them to the stores, and compensating authors for the commercial use of their works. 

Fast forward through early recording days, the birth of radio, vinyl, cassette tapes, CDs, digital piracy, download-to-own services, and, finally, streaming. A lot has changed since the songbook days, and nowadays, music publishers earn money in a very different way — but their role, at its core, stayed the same throughout the years.

Publishers are responsible for representing composers, songwriters, and lyricists — the authors of the musical works — making sure that they get compensated for the commercial use of their intellectual property. Back in the day, that meant paying them a percentage of songbook sales — today, it involves collecting royalties across the industry on their behalf.

Nowadays, the power has shifted from the label/publisher to the artist/songwriters. The new digital music industry is a place of self-promotion and self-production.