The 200% in Music Royalties

Two ledgers, not double money

A single performance royalty is one amount of money. The PRO splits it into two halves and pays each on its own ledger: the writer's share to the songwriters, the publisher's share to the publisher. Add the two ledgers' totals and you get 200%, but the money is the original 100%, just routed down two tracks. The same logic applies to the mechanical royalty on the composition.

The other 200%: co-writes

There's a second place the number shows up, and it's a different thing. On a co-written song, each side has to sum to 100% on its own: all the writers' shares add up to 100%, and all the publishers' shares add up to 100%. Listed together on a split sheet, that reads as 200%.

Writer	Writer's share	Publisher's share
Writer A	50%	50%
Writer B	50%	50%
Total	100%	100%

Each column has to total 100%. If one side adds up to more than 100%, say two writers each claim 60%, the registration conflicts and the collector holds the money until the split is corrected.

Where the publisher's share gets stranded

A common reason composition money goes unclaimed is a publisher's share with nowhere to land. Organizations differ on how they handle a writer who hasn't set up a publisher entity: some pay both shares to the writer, others hold the publisher's share until a publisher is registered. Either way, registering the publisher side, even if it's just you, is what makes the full 200% payable.

How Notes handles it

Notes registers both ledgers, writer's share and publisher's share, and every co-writer's slice, with matching IPIs and splits across the PROs, The MLC, and societies worldwide, so the whole 200% is claimed and routed to the right people. Run a free royalty review to see what your compositions are owed.