COMPOSITION
ALSO CALLED: MUSICAL WORK
DEFINITION
A composition is the underlying musical work consisting of melody, harmony, and lyrics, as distinguished from any particular recorded performance of it. It is the copyright a songwriter or composer owns, separate from and prior to any master recording made of it.
WHAT IT MEANS IN PRACTICE
The composition exists the moment it is written down or otherwise fixed in a tangible form; it does not need to be recorded professionally to be protected. A voice memo of an original melody is enough to establish a composition copyright.
Because the composition and the master are separate, someone can record a cover of a song without ever contacting the original recording artist, as long as they clear the composition rights, which in many countries including the US operate under a compulsory mechanical license once the song has been commercially released.
Publishing income flows from the composition: performance royalties when it is played publicly, mechanical royalties when it is reproduced, and sync fees when it is paired with visuals. All of that is separate from whatever income the master recording generates through streaming or sales.
In collaborative writing sessions, composition ownership is usually split by percentage among credited writers, which is exactly what a split sheet exists to document.
AN EXAMPLE
A jazz standard written in 1955 has had hundreds of recorded versions by different artists, each producing a separate master, but the underlying composition and its royalty stream still belongs to the original songwriter's estate.
WATCH OUT
People sometimes think a cover artist 'owns' their version, when in fact they usually only own the master of their specific recording, not the composition itself.
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