Agree your splits in the room, on the day, in writing. A signed one-page split sheet before anyone leaves the session prevents almost every dispute that ever reaches a lawyer. The default that causes the fewest arguments is equal shares among everyone who wrote in the room; deviate from it deliberately and say why, out loud, at the time.
A songwriting split divides the composition copyright — the song. That determines who receives performance royalties, mechanical royalties and the publishing side of any sync fee.
It does not divide the master recording. Producer points on the master, session fees and artist royalties are separate negotiations with separate paperwork. A producer can hold both a writing share and master points, and those two numbers have nothing to do with each other.
Know which side you are on before the conversation starts: when you write and produce the record yourself, both copyrights sit with you, and the split conversation only ever covers the people who were genuinely in the room.
This is the genuinely grey part, and being clear about the greyness saves relationships.
Melody and lyrics are songwriting nearly everywhere. Chord progressions usually count when they define the song. Playing a part someone else wrote is performance, not writing.
Everything else is contested. A beat the entire song is built on, a bassline that functions as the hook, a rhythmic feel that makes the topline work — different genres and different countries treat these differently, and there is no percentage table that settles it. Which is precisely why the agreement matters more than the theory.
A note on AI-assisted work, since it comes up in every session now: the parts a CoProducer helps you build in Veena are yours, and they belong to whoever made the creative calls in the room, exactly as a synth preset or a drum machine pattern always has. Write down who decided what, the same as always.
Why it works: fastest, least corrosive, and standard practice across a lot of pop writing. Nobody spends an hour arguing about who contributed the pre-chorus.
What it costs you: it is unfair when someone brought in a finished song and the others added polish.
Why it works: reflects what actually happened, and it is the sensible shape when one writer arrived with most of the song.
What it costs you: a conversation while everyone is still emotionally invested in their own contribution. Do it early or it never gets done cleanly.
Why it works: clear in genres where the producer builds the track and a topliner writes over it. Both sides know the convention going in.
What it costs you: it breaks down when the producer also shapes the melody, which happens constantly.
- Song title, plus any working title it was saved under
- Date and location of the session
- Each writer's full legal name, not their artist name
- Each writer's performing rights organisation and member or IPI number
- Publisher, if any, for each writer
- Agreed percentage for each writer, totalling exactly 100
- A signature from every writer
Keep the file with the project and name it after the song. When you register the work with your PRO months later, the sheet is the only thing that stops you guessing.
The absent contributor. Someone sent a voice note that became the hook but was not in the session. Decide their share at the time, not when the song charts.
The engineer who suggested a change. Sometimes it is a real contribution and sometimes it is good engineering. Say which, in the room.
Uncleared samples and interpolations. A borrowed melody can pull an outside rights holder into your split whether or not you agreed to it.
Verbal agreements. Two people remember the same conversation differently and both are telling the truth. Writing it down is not distrust, it is memory management.
The unregistered writer. A correct split sheet is useless if one writer never affiliates with a PRO. Their share sits uncollected.
Have the conversation before the song exists, not after it succeeds. Five minutes of mild awkwardness at the end of a session is the cheapest thing in music. The same conversation two years later involves lawyers, and lawyers cost more than the song usually earns.
Then get back to the part that matters. Splits only ever become valuable on songs that get finished — open Veena, take the session you just wrote through to a finished master, and register it with the sheet you signed on the day.
Nothing here is legal advice. If a song is earning real money, or a co-writer disputes a share you thought was settled, a music lawyer is worth the fee.
Related reading: music publishing explained, music royalties explained, and collaborating with other musicians.