Works
General
A Work is the musical composition - the song itself, as opposed to any one recording of it. It carries the ISWC, the language of the lyrics and, most importantly, who wrote it and who publishes it, with their shares. A work exists independently of the Recordings made of it: a studio version, a live version and a remix can all point to the same work.
Search matches the title and the ISWC.
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Title | The title of the work |
| ISWC | The International Standard Musical Work Code, or a dash if none has been entered |
| Writers | The writers credited on the work |
| Recordings | How many recordings are linked to the work |
New creates a work called Untitled work and opens it straight away.
Edit view
Work details
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Title | The title of the work (required) |
| ISWC | The work's ISWC, e.g. T-917.239.419-3 |
| Language of lyrics | The language the lyrics are written in |
Further fields sit behind the collapsed Full DDEX metadata accordion, as on every other edit form.
Writers & publishers
This section records the split of the work. Each writer is a Party with a role - for example Composer, Lyricist or Composer & lyricist - and a share of the work in percent. A header above the list shows the writers total, so you can see at a glance whether the shares add up to 100%.
Under each writer sit the publishers that represent them. Every publisher line has:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Publisher | The party that publishes the writer's share |
| Role | Original publisher or Sub-publisher |
| Share | The publisher's percentage of the writer's share, not of the whole work |
| Territory | Where the publisher is active - Worldwide or a single country, e.g. Germany |
Because the publisher share is relative, each line spells out what it comes to for the work as a whole: 100% of Marta Novak's share = 33.34% of the work. That is how a worldwide original publisher and a territorial sub-publisher can each hold 100% without contradicting each other.
Use Add publisher under a writer to add a line and the x to remove a writer or a publisher. Writers and publishers are chosen from the catalog's parties, and a party that does not exist yet can be invented in place, exactly as when crediting a recording.
Linking works and recordings
Open a Recording and use the Works card: pick a work from Add a work... to link it, or take it off with the x. Like every other change this is staged until you press Save.
The recording then shows a read-only Copyright section that lists each linked work with its writers, their roles and shares, and the publishers beneath them with their territory. It is the writer and publisher information a society or DSP asks for, shown where you are preparing the recording.