Music Publishing Is Boring. Not Understanding It Is Expensive ft. Jacob Paul (Kobalt/KOSIGN)

You could get to 100,000 monthly listeners, a million, 10 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and never collect a single dime of your publishing royalties. Publishing Publishing is objectively the most boring word in music. One One billion with a B. Dollars goes uncollected every year. just overly complicated, man. I'm f***ing sick of That's why you guys are leaving your publishing money on the table. What What can I say? You don't get paid your publishing money by default. 20%. They're just gonna keep that forever. That's That's just part of their vault of songs that they own now. As I said, publishing is literally an asset. You've just been appointed Supreme Leader of the Music Industry for one day. What What is your first order of business? My My first order of business is... What is music publishing? Here's Here's the definition I would give. I would say music publishing at its core is the business of making sure that songwriters, anyone who writes a song, gets paid whenever their song is played. Okay. Okay.

I like that. And wherever that song is played. So whether or not that song is played on Spotify or Apple Music or YouTube or social media platform like TikTok or Instagram, or whether or not that song is played by going to a concert and hearing it or buying a vinyl record, or you're on your Peloton and you hear the song in a workout video. Like all all of those places are areas that generate revenue and generate royalties for a song. And And the business and the job of a publisher is to make sure that the songwriter gets that money. And And part of that means navigating an incredibly, as you said, complicated and complex system around the world in order to take that money from all those places where people are listening to the song and get it to the songwriter. And And at its core, and there's a lot more detail that we'll go into, but at its core, that is what publishing is. It's It's making sure songwriters get paid whenever and wherever their song is played. Okay. Make sure we are defining songwriter here. Because

Because when I hear songwriter, I think of like that person that just writes songs. They don't have a forward facing artist brand, right? Right. Right. The The more traditional, like ghost writer for rat, right? You know, like that's how I beat makers, bro. Yeah, exactly. make sure let's define songwriter here. Great Great point. So songwriter in this case is just anyone who owns some writing credit on a song. So So that could be like what you just said, a pure songwriter, someone who's behind the scenes. They don't make a beat. They're not the artist. They're just helping with lyrics or with the melody. But But it goes way beyond that. that. Like songwriter could be the artist because most artists like do have some writing credit on their song. Maybe they're the entire songwriter of their song. It It could be a beat maker, a producer. If If they contributed musical composition to the final track, then they can get publishing credit and be a songwriter. So when I say songwriter, you know, really what I mean is artists, producers, songwriters, anyone who owns a piece of a song, if you are one of those people, then you are entitled to publishing royalties. And And it's important for you to have a plan for how am I going to make sure I'm collecting those songwriting royalties. Okay. So break down like the two buckets of royalties, right? So

So obviously we're here to talk about publishing, but like, like, obviously I know publishing verse master, explain kind of like what the difference is and why publishing maybe gets overlooked so much, right? Or why is it more confusing it seems than like master? I don't know. So first off, what are the two different types of royalties? And then we're going to talk in a very, very specific reason why publishing gets overlooked. Okay. Okay. First off, two different kinds of royalties, the two two copyrights in music, right? Whenever Whenever you go to Spotify, whenever you listen to a song, a track, there's two copyrights that both make money. The The first one, which is more well known is called the sound recording or the master, right? And And that's the literal recording you're listening to the drums, the production, the synths, the vocals, right? That makes money. And often, you know, if you have a distributor or a label, they pay you your master royalties. Okay. Okay. The The second is the song itself, the song, the publishing, the composition. That's the songwriting royalties. When we say, what's a publisher? It's,

It's, it's the, it's the, it's the business that helps you collect those royalties. And And it, you know, it's important to say, like, if, if you wrote a song and then I, as an artist covered your song and put that on DistroKid and it got a million streams, I would get the master royalties from those streams, but but I wouldn't get any of the songwriting royalties because I didn't write the song. It's your song, right? So that's why it's important that we have those two different copyrights because someone can cover a song. You You know, one of the greatest songwriters of all time passed away a few days ago, ago, rest in peace, Dolly Parton. Indeed. Indeed. She's She's a really famous example of this. She wrote, I will always love you, which Dolly Parton song, which was pretty successful. And And then it was taken to the next level by Whitney Houston. Right. And that's a great example of how publishing works. You You know, that's still Dolly Parton song and Dolly still got the publishing, even from anyone who would cover that song. So So that's why there are these two different copyrights. Okay. Okay. Right. So now your question is like, so why does no one ever think about publishing? Yeah. Cause I, I always think like, yo, I uploaded my song to Spotify, bro. Like

Like I got it. Give me all my money. my bag now. I'm good. DistroKid's got my bag. Here's the thing about publishing money. You You don't get paid your publishing money by default. And that's why for me, in so many ways, that is the root of why publishing is so misunderstood and so under collected. What What do I mean by that? Let's say you're an independent artist. And I know a lot of people listening to the show are independent artists. Yeah. You literally can't get your music onto Spotify, onto Apple Music without having a distributor. Yeah. Right. Right. Who Who by default needs to pay you your master royalties. Right. So So you can just like not think about to pay you your master royalties. Right. So you can just like not think about it. You can just be like, Hey, I just want to get my music on the internet. I just want to get it onto streaming platforms. And And then you've covered the base to make sure that you are collecting your master royalties. But But here's the thing. You could get to a hundred thousand monthly listeners, 500,000, a million, 10 million monthly listeners on Spotify and never collect a single dime of your publishing royalties. And nothing in the system would automatically tell you that you've done anything wrong at all. And And this is where this mystical magical box comes into play. Right.

Right. Right. The The black box. box. That's the one. But when you think about it, it's crazy. Yeah, it's insane. You could, you could have a catalog of a hundred million or a billion streams on your artist project, be the hundred percent songwriter on that artist project. That That could literally mean millions of dollars in publishing money. And And if you just like didn't know about publishing, it's not like there would be like this alert on your phone. That's like, yo, collector publishing money. It's It's just like, you would just think that you're crushing it. Like you'd be getting paid by your distributor. You'd be living large. You'd be getting brand deals and you're just not collecting your publishing money. And nothing in the system would tell you. And that is why I think it's so misunderstood because how do you collect that money? You You need to actively raise your hand across every single collection society, country, platform, and put in what's called a registration in order to say, hey, I'm a songwriter on this song. You need to unlock my songwriting royalties and pay them to me. And And unless you actively raise your hand and navigate that very, very sort of like complicated system, you're just not going to collect that money. And

that's why the publishing business exists at its core. It It exists to help songwriters who aren't getting paid their royalties by default, navigate the system in order to make sure that they're not leaving that money on the table. So how much money is in the black box right now? Estimated. Estimated. Do Do you know? So So how much money is in the black box? Do they even tell you at your level? But what I can say, what I can say is like, we, you know, there is, there's like research on this. And And our best guess is that in any given year, there is as much as 1 billion with a B dollars that just goes uncollected every year. Where is is it? Where, what, like what bank? Who, yeah, where is it sitting? Who's holding it in crypto? So, I mean, mean, like, where is the money? Is it an actual box? It's not an actual box. First off, when people say black box, what they're referring to is that, you you know, so where, so where does publishing money live? Well, Well, it lives in the places that people listen to music, right? So,

So, you know, Spotify pays publishing money. Apple pays publishing money. You You know, every record label, if you go to a record store and buy a piece of vinyl for $20, you know, part of that allocation goes to publishing royalties. And And the thing is that all of these different platforms, all the collection societies, the ASCAPs, the BMIs, the MLCs, and then obviously every country has their own collection societies. And we can get into what those are. Yeah. They They all sort of are receiving these royalties. And the reason the black box exists is like none of these players in the space want to hold on to unclaimed royalties forever. It's It's sort of, and it kind of makes sense in some level. Like Like if someone gave you, if someone was like, hey, like, I'm just going to give you $100 and just, you know, but give it back to me at some point. point. And then they kind of like, don't show up. At a certain point, you might be like, I'm kind of nervous because whose money is this? I'm like, are they going to come to me? Absolutely. And, you know, like, it's going to be my problem. So, you know, they don't want to hold on to it forever. So they accidentally spend it, you know? Right. And then, you know, so after a certain amount of time and that length of time actually varies quite a bit based on what country you're in, what collection society it is, what streaming platform it is. So

So people often say like, how long does it take before kissing the black box? There isn't isn't the single answer. But after after some amount of time, they just say, I don't want to hold on to this shit anymore. And I am going to liquidate it and put it into like some kind of vehicle. We call it the black box, not literal vehicle, but like financial. I I was like, oh God, now it's a car. Where it gets, that's even worse. like, what are we talking about here? Where Where then it gets distributed based on whatever agreements we have with the major rights holders, which generally means the major labels. Right. So So it's actually incredibly messed up and frustrating to think about it because in general, this is money that should be claimed usually by independent artists and songwriters who, for whatever reason, are just struggling to navigate a system that, to be fair, is incredibly complicated and in some ways seems almost to be built to make it as hard to navigate as possible. Possibly. And then who's benefiting? Well, Well, the major rights holders, the major labels, the major publishers who get sort of this liquidated income as black box income. So So it is an incredibly frustrating picture.

And it's, by the way, that's part of why I'm doing this, right? It's It's like, because as complicated as publishing is, I think once people understand, hey, look, there's a second type of royalty that is connected to the fact that I wrote a song. It's real money that I don't want to leave on the table. And And there are ways that I can actually grab that money and make sure it's like literally my money. I I should be paid it. Like, Like, that's part of why I'm doing it is is people have to understand, like, I'm not going to get paid it by default. You You do need to navigate the system. But guess what? Like, there are ways of navigating the system. And And it's a really important stream of income for anyone who's writing songs and starting to build actual traction on their catalog. So So what is the registration process then, right? Because, Because, again, it's like, why is this so difficult for people to just go do? I mean, mean, is the registration process difficult in itself or is it? It depends how you want to go about it. Sure. So there there are multiple types of publishing royalties. Like we said, there's two big types of royalties, master and publishing.

But within publishing, there's multiple types of royalties. Okay, Okay, speak on it. So there's there's three main types that people should know about. Yeah. One One is called the performance royalty. Okay. Okay. That is collected directly, generally by PROs, performing rights organizations. In the United States, that's ASCAP and BMI. Okay. Okay. There There are a few others. Yeah. But But every country has their own version of it because they're all collecting it in their specific territory. And performance royalties trace back, honestly, to radio. When, you know, you turn on the radio, you hear the performance of a song and you're the songwriter and you're like, well, how am I going to get paid? Performance royalty. We'll pay you a performance royalty. Okay. That's number one. Then there's the mechanical royalty. That traces itself back to when, you know, you're actually making vinyl records. We're We're using machines to imprint a song onto a physical piece of media. And then we're selling that in stores. I'm a songwriter. How am I going to get paid? We'll We'll pay you a mechanical royalty. Now, today, people just like listen to music on YouTube and Spotify and Apple Music and stuff like that. But But those areas, you know, if you go to streaming, they actually create both performance and mechanical royalties just from listening to a song like on Spotify, for example. And,

And, you know, there are mechanical collection societies that collect the mechanical royalties. Again, Again, in every single country, they all have their own society. The The third big type is sync. I I think people know that often a little bit better. Like Like if a TV show or a movie or an advertisement wants to use your song and they want to couple your song with some kind of like visual media, that's a sync license that they need to get from you as a songwriter. They They also need to get it on the master recording as well in that case because they're using an actual recording. So So those are like the three big types of royalties. Here's Here's the problem. You You said, well, how do you collect it? What does the registration look like? There There There are literally hundreds of different sources around the world that are collecting these types of royalties in a narrow sense. Like Like there might be a collection society for mechanical royalties in the Czech Republic and a collection society for mechanical royalties in the United States and a collection society for mechanical royalties in Australia. And, And, you know, there are, as I said earlier, like there might be all these digital platforms, like, like karaoke apps and exercise platforms that are using music that are paying royalties. So it's

it's very, very, very, very, very difficult for any one songwriter to actually fill out hundreds, hundreds of registrations where they're saying, here's my song and here's all the splits and here are my co -writers. Like that would become more than a full -time job. And you would pay tens of thousands of dollars in just like collection society joining fees. So So there's a different way to navigate the system if you're really serious about collecting everything. And that's to rely on what's called a publishing administrator, a pub admin, a publishing admin, right? And And the job of a pub admin is to affiliate and join membership with all of these societies around the world so that as a songwriter, you just have one place for you to deliver your song. You know, song title splits, here are my co -writers, their names, like the basic data about the song in order for that pub admin to then register it everywhere directly, collect your money and then pay your money. So, so what are the different types of pub deals? Cause Cause obviously I've heard of pub admin, there's

there's there's more traditional publishing deals, right? Can you you break down the different types of pub deals and and at what stage should an artist be, you know, exploring each of those different types? Like when do they make sense? I I know it's all kind of maybe, you know, individual case basis with like what you're trying to achieve and your long -term goals, et cetera. But But we'd love to get like a basic understanding of when each of those makes sense for me. It's It's a great question. There's a lot of different types of pub deals. Because Because I'm going to start. How many are we talking about? damn, this is a, Jacob. I I mean, in theory, I'll break it down to just a couple main ones people should know. Well, that's kind of interesting. Yeah, I mean, maybe give the like other weird ones that no one does. I'm big into simplicity. Yeah. For For me, if there was way fewer types of pub deals in some ways, I think that would kind of be better for everybody. Because the more confusing something is, like the more, honestly, the easier it is, I think, for big companies that have a lot of knowledge to sometimes put art as an unfair situation. So So I prefer simplicity.

Yeah. The The most traditional type of publishing deal today, the one that I hear lots of artists and songwriters say, like, I need to get myself one of these. It's called a co -pub, co -publishing deal. Okay. That That is basically a deal where the artist or songwriter basically sells a portion of their underlying ownership in their songs to the publisher. So So they're getting like maybe an advance. Hopefully they're getting some kind of service from the publisher beyond just administration. You know, that's the collections. Maybe Maybe they're getting some like help on the A &R and the sync side. But, But, you know, in exchange, they are literally selling half of their ownership in the song to the publisher. And, you know, you asked when should someone think about this? You know, I'm not here to say certain types of deals are always good. Certain types of deals are always bad. I'm I'm a big fan of artists keeping 100% ownership, which they don't do with a co -pub deal. So So that's my personal advice to most artists. I I think the thing to know about entering into a co -pub deal is that, you know, and we'll talk more on this kind of later in the show, I think. But, you know, publishing is an asset. And

And when you sign a co -pub deal, you're basically selling 50% of that, often pretty early in your career. And And it's sort of like selling low. You You know, you always say like you buy low, you sell high. Like you generally want to build a lot of value into something you're selling and then sell it when it really has hit the peak of its value. And And I think if you're really early in your career and you're signing a co -pub, you know, you are kind of selling low. So you really just want to make sure, you know, am I getting back from this publisher? Am Am I really confident in the services I want to get from them that they're going to change my life creatively, that whatever advance they're giving me actually is going to change my life? Because Because if not, it might be a little early to just sort of like kind of sell out half of an asset that you're actively building. You also always want to know how long is this going to last? You You know, some more traditional type of co -publishing deals can have very long terms, very long what's called a rights period, which means like that's how long you have to be giving every new song you write to that publisher. So those are things that you really want to weigh.

And frankly, like if someone is putting a co -publishing deal or any kind of deal in front of you, especially a co -pub deal, you really do want to seek out like actual legal advice. Because, you know, it can work for some people, but there are plenty of artists and songwriters who have signed co -pubs. And then basically said like, oh my God, like, I don't know how I'm going to get out of this deal. And I, maybe I wish I'd explored it a different way. Now, what is the other path? Yeah. Yeah. The big other path is called an administration deal, an admin deal. And And really what that is, and by the way, you know, that is what a company like, you know, Kobalt, where I work, KOSIGN, that's the, you know, the publishing platform that we founded a couple of years ago. So, you know, we only do admin deals. And those are deals where the songwriter keeps 100% ownership over the songs. And And their relationship with the publisher is just a service relationship. Like the publisher will do that job of registering the songs globally, right? We We will make sure that we're the one place you send the song to for us to register it at ASCAP, BMI, the MLC in the United States, PRS in the UK, APRA AMCOS in Australia, JazzRack in Japan. I I could go on for a hundred.

don't want to do it. I'm not doing it. not doing it. Right. So, you know, the publisher registers it, collects your money, pays you regularly what your, you know, what your songwriting royalties are in exchange for some kind of admin fee. But you own your songs and you're working with that administrator for a certain length of time that's in the term of the deal. And then when that's done, you can take those songs. You can go to a different administrator. You can sign a co -pub deal with those songs. You could sell those songs if you want to create, you know, a windfall for yourself or you're at the end of your career and you want to have something to pass on to your kids. You You know, as I said, publishing is literally an asset. So what are those terms typically like? For an admin deal? I would say. Or just across the board. What are some of the. Like, yeah. So So how long am I. So So co -pub deals. All All right. I hope you guys are enjoying the Jacob Paul episode and learning a little something about publishing. It is not an interesting topic, but it is potentially a very lucrative topic that we all at least need a basic understanding of.

Like Jacob said, there's two halves to royalties for every song that you participate in making. The master royalties, which are collected by your distributor. If If you manage to get your songs onto streaming platforms, you got that one taken care of. If they they are collecting your master royalties for you. But unless you have a publishing administrator and a good one, you're not collecting the publishing half. Oh, but I have ASCAP. I have BMI. That's That's great. They're They're getting some of your publishing. They're They're not getting all of your publishing. That That is what an administrator does. And And that is where KOSIGN comes into play. They are are a pub admin under Kobalt. Huge, Huge, successful company. So So if you're working with them, you've got the same machine that is working for people like Max Martin, Stevie Nicks, and Shadosh Gambino. They They have direct deals with people like Spotify, Apple, TikTok, YouTube. So there's fewer middlemen and you get your money faster. You You keep 100% ownership of your songs and 80% of every penny that they collect. No setup fees. They don't get paid until you do. They are selective with who they work with. But applying is absolutely free, which is why I'm going to go ahead and drop the link to apply to KOSIGN in the description of this video so that you guys can apply. Because why not?

You might have money that you're already owed, that you already deserve waiting for you.

Anyway, let's get back to the show. So So there are a few different things to talk about in terms of a deal. So one is like, what's the royalty rate I'm getting? Like Like how much am I getting from $100 collected by the publisher? Often Often in co -pub deals, and again, people will be in the comments saying, I've seen something different. A A publisher can have tons of variation in what they give, but I'll give like kind of the standard.

A

A standard co -publishing deal often has royalties for the songwriter in the range of, for mechanicals, around 75%. So 75 to you, 25 to the publisher. Often Often for performance that's doubled. So it might be 50 -50 on performance. So So when you blend that out, like you're paying 30 to 40% often to the publisher for every dollar coming in. And And then you get maybe 70 to 60%. But But remember, if you take an advance, that advance is a loan, right?

right?

Let's say you sign a co -pub deal with $100,000 advance. Well, out of your 60% that you're getting of those royalties, the first $100,000 coming from your share is going to recoup that advance. And guess what's not recouping that advance is the publisher share. They're

They're not taking their 30 to 40%. And paying themselves back. And using that to pay back your loan, not just keeping that from day one, right? God, what a jug, man.

Hey, we're in the wrong business.

Let's start a pub company. Hey,

Hey, we're already way ahead. Who

Who wants to sign to one more time publishing? We're giving out shitty ass deals over here. So on the co -publishing side, that gives a general sense of it.

In terms of the term, often it's a longer term that's multi -year. The The other thing to know is that often you are selling half of your copyright of all the songs that you give them.

And is that forever? Or is that also term -based? It

It depends.

But often you see what's called LLC, which stands for Life of Copyright.

Okay. Sounds kind of terrifying. So that's like perpetuity. It It sounds like forever.

Even after you're done with that deal, let's say it's been five, 10 years, you're done with that deal, and you deliver them 100 songs, right?

Yeah. Across

Across several albums. When When you're done with that deal, the publishing company you signed to will still own fractional. Part of that forever. So let's say you own 50% of each of those songs. Now you only own 25% of them because the other 25 is going to that publisher. And they're just going to keep that forever. of them because the other 25 is going to that publisher. And they're just going to keep that forever. That's just part of their vault of songs that they own now. So again, that's why I say co -publishing deals. I'm I'm not out here saying that is evil, never signed to them. There There are a lot of great publishers out there who have really dedicated A &R teams, and they pay, hopefully, really good advances for the privilege of entering into that kind of arrangement. And it could work for certain types of artists, but you really just have to think to yourself, what do I need help with? Because Because especially if you're an artist who's pretty self -contained, and you are your own creative director, and you are your own A &R, it's not that you can't accept support. It's just like, do I want to sell my body of work in exchange for the support? Yeah,

Yeah, but the thing I look at is this, man. These publishers exist for one reason only, and it's to exploit the publishing copyright. They want to make as much money as possible. So So it kind of seems like it's in their best interest, but then I think where it falls short is like, do they prioritize your record? It's

It's all about, am I, as the songwriter, by which I mean the artist, the music songwriter, am I getting back what's being taken or what I'm giving? Right? Right? Because Because remember, there's the other option. option. So now that leads to the administration deal.

Because

Because again, the core goal of publishing as a business is as a songwriter, by which I mean artist, producer, songwriter, to collect that money.

This

This is a billion dollars every year that's out there that's not making its way to artist, producers, and songwriters. So So the other way is to go through an admin deal.

And

And that's where they're just doing a service for you. They're They're making sure that they're collecting your money. Now Now on top of that, there are certain kinds of admin deals that might come with three, four, five -year terms and maybe a slightly higher admin fee for the publishing company where they are, and maybe they do pay you in advance that you are recouping out of your share. And And that might come with some services like proactive sync pitching and A&R. There There are also admin deals that are much more just focused on the collections and that are more flexible. That That comes into what we do at KOSIGN. So So I'll just talk about what the KOSIGN admin deal looks like because I think it, for me, reflects what our vision is for creating the most flexible arrangement for songwriters to just get them their money. So So what that looks like is flat 80 -20 rate, so 80% to the songwriter, and it's just a rolling quarterly term. So So what that means is you can pull up, join our service, deliver any songs that you want to deliver, and we will navigate that system of registering them globally, registering them worldwide, collecting your money, paying you every quarter for just like a fixed fee and on a rolling quarterly basis. So So like if in 12 months or 24 months or three years, it makes sense for you to evolve your setup, you can do it. Or

Or if, hey, you know what? I'm collecting my money. This This is actually amazing. And you stay forever. That's great too. But But the whole point of an admin deal is that you own the assets. You own the songs. You own the copyrights. You're You're using this arrangement with your administrator to collect your money, but you're not signing over ownership of the songs that you're creating to that company. So

So to be clear, if I don't sign up for an administrator, right, whether it's KOSIGN or anybody else, am I literally like, and I just sign up for my PRO, ASCAP, BMI, what what am I missing out on? I get this question every day. I get this question every day. I get it too. And I'm sure you get it all the fucking time.

Once and for all. I definitely get it every day.

Because I'm hearing this and I'm like, fuck that 20%. all. I definitely get it every day. Because I'm hearing this and I'm like, fuck that 20%. Fuck these guys taking my 20%. But then I just want to know, they need to know what the exchange is here. So the question is, why can't I just sign up to a PRO? Yeah. Yeah. Like

Like if I'm in the States, like why can't I just sign up to ASCAP or BMI?

Yeah, I got ASCAP, bro. I'm good. good. First

First off, PROs are important partners. They're great. There's no PRO bashing in this house. We

We love PROs. Okay.

Okay. Shout out. So the issue with PROs and relying on them solely is that it's just one piece of the pie. So So PROs collect one type of publishing royalty, which is a performance royalty, if it's ASCAP or BMI. Okay.

Okay. And

And they collect it directly in one territory, which in this case would be the United States. Right.

Right.

But there are multiple types of publishing royalties, including mechanical royalties. And there are many, many, many countries in the world. Now Now for an ASCAP or BMI, they can collect some international performance royalties through what's called reciprocal deals, which basically means that they make side deals with other PROs. The issue there is that every PRO is taking a cut along the way and it just slows down the actual collections. And often like the more people who are passing money to each other, the less transparency you get and the more chance there is for someone to just make a mistake. Right. On On the other hand, let's talk about, let's say Kobalt or KOSIGN. Yep. we do is if we get, whenever we get a song to register, we register it directly, not just at ASCAP, not just at BMI, but also at the MLC to collect mechanical royalties, also at every mechanical royalty collection society around the world so that you're collecting your mechanicals around the entire world, which by the way, that's like 40, 50% of publishing royalties. So So if you just sign up to ASCAP, you're literally, without even talking about international performance, you're still just not collecting any mechanical royalties.

That's like 50% of your publishing. Okay.

right off the rip, right off the rip, even if you have only US fans listening to your music and your music's only being, you know, or I guess, you know, collecting royalties in the US.

Still missing half your publishing. still missing half your publishing. And by

by the way, we live in a very global like listening ecosystem. So like there's not that many artists who only have US fans. Yeah.

Yeah.

So if you go to a publishing admin like Kobalt, we're collecting, you know, we're collecting and registering, not just in the US, not just for performance, but performance mechanicals, every collection site around the world. And And then there's other advantages too. Like, and this is a bit specific to Kobalt and KOSIGN, but you know, when you have a big, you know, Kobalt, we're the biggest independent publisher in the world.

Yeah. So

So we have market share, which means that we can create direct deals with DSPs.

And this is where it gets interesting. Right. So

So in many cases, we can bypass those traditional collection societies entirely and just create a direct deal with Spotify, a direct deal with Apple Music, a direct deal with YouTube, with TikTok, with meta platforms, so Facebook and Instagram, with, you know, with, with platforms around the world and just collect directly from there.

So, you know, does that mean it's faster for me or or more money? It

It means it's faster. It means there's fewer intermediaries who are taking a cut.

Yeah. We

We also, we're the only publishing company, we founded our own international digital only PRO called AMRA, which, which does that exact thing, but outside the United States, it it just collects directly for any digital royalty, whether it's performance or mechanical, we can bypass the traditional legacy hundred year old PROs. Again, Again, we love them, but they're old, right? And And we can just collect directly from every meaningful digital platform around the world. So So to answer questions, like, why would I just go to ASCAP? It's for a couple of reasons. One One is you need to collect internationally. You need to collect not just performance, but also mechanical royalties. And And if you find a good publishing admin, right? And this is like, you know, I've really worked my career at Kobalt, KOSIGN. We We really pride ourselves on really, really trying to be the best at publishing admin and building this type of infrastructure. And And I know now, when I say infrastructure, it's like we're getting into the weeds. If If people need to fast forward this part, I understand it, I can tell you guys are interested and others are. Sure. Yeah.

It's like, we literally build structures so that we can collect more directly from the digital platforms around the world. And And that is why you would choose that kind of arrangement. It's It's one place to collect all your money. You're You're not leaving any type of publishing royalty on the table. You're You're not leaving any country on the table. And ideally, you're actually collecting much more directly from the places that matter, which is digital revenue sources. So like that, in a nutshell, is why PROs aren't enough. And we we see people every day who join, you know, our service and say, I can't believe how much more there was that I wasn't collecting when I was just going to ASCAP or BMI. So I I would say to anyone listening, definitely join a PRO. It's It's also worth saying that they're like on performance royalties, there's a writer's share of performance that the PRO will pay you directly. That That doesn't change if you join a service like KOSIGN. We We will register that song for you at BMI or ASCAP, but they'll still pay your writer's share directly. We

We won't touch that. But But the real benefit is that it's one place to go to unlock your full global publishing revenue stream.

Break down writer's share versus publisher's share. And And again, if I didn't have an admin, for example, like would I just be missing out completely on the publisher's share, you know, share or would my PRO technically pay that out too?

So it depends. For many PROs, if you just join as a writer, they might also pay you and there is no pub entity. They might lump both. Others might not.

There's

There's hundreds of PROs around the world and they're all different. Again, and they all have different sort of policies around it.

it. Okay, sure. But

But I think the key thing to remember is like, let's say I just joined a PRO in some country. I I don't, I won't even call out ASCAP or BMI. You know, you're not going to be collecting possibly on the publisher's share depending on which one you join and you're not collecting your mechanical royalties. And And like, they're also important royalty types that just fall outside the traditional PRO system. Like when you go to Spotify and you listen to a song, but there's also a music video, that's technically a micro sync. That's licensed to Spotify. When When you go on YouTube shorts and you listen to a song and their videos, that's also a micro sync. Those Those things aren't licensed by the PROs at all. Right?

Right?

So, but this is like really significant revenue.

Yeah. Right?

Right? So So again, this is where a global publishing admin comes into play because not only are we registering at those traditional PROs and the MLC for mechanical royalties, we're also licensing those micro syncs with YouTube and with Spotify. And And we're just making sure there's not a single part of the publishing ecosystem. There's There's not a single part of how people listen to songs online that isn't being covered by the various licenses we have and isn't being collected. So

So what's the ratio typically? I I know this is like all going to depend, but just, I don't know if there's any rough, you know, breakdown as far as like if, if a dollar is generated on the master sound recording side of things, is there some like average ratio on like how much money would be generated on publishing just so we understand like, yeah, you might be getting 5k from DistroKid, but you're probably owed XYZ. That's a great question. I just want to, I

I would give a range.

range. Sure. Because it depends on various things. No, yeah, definitely.

Like the range I would say is like to fully collect publishing if you own 100% of your catalog, you're going to increase the royalties you collect by anywhere from, I would say 20 to 40%. Okay.

Okay. So

So it's not a one -to -one, but it is significant. Yeah.

Yeah. And

And obviously, if you're a songwriter or a producer and you're not the artist and you're not collecting on those master royalties, then you're going to increase your earnings by infinity percent because you're not getting any of that, right? Like Like a lot of producers, especially, you know, they're eating off of maybe the fees that they're getting or the advances that they're getting on their records and they're not even thinking about the publishing side. And, And, you know, we've had at KOSIGN producers who have like literally billboard top 10 songs who who got paid pretty good advances for those songs as a producer and who weren't really thinking about the publishing and then learned about us and joined KOSIGN and delivered that song and had us register it. And a lot of these producers are honestly kind of struggling or they're paycheck to paycheck in a way because like you try to get a cut, you try to get, you know, an advance for a beat and then, you know, that, that, you know, you're eating off that and then you're kind of waiting for the next one, you you know, but if you have like a billboard top 10 song and you own decent on that publishing, like that's easily six figures of royalties over the next one, two, three years, like, like, and that makes a difference and

and that's why I like to zoom out and think like, it's not just about, okay, collect publishing royalties, like this like this is where it starts to really impact culture, right? right? Because it's like, if you're a kid and you're making beats and now you're, you're really getting cuts and you're fully collecting that publishing and now you're making like a hundred K a year off that publishing, like that's the difference between you being able to make music full time and maybe like quit those three or four side jobs you had and you not being able to do that and and if you're able to commit to this full time, like what are you making? Are you launching a new artist project? Like Like what culture are you producing? And like, that's why this is serious. Like this isn't, you know, like if, if you can take that billion dollars that goes uncollected in publishing every year and distribute it to the independent songwriters and producers and artists whose money it is, but they're just not getting it. Yeah. Yeah. Like how much more music are we going to be able to create out of that stability that we're creating for people? Like, Like, like how is that going to impact then the next generation of kids under them who are influenced by that music and who are influenced by that way of doing business to understand that that money is theirs? Like it's it's like, it really makes a difference and like it's serious to us, right? So

So I'm curious. So, So, you know, I understand it can be like potentially life -changing money. It could allow you to do stuff full time, but we used to hear all the time, like, you know, a hit song in 2005, they said you could buy a house from that. How How different is that today? Like how has the landscape really changed over time? So

So on the publishing side, it always depends on their different hit songs that have different amounts and what percent you have, but I'll put it this way. I'm not going to say names. We've We've had some songwriters, at least on KOSIGN, who had Billboard top 10 songs and shares that were maybe like under 10%, right? Like, know, like it's not, it's not like the, you know, not huge shares, but significant. And, you know, as I said, that's low mid six figures in a couple of years. So can you buy a house on that? It's, it's going to push you in that direction for sure. If If you have a giant smash and you own 30, 40%, like that is, that is house money on the publishing side, especially if it's a radio hit, right? So this this is significant income. Like Like this is this, and it's crazy. As As I said, you don't get paid it by default. You You need knowledge and you need support and infrastructure to do it. And And that's why like the goal of what we've built is to just create a single place to go in order to unlock it with hopefully what we have is the best infrastructure in the business to just tap every single publishing source and transparently collect the money and just pay people. You

guys aren't getting this money without some education, which we're providing you now and with some infrastructure from people like, KOSIGN, if you you appreciate that, go ahead and drop a like, a comment and subscribe to the channel. channel. Are you guys learning about publishing? I I know I am.

Let's go. So I feel like I've run into this situation before. So So if an artist or a songwriter in this case realizes that they, you know, they watch this video and they're like, fuck, I haven't registered any songs. Oh Oh my God. And And they go to try and register the songs, right?

Catalog. Yeah.

Yeah. Like A, there is a time frame, like obviously, and you said it kind of ranges depending on when the money just isn't accessible. Will Will they get like notified when they try to register that like, oh, too late. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's in the black box. Sorry. You

You won't get notified. What What I say is like, the time is always right to do what's right. Right. It's It's like, that's some corny shit,

but I I love it. it. No, no, I mean, the time, like, I love it. As

As you said, so what is that time window? It It depends. In In general, I would say that's a 18 to 36 month window. But But here's the thing is like, if you had a hit three years ago, people are still listening to that song.

True. Right.

Right.

People are still on Spotify. Still generating. Right. So

So it's still generating. So what I'd

is, so it's from the time that the specific dollar was. Exactly. It's not from when the song

You don't, you can never register. It's not from when the song came out.

Okay. So it's not like, I don't know why why I thought that. No, that's a good question. So So it's not like if the song went out, came out five years ago and people are still listening to it a million streams every month. Yeah. Yeah. They're just like, sorry. Sorry.

You have to like take it down and make a Taylor's version. Yeah. So we upload. Shout out Taylor. It's, it's, it's from when the actual streams happen. Yeah. So

So that's why I say, it's like, it's always just like find a pub admin, whether it's cosine or, you know, if, if that's the right fit for you or, or anyone else, but like you want to put in that registration as soon as possible. And what we do at cosine is we aggressively put in back claims. So So we say, Hey, we're representing the song. If there are any unallocated royalties, pay them our way. And then we, you know, collect everything that we can. Yeah. But that's why I say, it's like, I would, you know, people are still listening to your music, even if it came out five years ago, if it, if it made an impact, then it's still making an impact. And And the best thing you can do is just don't wait and find an admin and put in those songs to start the process.

Yeah. But so what happens if it was registered by someone else? Like, because like every time a song is registered, the publishing creates what, some sort of unique identifier. Yeah. Or, okay. Yeah. So So like, you know, walk through how it's actually, you know, what, what identifier that is. And then what happens if someone did it and they didn't include me in the split, right? Like they didn't register it with my percentage. So, So, cause I mean, I just feel like, again, there's some, and I don't think people are necessarily always doing this maliciously in our community. It It might be more of a uninformed kind of thing, but like, yeah, what happens if it's wrong?

It's some guy that has only 5% goes and gets his. Wait, I'm still kind of. This is a super important question.

So first off, what happens in a registration? A A registration basically says, here's the name of the song. question. So first off, what happens in a registration? A registration basically says, here's the name of the song. Real quick. It is giveaway time. We are picking three of you guys to completely recable your studios, three three cable packages worth about $300 each. All you got to do is comment recable here on YouTube. If you're listening on audio platforms, head over to YouTube, comment recable, tell us who you are and what you do. Are you an artist, producer, engineer, manager? Do Do you just want some free cables? We got you guys. We're We're the cable guys now. Cable Cable plugs? Henry, Henry, the cable guy. Oh Oh God. This is thanks to our friends at IO audio technologies. IO. IO. They They are out of Dallas. We've been doing this stuff for 40 years, providing musicians with the highest quality cables and connectors. This This crispy audio that everyone's hearing right now, Henry is on IO audio audio cables. This This is fire. It's funny. I know some of you guys out there have dropped an absolute bag on a microphone, but your signal chain is only as strong as the weakest link. And you guys are using like $8 XLRs. This This is not the way these

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Here's myself and what I control and all my co -writers, their names and what they control. Yeah.

Yeah. You

You put as much information as you can, you know, maybe you put their IPI numbers. That's That's a, that's like an unique identifier for songwriters. Okay.

Okay. And

And then the song gets, what's called a, um, ISWC. Okay.

Okay.

Uh, which is sort of a unique song code at the, at the society. And then the society gets the registration. They say, great. We have the song on file and we'll start, um, allocating your royalties accordingly.

Okay. Here's

um, allocating your royalties accordingly. Okay. Here's what you asked. What if there's some other, let's say you wrote it with five other guys and one of them put in a registration with their pub admin and it's different splits and it's wrong. This This is extremely messed up, but it's also somewhat understandable. It's It's an, it's like an honor system. So So if an individual PRO, let's say ASCAP has conflicting registrations, they just say, hold up, we're in dispute and we're not going to pay anyone their money until you guys figure this out.

Shaking my head. Right.

Right. It's probably the best way to do it.

and you know, because you know, they don't want to, they don't want to pick sides. Yeah. They don't want to pay incorrectly. And And this is a fundamental challenge because we write music with lots of people and we want to all get paid. But sometimes when you're leaving the studio, it's not the first thing you're thinking about. Like, Like, how are we going to allocate these publishing percentage?

of kills the vibe. So So it kind of kills the vibe. So

So like, here's my take on it, which is like work towards a scenario where you, you guys just figure it out. Like, cause what really kills the vibe is not ever collecting that money because you never talked about it. This is why you see some of the most successful songwriting partnerships, like in history, like the Beatles, like, you know, Paul McCartney and John Lennon. Like, they just said like, Hey, we're just going to be 50, 50 and everything. Like, Like, regardless of like who kind of writes more of what, cause like, we just want to keep it moving. And And it was honestly a smart business decision because, you know, it worked out.

Yeah, it worked out.

Well, other things worked out for them. But

But like, so I guess my point is like, this is where split shoots are really important. And And as I said, like, I'm a big fan of keeping it simple and not getting greedy with splits and creating sort of conflicts and disputes. Because at the end of the day, once that conflict or dispute makes its way to the actual registration at the society, the collection society level, no one's getting their money. Like literally no one wins. Right. So, So, you know, my advice to songwriters and producers is if you're working on a project, just like, don't be afraid to bring it up and just know that you guys are all on the same team. Right.

Like whether or not, like the money team, right.

right. Like on the, on the team of, of, of arriving at a shared agreement and a consensus so that when you put in those registrations, you can get your money.

So it's close. Yeah. Whether Ben gets 45% and why, why am I less than half? What did I do wrong? Whether you get 50% or I wrote the hook, Jacob. Henry gets 45% or 55%. That

That matters less than you guys just agreeing and then reflecting that agreement into the registrations that you put at cosine or wherever else.

Henry and I agreeing. It's a tough, it's a tall order, Jacob. That's why you guys are leaving your publishing money on the table. What can I say? No, but like literally what happens? So like the, you know, the, the society say, hold up. We're not doing it. Like Like Ben is it, do they send you an email? They send a notice to the publishers. Okay.

Okay. You know, we send a notice to the writer and say, Hey, there is a conflict at this society and they're not going to pay money because of this discrepancy. And we need to make sure the discrepancy goes away. So can can you all please agree on what these splits are? Or Or can you show documentation? You know, there are all these different protocols.

Does it say like what they show versus what we show? show? Like, you know what I mean? Do Do they break down? Like, cause I mean, sometimes these A &Rs are trying to sneak in and get their pub. Like, I mean, I don't fucking know who's on this split.

split. Like what did they say? This book?

Exactly. There

There are public databases where you can look that stuff up. Okay.

Good. Cause I'm like, obviously like, I'm like, I don't remember who was in the room who might be claiming points. And

And this is again, when you say, well, why do you have, why do you have a publisher versus just doing it your own? Like I'll speak to us at COBOL. Like we we have a pretty robust society relations team, right? People

People

People who can pick up the phone at GEMA in Germany or Sassam in France or, or, you know, who are

is why you guys need this, right? right?

Like these are actual people who work in these organizations and you can sort of be like, Hey, what's going on? Like, how can I fix this?

Yeah.

But the biggest way to fix it is to understand, Hey, publishing exists.

Yeah.

And when you're working with your collaborators to just try to accelerate to agreeing and understand, Hey, my little extra point on this song versus this song, it's less important than the ability to have trust with my collaborators and to just agree because because keeping it moving is everything. Speed Speed is everything, right? Like Like you just want to be consistent, keep things moving. And that way you'll be able to put in those registrations. You'll be able to collect those royalties. The The minute you start fighting over that, like literally quite literally everyone loses because no one gets paid.

Yeah. So,

So, so let's talk about like, what do you think is fundamentally wrong or broken about publishing today? today? Cause I mean, has publishing changed ever? Like, I mean, like, yeah, talk to us about like what changes have actually happened, what changes are maybe on the horizon. Right. Because I just need to understand, like, it feels in some ways like we're stuck in the fucking, yeah. Like, you know, the stone age with like all these rules that were set in place when the game was just not digital. It was totally different. Right. So So I just need to know like what the heck is actually going on now.

The biggest challenge in publishing. And I would say what's perhaps most broken about publishing, although there are reasons behind it, is that it is so fragmented and complex.

From like a global perspective. From a global perspective. Yeah. From like a global perspective. From a global perspective. Yeah. There are so many different sort of boxes you need to tick just to collect the money.

Yeah. And it's funny. Cause like, it's all kind of for a reason. And And when you think about the history of music technology, you can understand it. Right. It It all goes back to the question of how do you pay songwriters? So you write songs, the the original publishing was just sheet music, literal book publishing, right? Go Go out, you buy a book that has, that's easy, right? I I wrote the songs. I put them in a book, you buy them. Then Then think about the invention of the radio, I'm a songwriter. Now people are playing songs on the radio. Radio Radio stations are selling ads. They're making money. Where's my money. money. How do I get paid? Okay. Okay. We'll We'll invent performance royalties, but but there are radio stations in every country around the world. Okay. Every Every country will have their own society that makes sure that they're monitoring those radio stations to pay you your performance royalties. All All right. Now, now we're inventing vinyl records. People are going to record stores and they're buying vinyl records. They're paying $10, $20. I'm I'm not the artist. I'm the songwriter. How How do I get paid?

Mechanical. We'll We'll have a mechanical royalty. There

There are record stores everywhere in the world. All All right. Well, we'll have mechanical royalty societies in every country around the world. Right. So that kind of makes sense. And And in a way, you know, we move forward in history and we're always asking the question, I'm a songwriter. How do I get paid? And And then the industry is answering it through this complexity. Okay.

Okay.

Here's the problem in 2026. Like most people, as I said before, like they just listen to music by going to YouTube or whatever. Right. So So it's like, they're not thinking about that system. system. They're just kind of going to a website and listening to music and maybe watching ads, or maybe they're paying for an Apple music subscription and listening that way. And And yet we're still addressing the question of how to pay songwriters using a system that was built for a hundred years ago. So

So even the digital stuff is local, you

you know, by default, it's still local with these societies. And that's

why. So like French streams and French digital royalties are still going to the French. Collection society. Jesus. It It seems like at least the digital thing could be solved for globally. But I mean, and that's a job of a modern, in my view, that's

that's the job of a modern like publisher in the 21st century. So I can speak to my own experience, like a Kobalt right in a cosine. That's That's why we built Amra, which is a digital only global collection society. Okay. So we would say, okay, instead of all of these fractional parts of streams on Spotify, going to a hundred different organizations, how about we just license with Spotify directly and collect them on one place. Yeah.

Yeah.

Or same thing for TikTok or same thing for, for, for Instagram or for any meaningful digital source of publishing revenues. Like let's consolidate this to one place. In the U S where the laws are a little bit different, we can still make just direct deals with those societies, not through Amra, but just through, through Kobalt. Right. So your your question of like, why is it broken and how do we fix it? I I would say it's broken. And And I, again, I don't mean to attach like over negativity to that because we can understand because of the history, why it is that way. Yeah.

Yeah.

But you know, the fundamental thing that breaks it is that we have a system that was built for early 20th century in the, at this point, almost mid 21st century.

Yeah. And

And it just doesn't make sense because we live in the digital world.

Yeah. How

How you fix it in my views is clear. And I think you take the lead of what we've done at Kobalt and KOSIGN, which is you, you start aggregating again and you start saying, look, let's go directly to the source. Let's go to these digital platforms and let's try to put everything in one place so that you can collect more directly, more simply cut out intermediaries who all take their third party fees, who slow down the process, who have an opportunity for data loss. Like there are a lot of issues here, right? Yeah.

Yeah. But is there resistance from those societies? opportunity for data loss. Like there are a lot of issues here, right? Yeah. But is there resistance from those societies? From the society. Like they gotta be like, fuck Kobalt and KOSIGN going direct. We have very good relationships with the societies. Okay, Okay, sure. Sure. So, So, so, so now, you know, we have a very good relationship and look,

look, there are certain parts of publishing where, where the societies are absolutely. And we'll always be critical. Like Like if I have a radio hit in Europe and a bunch of radio stations in, you know, Greece are, are playing my song. Yeah. Like, you know, the local Greek collection society is going to be probably the most effective organization to make sure I'm collecting those. Yeah. Right.

even just like any local Greek, like digital platform. That's maybe like super popping in Greece that like we don't fucking use or know about.

I'll give you another example. Yeah. Yeah. In K -pop in Korea, like literal physical sales are still a really important part of

And we just, we

just did an episode about physicals being up. So I was like, people are actually, they're buying these things, even though they're not listening to them. So

So surprisingly, luckily it's still creating a mechanical,

whether they listen to it or not. So So if they buy it, it's, you're getting paid.

And that's, but that's another example where there might be a more local organization that's going to have that local on the ground expertise for, for a physical market. So, So, you know, where does this need to go? I I think it's where we're already trying to push it, which is for the digital landscape, which is an increasing share. And by the way, like clearly the majority share of revenue, we want to simplify. And there is still a non -digital landscape. It's still important parts of revenue. And that's where a little bit more complexity and a little bit more of local sort of on the ground organizations, kind of makes sense. And where it breaks is where we just try to put everything through a super fractured ecosystem, even stuff that could be consolidated in a more simple way. So So I know, I feel like we're getting really cerebral on this, even stuff that could be consolidated in a more simple way. So I know, I feel like we're getting really cerebral on this, but, but, but no, but this is why, you know, the, the, as I said, it's, it's serious, right? Cause that billion dollars of uncollected royalty is actual like artists and songwriters who, who aren't able to make a living and could, if they just collected it. So for me, it's like, let's, let's go, let's go to the 21st century. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's

Let's try to make sort of anything that is digital related income as, as, as simple and direct access as possible. And, and reserve the complexity for cases where it's, it's needed and, and sort of ditch it where it's not needed. So

So for the billion dollars, like we said, I mean, the major artists are typically clearly registering their songs. I I say that on like a general basis. Cause again, it's, if they have pub deals, it's in their publisher's best interest to make sure these songs are being, you know, registered and collecting royalties, et cetera. Cause Cause they make money. Um, Um, so you said that there is probably a large percentage of that billion. That is to our friends here. That's independent artists and producers, songwriters. Right. So So other than of course, y'all getting your shit together and registering your songs through a pub admin, whatever, like, like, is there any way that I'm like not thinking of where that could actually be paid out to these people? Like, right. Instead of the majors or. It's a great question.

I think the problem is like, you have to come online to the system.

Yeah. Cause how would they know? Yeah. That's

That's what pub admin's about.

Yeah. That's

That's what signing up to co -sign. It's about it's it's saying, I ain't going to make myself known in the system. I'm I'm going to make my songs known in the system.

So like, yeah, so it is just, you got to fucking register. Hey,

Hey, I'm, you know, I can take one second to, I guess, plug my, you know, co -sign that's

that's what we built, but

but you know, that's why we just try to make it easy. It's easy. It's like, you can apply. It takes four minutes. It's free to join. If you get in and it's like, you know, it's about just trying to take these processes and just streamline them, make them easy. The same way it would be at, for your distributor, right? Like you would never think about trying to put out a song without sending it to your distributor because you literally couldn't get the song on Spotify without doing that process. I I think the mentality shift is I want to think about it the same way in the publishing side. And And it's, it's really just two things. It's It's make sure that when you put out music, that you have an agreement with your collaborators about how the publishing works and just know you guys are on the same team. You You all want to have that agreement, write it down, put it in a split sheet. Doesn't have to be awkward. Just do it. Step one. And then step two, when the song comes out, also register it ideally through a pub admin, which can be the one place to go for them to then register it everywhere. So

So I feel like, you know, it's going to be one of those years where every single episode will probably bring up AI at this point. Like at first we were bringing up content every episode. Now it feels like how long we've gone on. Yeah. Now Now it feels like AI is going to enter the chat in every episode. So, you know, just generally speaking, I mean, how is AI music and AI assisted music even, right? Even if it's a human artist, et cetera, how is that going in your mind? How's that going to impact the publishing world? So

So it's, there are, there's still a lot of open questions. So like there isn't, there isn't like, it's moving so fast that, you know, anyone who's just like, here's exactly open and shut how it's going to work in 50 years. Like they're, they're

they're bullshitting you.

You know, in general, the key question is what's copyrightable. Like what constitutes authorship? What, what constitutes like I wrote this song and I get royalties for it. And And the general thinking is like, if it's just a pure prompt based thing where you just like literally write a prompt and then an entire song comes out like that, isn't copyrightable as publishing, right? Where Where it's like, that isn't the same thing as someone who, who actively constructed musical material. And, you know, but how to implement that technologically is a separate question where where I think it's going, which was your question is I think, and this is me personally, I think that it's going in a direction where if it's purely prompt based, kind of like lowest common denominator, I'm just prompting getting song from, from some gen, gen AI platform that isn't really proper, like publishing and it shouldn't be counted. It shouldn't take away from people who, who like really write music. Now, Now, when you get to incorporating some AI tools in a larger process of like actively making music, I think probably that will move in a direction where it becomes copyrightable, where it's like, all right, that is authorship, but you know, it's still very, very much an evolving. Where's

Where's the line going to be? That

That is the question.

Because bro, like, I mean, you got the biggest producers on the planet, Dre, Timbaland, whatever, talking about how they're using it to assist them in their own production. production. And then, I mean, dude, I checked that there was like some headline, that was basically about that, about, you know, Dr. J talking about AI, you know, for, you know, for production. And And I looked in the comments and I mean, there were some super producers like, Oh, they're all like using, like making very like positive comments around the, the talk track of like producers using it. And

And it's like, you have the two ends where it's like, if I use a prompt and generate most of a song, but just add a hi -hat, is that it now assisted? Exactly. Or Or on the flip side, if I created an entire song and I gen AI'd a hi -hat. Exactly. Exactly. Well, what's the difference? What What do you guys think in those two scenarios? Dude,

Dude, it's, it's fucked, man. what's the difference? What do you guys think in those two scenarios? Dude, it's, it's fucked, man. I mean, it really, it is, it's too complex. I mean, I just, unfortunately, and this is where I think that maybe the line is going to be like the full AI to your point, like no human

element. Aren't people just going to skirt that by like changing a little bit? But

I don't know how we're going to get around it. Yeah. Like what percentages would you then allocate because because publishing and even like master ownership copyrights in general are percentage based. That's That's how we do the math. I I don't know, man. Like Like it's, I think I'm scared to see how it plays out. To be honest, it's

it's a crazy world, you know, and I'm not an expert really on, on AI. I feel like anyone who claims to be is sort of selling something, but you know, my favorite music personally still feels very not AI. And that is something, what someone told me on gen AI stuff just across the board is like, remember it's literally math that just takes the average. It just guesses the average of everything that's out there. So I think that if you're below average, it's a good way to get you up to average, but but if you're above average, it's a really good way to get you down to average.

Great way of putting it. was a bar.

That was amazing. So

So that's, that's sort of my thoughts on that.

Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. I don't know, man. I mean, mean, I just, I really think, you know, people get on me when I, you know, give this kind of talk track, but it's like, look, I mean, it's just the newest tool. I mean, people were so upset about like when people weren't doing live drums and they were using program drums. So, So, I mean, I just, I don't know. Like, do we have this same conversation? Like, does anyone know? Do we have the same conversation when logic pro and pro tools and splice came out and everyone has access to high quality samples? Like

Like it's still your responsibility to take the thing. And manipulate it enough to where it's yours, no take the thing. And manipulate it enough to where it's yours, no matter what the tool, this is just making it way easier to get to something listenable very fast. You know what I mean? That's That's where we get it slop. And

And the nice thing about publishing is we're talking about songwriting, right? We're not talking about necessarily just like how crispy is the hi-hat or, you know, how much is the kick knocking and snare drum knocking? Like we're talking about like actual songwriting. And And that's why I say like, it's a good way to bring you down to average. Like, look, whether or not those tools are useful in sonic construction. Like, I think that's one question, but for a publishing question, it's really about authorship and about creativity in creating a song that is compelling and memorable and something that people want to come back to again and again and play when they get married and, and be the soundtrack of their lives. And, And, you know, uh, maybe I'm wrong, but I hope I'm not.

I think that takes a person. I think

think that that takes someone who is actively writing, um, and not just sort of like lazily relying purely on an algorithm to come up with like the average of what they think something should sound like. So,

So, so who do you think deserves publishing? Right. Because Because I think we had, you know, uh, you know, someone on, on before that was talking about like who does or doesn't deserve, you know, points. Right. And, And, um, like I kind of joked about the whole, A &R getting publishing thing. Right. I don't know. Some A &Rs have come on here and they're very open about the fact that like they get publishing on the records that they work. I I don't know what your, you know, approaches or thoughts are around like who actually gets it. What

What about the homie in the room who said, no, you say this word instead of that one. I think

think that, I think my, my first level answer is people who really contribute musical material that, that impacts what the song is. Sure. That definitely to me does include producers and beat makers. Obviously it includes lyricists and melody writers. Like the idea that just an artist should get publishing, but if you constructed the synth line or the drums that you don't, I, you know, personally don't think that's right. I I think, I think it's, you know, music making today is a collaboration across lots of different areas. So So yeah, my general philosophy is that everyone who really contributes music material should get songwriting. At At the end of the day, songwriting is about consensus, right? And And the splits are about consensus. And as we talked about, if you don't have that consensus, kind of everyone loses because when you try to put in those registrations, no one's going to get money anyway. So So ultimately I think that if you're working in a collective, in a room, creating a song, you know, you just want to arrive at that consensus. But But personally, I think anyone who contributes, you know, meaningful musical material should get songwriting credit, whether whether that's just like the homie on the couch, who's not doing anything. Look, if everyone else in the room wants to give 5% to that, to that person, that's fine.

You know, it's just like, it's about arriving at consensus so that people feel like they want to just keep making music together. If it's just, you know, a company who says I need to get that credit, that's where we talk about the different types of deals and knowing what you're signing, because because obviously that might not be that they're really contributing musical material. That That might be more the terms of a commercial arrangement with, you know, some company or exec who has leverage. So So that's why, you know, as I said, my personal opinion, I'm a big fan of maintaining ownership of your, of your, of your personal share of copyrights. I'm I'm a big fan of signing deals that only give away that ownership when you really are clear that you're getting that value back. But But yeah, in terms of who should get songwriting credit, I think it, I think producers a hundred percent should be part of that equation along with everyone else who's part of the journey of that, that song. Is

Is a fair place to start as far as how to divvy it up is like lyrics, lyrics and music are 50, 50%. Is Is that, that's what I've always heard. You know what I mean? Cause Cause like, that's kind of the, at least in like the, the very stereotypical, like, you know, we're in Atlanta, so we grew up on, you know, lots of hip hop here. Right. And it's like, you know, producer, beat maker, 50% artist, who's typically the songwriter, right? 50%. But But in other genres and stuff, I mean, do we, do you kind of start there?

Different genres have different, have different like characteristics.

50,

50, 50, definitely in Atlanta. I think something you see a lot. Other genres might be different. There's certain genres where the artist who is a songwriter will always get, you know, some percentage and then everyone else sort of like takes, takes what's left. There's There's no necessarily objectively right or wrong answer.

Yeah. I

I think, as I said, it's about what is a healthy consensus for everyone that they feel like they just want to keep working together. And you know, different genres are different, you know, different genres, you know, in hip hop, like the beat and the track are critical parts of the song. I'm not saying they're not critical in other genres, but it might be less in other kinds of genres where it's really the thing that you think of when you think of the song, right? Yeah. In other genres, it might be more that you are just thinking about the top line, the melody, what the artist is singing. So, So, so yeah, I think there can be healthy variation. I I think that's fine. I think for me, it's just ensuring that people are fairly credited and given publishing. And And as I said before, like I've seen as a publisher, I've seen at cosine producers who even might have only 5% of a song that has meaningful success and that still can be life changing money for them. So So that's why I say like, don't get greedy, just arrive at consensus. Independent Independent artists for the love of God, please, please stop paying for three services when you could get them all in one place. In

In one. You're You're paying for a pre -save. Of

Of course. You're You're paying for your Lincoln bio service. Yeah, I gotta do that. And you're paying for your distributor. We gotta get my music out there. Those Those days are over. However, Those days are over. However, the sponsor of today's episode, DistroKid gives you all three of those functionality all in one place. It acts as a pre -save link before the song comes out. And then the moment that the song drops, it becomes a smart link. And it's the same link. link. You don't have to go around updating links. This This tool is called Hyperfollow, and it's included in every single one of your DistroKid releases. Okay. What What it does is it obviously has them pre -save the song, but it also has them follow your Spotify artist profile. Free follow. It's It's going to trip the algorithm every time that you release in the future. And it's going to alert that person of the job. And And you're collecting fan data at the same time. Absolutely. Absolutely. You guys know we preach about get the data, get your fans data. This This is a super obvious and super helpful tool built into your subscription. But But if you don't already have a subscription, we got your back on that too. If If you want 30% off your first year while supporting the podcast, head on over to onemoretime.fm slash DistroKid to get started today. What What was that link again?

Onemoretime.fm slash DistroKid. Let's Let's get back into the episode. Make sure that those percentages add up to 100. That's

That's really important, by the way. Another Another thing that will screw your registration, by the way. Plaining 115%. It's It's not. You could have everyone on the song put in the same registration. All

All the splits are equal, and they all equal 101%.

And also, no one's going to get paid that either, right?

Use a fucking calculator, y'all.

On KOSIGN, we have, it's like built in.

in. We're like, you can't can't do it. Yeah. Thank God. God. I was like, that doesn't sound like an easy teacher.

I'm curious if you're seeing artists getting more creative, because some advice we like to give sometimes is to like, especially early on, right? When you don't have a lot of leverage, you might not have a lot of money. Are you seeing people get more creative with their publishing? Like handing it out maybe in exchange for like - 100%. you recommend that? Yeah,

Yeah, 100% recommend it.

Yeah. I think that, you know - You have like videographers getting pub, you know what I mean? mean? Oh, that's interesting. I recommend it. Yeah. I think that, you know - You have like videographers getting pub, you know what I mean? Oh, that's interesting. I haven't heard that. Yeah. It's interesting.

Look, this is what I say. It's It's like, it's a journey. Like being an artist, it's the hardest job in the world. It's It's the job I respect like more than anything in the

You're insane for - You guys are insane for trying to is so hard.

like, in many ways, like the thing that I've seen contributes most to success is setting yourself up so that you can just do it for a long time and not quit. And keep your team with you and not quit. Like literally even more than how brilliantly talented are you in this moment, you know, or how good are you at singing or rapping or beat making? Like those things are important. But But like in my experience, the number one thing that correlates to success is just the ability to do it for a long time. That's

That's literally our whole advantage. I think that we never stopped doing episodes and talking to people. And

And if part of that journey for you as an artist is I'm going to keep this team with me motivated and we're all going to keep moving this direction by sharing that publishing since, you know, since we're still in that building phase and that's what works for you, do it.

Yeah. Yeah. For

For me, I also just look at, I'm starting to think about now why people have usual collaborators. I I mean, not only of course, from like a creative perspective to make the best music. Right. But it's it's like the business has to be easier. Yeah. If you work, if you work with the same people, like again, like maybe branch out to try and get like some new inspirations. Like that's cool too. But like now I'm kind of just like clocking why some of the like biggest artists have their usual crew, like Amy Allen's on all the, you know, you know, whatever big artists she's writing with at the time. Right. And it's like, it just makes it easier from a creative perspective, but also now. I'm thinking about it more from like, or not even more, but just from the business side too.

A hundred percent agree. Yeah.

Yeah. And

And I think, you know, complexity, friction, it slows people down and

and

and it makes it when you go slower, it's going to take longer to get where you want to go. And I think that applies to the business side too. A huge huge inspiration for us when we were conceiving of KOSIGN and launching it was how can we create something that's really flexible and simple and easy to understand so that people can access this money, right? So that we can chip away at that a hundred, that $1 billion that that's uncollected in publishing. And like, part of that is just saying, Hey, we're going to have a flat, simple admin fee. We're We're going to have just a rolling quarterly term. We're We're going to really invest in making the process of submitting us songs and splits as simple and streamlined as possible. We're We're going to make, we're going to build transparency into what we're building so that you can see the income come in real time from every source around the world. Because, Because, you know, if something is click of a button, you understand it, it just makes it easier to keep it moving. And And like, that is so important, whether that's on the business side, whether that's creatively, as you said, you know, like being able to keep things simple means that you can free up your brain space on the things that matter. Because Because like the things that matter is songwriting, getting in the studio, making more music, filming content, thinking about storytelling, thinking about how you're going to connect with, with your fans. Like even if it's five fans or 10 fans or a hundred fans or a thousand fans or a hundred thousand, like those are the things that really, really move the needle and

and arguing over splits or, or forgetting your passport at like five different collection societies. Like that isn't probably the best use of your. Probably not getting inspired to write a great song.

Yeah. So, I mean, you kind of mentioned it with the, you know, if I have a PRO, am I good? But kind of mentioned it with the, you know, if I have a PRO, am I good? But like, what are some of the more common questions that you get? It's

It's a great question. You've asked a lot of great questions, I'll tell you some comments I get.

No, yeah. Even if just to kind of like summarize, like just a few things that, you know, they're probably all thinking about or have thought about, you know? So,

So, you know, we've talked about what is publishing. Yeah.

Yeah. It's,

It's, it's the revenue that you get from the songwriting. It's very distinct from the master recordings revenue that you get from your distributor. Sure.

Sure. We've

We've talked about how do you collect your publishing money? Well, Well, you need to be tapping hundreds of societies around the world and income sources around the world and the best way to do that. And by the way, the way that the most sort of well -known producers and songwriters and artists do that, even once you don't take advances, by the way, they have global publishing admins because they know that's how I'm going to extract the most value from my publishing catalog. So So that is to have a global publishing admin, obviously obviously like, you know, Kobalt cosine is part of that. A big question I get, especially for people who are starting to get some like motion and their traction on their catalog is like, well, I don't want to collect my publishing royalties because I'm going to get a big deal. I I want to, I want to, I want to wait until I get a really big deal. Okay.

Okay. That's a question. You've never, you've never heard anyone say that?

I don't think Oh, wow. Interesting. I I get this. I

I guess every day.

Okay. And it's like people. What is their thought process? Because

Because it's a waste of time if it's too small.

think their thought process is like, I want to, I want to, I think a lot of people, like they don't fully understand publishing. And then they think like, maybe if I wait out, I'll get a huge payout, a huge publishing check down the line. And it's always been kind of mind -boggling to me because think about any other business. Like let's say you have a clothing business and you wanted people to invest in your business or eventually you wanted to sell that business, but you had no documented like revenue or no financial statements. Yeah. Or you didn't have any agreements with like the different designers who made your designs that showed that you had the right to like sell their designs. Like Like no one would ever invest in your business. Like Like no one would ever buy it. Like it would be uninvestable. Right.

got no receipts. Yeah. You have no receipts. Right. So

So that, that is a question I get when people are like, well, I don't want to do this because down the line, I'm going to get a huge deal. And it's like, guess what?

That's how you get the deal. That's how you get the deal.

It's like, you need to have leverage. You need to have documentation. You need to have your split sheets. You need to have registrations. You need to be able to show the money. Now, what's important is that you have the flexibility so that when you want to get that big deal, you're able to accept it. And And that's why I think for KOSIGN, we said, okay, we're going to make this a very highly flexible platform.

But yeah, I mean, I was going to ask like what, what the flexibility even does for artists. You know what I mean? Cause Cause like, yeah, it sounds nice, but it's like, so is that what it is that things are moving so quick that should I catch some motion on a record and then a, you know, big co -pub deal presents itself? I'm a little more able to do that. I

I think the thinking behind it for us is that we don't, we want to open doors. We want to preserve optionality. We don't want to close doors. Right. And And I think sometimes something that actually gets in the way of people starting, and this is a hundred percent legit is that they're worried, like, am I signing myself up for something that I don't understand? And And there's a lot of people out here in the music business who say sign this, and then it's a longer term than you thought. Okay. Okay. And then it might not be the right structure for you a year in the future, three years or five years in the future. And then people regret it. Right.

Right. So, so reduces the like fear and anxiety around doing anything. Exactly. That like gets you stuck to like, just not be collecting anything.

And you know, we found most people, especially once you're, once you're onboarded and you're making money and you're seeing it come through, like, you know, people generally do stay, but there are artists where you're in a different situation and you're building and there's a different setup that works for you. And I'm not here to, to say that that's not a good thing. thing. Like that could be a good thing. And I think when you're getting started and you're collecting that money, like you should be able to do it with flexibility. Like, Like, I just think it's the right thing to do. Like, it shouldn't be that you're signing over, you know, some chunk of your future just because you literally want to collect publishing money that literally belongs to you.

It's like that in

in what other, in what other industry, what other world would that even seem normal? Right. So, So, um, yeah, I think that's like my personal kind of like philosophy around that.

Absolutely. Well, Jacob, we've entered a final segment of the podcast, the the publishing whisperer, man. I feel

I know way more about publishing than I ever did before.

percent. This This is such a good, such a good breakdown. If

If you guys feel the same, go ahead and like this video or audio. audio. If you guys, I forgot we are on a podcast. We're on podcast platforms sometimes. Yeah,

Yeah, we are. Drop

Drop a comment, subscribe to the channel. Uh, do people subscribe to podcasts on audio?

Follow us on Spotify podcast.

That's what it is.

Yeah. I think it's a follow.

Indeed it is. They get

get the gist.

They do. So So this is the rapid fire rampage. rampage. All right, let's do it. Three Three quick sections. sections. I'll break them down as we go. Just going to start with some short answer questions. Let's get into it.

How are you today? I'm excellent.

Thank you, Henry. Good Good question.

Jacob, publishing is objectively the most boring word in music. Fix Fix that in one or two sentences. Um,

Um, let's call it, um, song money.

Song money. He just renames it.

Yeah. Just read it. I just signed my song money deal. Wow.

Wow. That

That really was off the dome. I don't, I don't know. I don't know if I did a good job there.

That's good. That

was insane. It

It was great. I'm

I'm excited about it now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

job there. That's good. That was insane. It was great. I'm excited about it now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Collect your song money. Guys want song money or what? Jesus Jesus Christ. Um, you did, uh, Ari's show, I believe. Yeah. You did, um, our friend Mauricio show. And And now you've done our show. Is Is there a question that none of us asked that you would have just loved to have been asked? Oh

Oh my God. I mean, I mean, these are three goats right here. Ari, Mauricio, and obviously both of you. A A question that no one asked. Here's one thing that, that, that actually no one asked that I will say. And it's a little bit, you know, sometimes I can be a cerebral guy. It's It's a strength and a weakness.

Okay. He's heavy. I

I just, I just think something to know as people who are independent or starting is that, and it's not something you have to think about necessarily right now, but I just want people to know this. Like Wall Wall Street money is flowing into royalties. Publishing Publishing as assets, songwriting assets are very, very attractive, um, to like lots of big, big Wall Street money. And And that's why I say it's an asset. And And the reason they like it is because, you know, songwriting royalties themselves, they throw off money. Like you collect that money, but they're also increasing in value over time because as more people flock to Spotify, as more countries and regions of the world create digital platforms that people are going to start paying money for the value of the whole publishing copyright ecosystems going up. So So not only does publishing as a copyright, if you own a piece of a song, that's a good song that people are listening to, not only are you getting money every quarter from that, but in 10 years that might be actually worth more than it is now. So So it appreciates and it throws off money. So So the reason I'm saying this is not to bore people with finance, but it's to understand that like these songs that you're creating, the, the, the, uh, copyrights that you're owning on the song level, as you build your career, like down the line, like could, could really be almost something that is like a house or any other kind of like thing that you invest in. So So that's why I just think it's so important to collect that money, keep that ownership, unless there's a really good reason not to,

cause no, like this is really part of like the legacy of what you're building. So So maybe a little bit boring. Um, but like, just know, like this isn't going away. It's It's becoming more and more relevant, uh, and the wider world is sort of awakening to the value of publishing. So So like, just really get on this shit guys. Are

Are those some of the same reasons you think we're seeing a lot more catalog sales these days? I

I think it is.

is. And I

And is publishing included in the catalog sales or is it typically the master side or both?

Either.

Okay. Here's

Here's the thing. If you want publishing to be included in it, you need to have collected that money to show the receipts of what it's worth. Right. Back to that. I've seen cases where there are people interested in selling their publishing catalog, maybe as part of their master catalog, because again, the master catalog, they get that money from district kid. They get it from CD baby. They get it from their label, whatever. And And then there is maybe someone on wall street who wants to buy it and they say, wait, but you never collected it. So So we aren't able to underwrite that, that the capital for it. We're not able to know what it's worth. You You need to go and collect it. If they had started doing that five years ago, they wouldn't be in that situation. So, So, you know, you know, wall street, look, I'm not an advocate of someone just like blindly just saying, I got to sell my catalog. Like Like there are really good reasons not to do it. You want to build the value of it. You want to get that money for yourself, but but look at some point in your career, like that could be a decision. And the way to have the option to do it is keeping ownership and collecting the money. So you can, so that you can increase the value of what it is that you would sell down the line.

Yep.

Love it.

Jacob, say an artist has around quarter million streams. Let's say you just started managing them as well, but they have no publisher, no PRO. They got nothing. What are the exact steps you would walk them through this week? What

What I would walk them through is step one. I would join, you know, a collection society in the U S for PRO, like ASCAP or BMI, just to get an IPI number. Because that's really helpful for registration. Step Step two, I would honestly, you know, I would tell them to apply to co -sign. I think think that that's a great one -stop shop because you can access COBOL. It's global infrastructure. It's It's incredibly robust in terms of like, it's the one place to send your songs for them to register it everywhere. Um, and you will know that you are not leaving any publishing money on the table. So like I would, I would join a PRO and I would look into a global publishing admin, uh, set up. And I would honestly keep it very flexible. Like whether, even if it wasn't co -sign, like I would, I would join a platform that, that didn't like lock you into a longterm because you know, you have quarter million streams and you're building.

Is that like someone that would get in, get accepted by a co -sign -sign or like, is there a range?

I'll say for co -sign, what we look for when people apply is at least, you know, a few thousand dollars or more to collect in a year. I think that range really could be. And the reason we do that, just so people know, it's not because we want to say no to people. It's It's just because like, for us, we want to keep it very flexible and we don't want to water down like the quality of the admin service. Like Like if you have a question and you reach out, we want to get back in a day. Like Like if there's an issue at a society, as we talked about, where there's a dispute because there's a conflicting registration and you know, the society in Sweden says, Hey, this is on hold. We need to be able to correspond with that society, understand what's happening, convey it to you, fix the problem. So again, that's just, that's who we are. We, you know, our whole goal is the best possible admin service, super flexible. Um, Um, and I think someone in that would, would definitely be like, would definitely have a fair shot of getting in. The The other thing I would say for people who are in that growing phase is like, we have people who apply the first time, don't get in. That's understand six is like, we have people who apply the first time, don't get in. That's understand six months later, as they grow, they apply and they get in again. So it's like, for us, it's always like a revolving open door policy where it's like, we just want to make sure we're not watering down the service.

And there are other open to all platforms as well. Um, Um, but yeah, like I would say sign up to a PRO, um, and think about joining a flexible global publishing admin. Love

Love it. Jacob, do your parents understand what you do for a living? You know, that's a good question. I I love that.

I love my parents. They're very supportive. They They come from musical backgrounds too, as do I. Like I grew up just playing instruments.

We know, we know that doesn't mean the instinct. Yeah. It probably means they know less. Possibly. I

I think that every year that goes by, they know a little bit more. Okay. Okay. So

So we're working our way there.

working our way there. All

Love it. All All right. You've You've just been appointed Supreme Leader of the music industry for one day. You You have the power to do absolutely anything you want. What is your first order of business? My

My first order of business is finding a way to take the $1 billion of uncollected publishing royalties and create a pool for independent artists, songwriters, producers, and get it. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what I was like. I was just scratching my head. head. I'm like, I get it. it. I get it. It's like, if they don't exist anywhere, how do you even get them the money? I would expand that.

How do they go to the rich people already?

Because they just go to the big publishers and they just give them the money.

I'd expand that to the black box too, across every kind of royalty type. Yeah. I'm very focused on just like, and how do we make this simpler so people can just literally get their money? Again, it's it's not charity. This This is money that they created and earned.

feel like the distributors should like put a little notice and be like, did you register with your publisher too? I I know it's not our responsibility, but you might want to also go register this song that you're about to distribute through us. Like, I don't know.

Last one with a short answer. What is is your favorite curse word? You know what? about to distribute through us. Like, I don't know. Last one with a short answer. What is your favorite curse word? You know what? I'm a big fan of just hell.

Like, hey, what the hell? You know?

What the hell?

It's a little bit underrated.

It's a good one.

Yeah.

I don't think ever. Hell

Hell yeah. Hell no. Hell

Hell yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's

That's the one I'd say I use the most.

most. The hell? I'll just be like, hell yeah. hell yeah guy. Nice. All

All right. Part two is the this or that. I'm going to give you two choices. You just have to pick one of them. Let's do it. Starting Starting with drums or melodies? I'm a melody guy. I

I just love melody.

Masters or publishing? I I mean, I don't

I'm sort of like a publishing guy. He's He's kind of the publishing guy.

guy. These next couple I got. Publishing because publishing needs it.

You know, masters, as I said, you get paid that by default. Publishing Publishing needs a little bit more love. So I'm going to say publishing. Yeah.

Yeah. Someone needs a ride for publishing, bro.

I got you.

Sick of these people riding for the sound recording.

Admin or Copa? Admin. Yeah. TikTok or YouTube? Oh,

Oh, YouTube. Yeah.

Kobalt or a major?

I mean, I'm going to say Kobalt. I I think that, I think, look, do what's right for you, but I'm a fan of Kobalt. I

gave you a few there just to set you up to be nice, but let's get into some real ones. Yeah. Now, a songwriter who can't sing or a singer who can't write? Songwriter who can't sing.

New York Slice or LA Taco? Yo. These are the two places really I've lived in my life.

That's right. I'm

I live in Los Angeles now.

I did the research.

New York Slice. Pizza's my favorite food. Love LA Tacos, though.

Win a Grammy or own your Masters?

I mean, owning your Masters for the long term, winning the Grammy for that, you know, that dopamine hit.

Juilliard or Yale? Juilliard. Most people can't stand you or nobody's ever heard of you. Wow. Most people can't stand you or nobody's ever heard of you. Wow. It's become a staple. You

You know, that's such a great one. You know, I would personally, I would say no one's ever heard of you. I I think it's good to do no harm in this world, but but in the world we live in, I think most people would probably take the first one. Most people can't stand you. If

If you're an artist that needs exposure, it's tough. You know? Someone like - Oh yeah. He was just thinking about him, Jacob Paul. Right.

Right. Right.

Right. Yeah. I'm just thinking to myself.

For that, I would just say like, try to find something that you do that people do like that also gets attention. There's There's gotta be something. And if there isn't something, then maybe you shouldn't do the artist. It's possible. If If there's nothing about you anyone finds likable at all, and the only way to get attention is through negative attention, like maybe you should like just do a different job. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Only a few more. Studio or stage? Oh,

Oh, for me personally, studio. I'm a total studio rat. I love love the craft of production and songwriting, and that's why, you know, that's why I didn't like necessarily always seek the artist line, like for myself, like big studio guy. Books

Books or podcasts? Oh,

Oh, podcasts. I I used to read a lot more books, but I love podcasts. And

And finally, become a full -time techno producer or leave the music industry forever. Oh,

Oh, techno producer. Absolutely. Yeah.

Easy. That's the easiest question. I thought he would have to think about it for a second. And then go with techno producer.

question. I

I absolutely love it. Last Last part is the word association. Jacob, Jacob, I'm going to say one word. word. Just give me the first word you think of off the top of your head. Here we go. Starting with, why not publishing? Songs. Royalties. Money. Grandma. Mac and cheese. Okay. Okay. Let me get that recipe. I'm hungry.

hungry. Personal experience.

Spotify.

Green.

Splits. experience. Spotify. Green. Splits. Agree. AI. Mid. Mid. Recoupment. Recoupment. Goal.

Goal. Contract.

Contract. Read.

Read.

Broadway.

Lights.

Black box. Unfair.

Unfair.

Gen Z. Smart.

Smart.

Red flag.

Complicated.

Green flag. Simple.

Simple. Podcast.

Podcast. Yay.

Yay.

KOSIGN.

Sign up today.

This has been the publishing whisperer.

whisperer. And it was a little, Jacob Paul. That was good. That was good. From

From our friends, from our friends at Kobalt KOSIGN. Seriously, this ideally was the only music publishing video you guys will need. right. Like Like it's a very complex subject. You

You might have to watch it a few times. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. The only video that you need.

I think Jacob did a phenomenal job. Yes. Simplifying this shit. That is a very complicated topic. Thank

Thank you.

Thank you again for coming on the podcast. We're here each and every week. Until next time, Henry Woodood. Getting

Getting out of here. Peace

Peace y'all.

Bye bye.