MSC IND 104BLegal and Business Aspects of Music Publishing
In this undergraduate seminar, you will explore the legal and business aspects surrounding the creation and distribution of musical compositions in today's evolving marketplace: tracing ownership, registering works, interpreting agreements, following royalty flows, and evaluating contemporary licensing problems.
Key Learning Outcomes
- Distinguish the copyright in a musical composition from the copyright in a sound recording
- Explain the exclusive rights protected by U.S. copyright law and identify common statutory limitations
- Document co-writing shares and register musical works with the appropriate organizations
- Trace mechanical, public-performance, synchronization, and other publishing revenue from use to payment
- Compare, mark up, and negotiate songwriter, co-publishing, and administration agreements using core deal terms
- Evaluate sync, advertising, print, social-platform, sampling, catalog, international, and emerging-technology licensing scenarios
- Communicate a practical rights-and-revenue strategy in language accessible to artists and collaborators
Course Description
Exploration of legal and business aspects surrounding the creation and distribution of musical compositions in today's evolving marketplace. Detailed exploration of rights afforded songwriters under the Copyright Act of 1976 and practical review of the ability of these authors to control and monetize these rights. Review and practical analysis of agreements involved from the inception to the global exploitation of compositions, including co-writer agreements, song registration, administration agreements, public performance agreements, and catalog sales. Exploration of the financial implications of these agreements. Letter grading.
This undergraduate seminar introduces students to music publishing through the decisions working songwriters, composers, performers, producers, managers, and independent publishers make. Week 1 establishes the course vocabulary, expectations, and publishing ecosystem. Weeks 2 through 10 develop the legal, contractual, administrative, and financial knowledge students need to trace ownership, register works, interpret agreements, follow royalty flows, and evaluate contemporary licensing problems.
Students learn through short explanations, guided document analysis, guided listening, current case studies, and practical exercises. Recorded music serves as a primary source throughout the course: students learn to hear the license, identifying samples, interpolations, and sync uses by ear and naming the rights each one requires. Legal terminology is introduced in context. The course develops issue recognition and informed decision-making rather than training students to provide legal advice.
Syllabus
Fall Quarter 2026 Calendar
| Milestone | Date |
|---|---|
| Quarter begins | Monday, September 21, 2026 |
| Instruction begins | Thursday, September 24, 2026 |
| Veterans Day holiday | Wednesday, November 11, 2026 |
| Thanksgiving holiday | Thursday–Friday, November 26–27, 2026 |
| Instruction ends | Friday, December 4, 2026 |
| Finals week | December 7–11, 2026 (common finals December 5–6) |
| Quarter ends | Friday, December 11, 2026 |
Per the UCLA General Catalog, MSC IND 104B is a four-unit seminar meeting three hours weekly, held as a single weekly three-hour session; the meeting day and time will be set by the Schedule of Classes. The seminar's first meeting follows the assigned meeting day, with the first full week of instruction running September 28 through October 2. Final portfolio presentations are completed during the Week 10 session; no examination is scheduled during finals week.
Week 1Sep 28 – Oct 2Orientation and the Music-Publishing Ecosystem
Course expectations, foundational vocabulary, and the people and institutions that connect a composition to an audience and to revenue.
- Composition copyright and sound-recording copyright
- Songwriter, publisher, administrator, PRO, label, distributor, and licensee
- How a song moves from creation to registration, licensing, use, and payment
Map the stakeholders and rights attached to a familiar commercially released song.
Publishing ecosystem map and brief professional-interest statement.
Week 2Oct 5 – 9Advanced Copyright, Reversions, and Chain of Title
Building on copyright fundamentals from prior coursework, this session opens with a brief diagnostic recap of the 1976 Act and the exclusive rights, then moves directly into the advanced ownership dynamics that drive modern publishing disputes and deals.
- Diagnostic recap: exclusive rights, authorship, and registration under the Copyright Act of 1976
- Joint works, contested co-ownership, and co-writer litigation
- Work made for hire in modern producer, band, and commissioning contexts
- Termination rights and reversions under §§ 203 and 304 (revisited in Week 9 as a catalog-valuation factor)
- Researching and documenting chain of title across decades of transfers
Trace the chain of title for a catalog song with multiple transfers and a pending termination window, and identify the contested ownership questions.
Advanced ownership and chain-of-title issue-spotting exercise.
Week 3Oct 12 – 16Co-Writing, Splits, Registration, and Metadata
Turning creative collaboration into accurate ownership records and usable publishing data.
- Split sheets and co-writer agreements
- U.S. Copyright Office registration
- PRO work registration
- Identifiers and metadata
- Disputes caused by missing or inconsistent information
Split-sheet listening exercise: listen to a multitrack demo with contributor notes, assess each collaborator's creative contribution, then negotiate the splits and complete a split sheet and registration workflow for the jointly written song.
Split sheet and registration packet.
Week 4Oct 19 – 23Performance Rights, PROs, and Royalty Collection
How public-performance royalties are licensed, tracked, divided, and paid.
- ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR
- Writer's share and publisher's share
- Blanket licensing
- Live performance, broadcast, streaming, and reciprocal collection
- Direct licensing and publisher withdrawal of digital rights from the blanket license as negotiating leverage with streaming services
- Setlists and performance data
Trace a performance royalty from use through collection and distribution.
PRO comparison and live-performance royalty exercise.
Week 5Oct 26 – 30Mechanical Rights, Streaming, and the MLC
The reproduction and distribution rights that generate mechanical royalties.
- Compulsory licensing and statutory rates
- Physical, download, and interactive-streaming uses
- The Mechanical Licensing Collective and digital services
- Cover songs and self-released recordings
- How social and UGC platform uses report and pay through publishing channels
- Unmatched royalties and data problems
Build a royalty path for an original song and a cover recording released to streaming services.
Mechanical royalty-flow analysis.
Week 6Nov 2 – 6Songwriter, Administration, and Co-Publishing Agreements
How publishing agreements allocate ownership, control, services, term, and income.
- Single-song and exclusive songwriter agreements
- Administration and co-publishing deals
- Advances, recoupment, delivery, term, territory, and retention
- Creative approval, accounting, audit, and reversion provisions
Live deal redlining workshop: mark up a co-publishing agreement excerpt (grant of rights, term, and compensation clauses), negotiate the disputed terms against a counterparty team, and compare how current market deals resolve them.
Agreement analysis I: deal-point memorandum with supporting redline.
Week 7Nov 9 – 13Sync, Print, Advertising, and Platform Licensing
Clearing music for film, television, advertising, games, social platforms, and digital media, plus the print and lyric rights that round out a composition's licensing footprint.
- Synchronization and master-use licenses for film, television, and games
- Advertising and commercial syncs: fees, exclusivity, and brand considerations
- Social and short-form video licensing: TikTok, Reels, Shorts, and UGC platform deals versus individual clearances
- Print and lyric licensing: sheet music, digital print, and lyric services
- Ownership research and chain of title
- Quote requests, negotiation, most-favored-nations clauses, and cue sheets
- Preexisting music and commissioned music
Prepare a clearance plan and licensing budget for a short media project.
Synchronization clearance memorandum.
Note: Veterans Day holiday Wednesday, November 11. If the seminar's meeting day falls on the holiday, this session moves to an alternate day or is delivered through an asynchronous module.
Week 8Nov 16 – 20Sampling, Interpolation, Fair Use, and Public Domain
Evaluating reuse, transformation, quotation, and clearance.
- Samples and interpolations
- Composition versus master claims: Newton v. Diamond, 388 F.3d 1189 (9th Cir. 2004)
- Groove, style, and expressive elements: Williams v. Gaye, 895 F.3d 1106 (9th Cir. 2018), the Blurred Lines verdict, and Judge Nguyen's dissent
- The Sheeran verdicts as counterweight: Griffin v. Sheeran (S.D.N.Y. 2023) and the limits of protecting chord progressions
- Defensive clearance after Blurred Lines: retroactive credits and interpolation-first strategies
- Fair-use factors and public-domain analysis
- Jazz quotation, arrangement, and collaborative authorship
Paired-listening analysis: compare recordings side by side (a direct sample, an interpolation, and an alleged style copying), identify which licenses each use requires, then recommend a clearance strategy for three reuse scenarios.
Agreement analysis II: sampling and reuse advisory.
Week 9Nov 23 – 25Global Administration, Catalogs, and Financial Strategy
Managing compositions across territories and evaluating catalogs as creative and financial assets.
- Foreign societies and reciprocal agreements
- Sub-publishing
- Black-box and unmatched royalties
- Royalty statements, audits, and leakage
- Catalog valuation, acquisition, and sale, including how the termination rights introduced in Week 2 shape deal risk and pricing
Audit a mock royalty statement and identify missing income and follow-up questions.
Royalty audit and catalog strategy worksheet.
Note: Thanksgiving holiday Thursday–Friday, November 26–27. If the seminar's meeting day falls on the holiday, this session moves to an alternate day or is delivered through an asynchronous module.
Week 10Nov 30 – Dec 4AI, Emerging Rights, and Final Portfolio Presentations
Applying the course framework to technologies and business practices that are changing music publishing.
- Generative AI, training data, and authorship
- Voice and likeness concerns
- Platform terms, metadata, and automated licensing
- Ethical and practical risk assessment
- Course synthesis
Present a defensible rights-and-revenue strategy and respond to questions from the class.
Final rights-and-revenue portfolio and professional briefing.
The final meeting functions as a professional briefing studio. Each student presents a publishing problem, explains the relevant rights and revenue structures, recommends a course of action, and answers questions from classmates representing songwriters, publishers, managers, supervisors, or collaborators.
Learning Through Practice
Students work with the documents and decisions that shape music publishing. Each exercise builds a component of the final rights-and-revenue portfolio.
| Coursework | Description | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Preparation and participation | Reading annotations, in-class analysis, discussion, and collaborative problem-solving. | 15% |
| Rights and registration exercises | Copyright map, split sheet, song registration, and administration workflow. | 20% |
| Agreement analyses | Two short analyses identifying ownership, term, compensation, control, and risk. | 20% |
| Royalty-flow project | A visual and written account of how one composition generates and distributes revenue. | 15% |
| Final rights-and-revenue portfolio | An integrated publishing strategy for a song, catalog, or artist scenario, presented in Week 10. | 30% |
Final Portfolio Components
- Ownership and chain-of-title summary
- Completed split sheet and registration plan
- Rights and licensing map
- Royalty-flow analysis
- Agreement recommendation supported by specific deal terms
- Risk assessment addressing one current legal or technological problem
- Five-minute professional briefing for the class
Final Portfolio Evaluation
| Criterion | Evidence of Success |
|---|---|
| Rights analysis | Identifies the relevant copyrights, owners, permissions, limitations, and unresolved questions. |
| Revenue analysis | Traces the applicable royalty streams and explains how money moves among stakeholders. |
| Document use | Uses split sheets, registrations, agreements, licenses, statements, or other records accurately. |
| Recommendation | Offers a practical strategy supported by the facts, course concepts, and identified risks. |
| Communication | Explains complex publishing issues clearly for a professional, nonlegal audience. |
Teaching Framework
The seminar meets once weekly as a single three-hour session. Each session moves from concepts to hands-on practice, so students encounter doctrine through the professional choices it governs.
| Segment | Class Component | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 35 min | Foundation | Introduce the week's legal and business concepts in direct, accessible language. |
| 30 min | Case or industry example | Connect the concepts to a current dispute, deal, royalty problem, or licensing decision. |
| 10 min | Listening lab | Ear training for publishers: hear paired recordings and identify the samples, interpolations, or sync uses and the licenses each requires. |
| 10 min | Break | Stretch, reset, and regroup for the practice half of the session. |
| 45 min | Document laboratory | Read, annotate, and mark up agreements, registrations, licenses, statements, split sheets, or clearance materials. |
| 35 min | Applied workshop | Use the week's framework to solve a realistic artist, songwriter, publisher, or supervisor problem. |
| 15 min | Portfolio connection | Add a revised component to the final rights-and-revenue portfolio. |
Grading Scale
C+ 77–79 | C 73–76 | C− 70–72 | D+ 67–69 | D 63–66 | D− 60–62 | F below 60
The course uses letter grading, consistent with the UCLA catalog listing for MSC IND 104B.
Requirements
Upper-Division Standing
This is a four-unit, upper-division undergraduate seminar (UCLA courses numbered 100–199) offered in person over a ten-week quarter, meeting once weekly for three hours. The course assumes familiarity with copyright history and fundamentals from prior Music Industry coursework; Week 2 opens with a diagnostic recap before advancing to reversions, contested ownership, and chain of title.
Course Materials
Sample Documents and Materials
- Split sheet and co-writer agreement
- Copyright and PRO registration materials
- Mechanical licensing and MLC workflow materials
- Songwriter, administration, and co-publishing agreement excerpts
- Synchronization request, license, and cue sheet
- Royalty statement and catalog summary
- Case excerpts: Newton v. Diamond and Williams v. Gaye, including Judge Nguyen's dissent
- U.S. Copyright Office Circular 73 (compulsory license for making and distributing phonorecords)
- The MLC's blanket license and unmatched (black box) funds explainer
- A redacted, redlined co-publishing agreement for the Week 6 markup workshop
- Current policy documents and industry reports
Accessibility and Participation
Course materials will be organized through Bruin Learn with accessible digital copies whenever possible. Students may demonstrate learning through written analysis, diagrams, short presentations, and collaborative exercises. Technical terms and quantitative royalty concepts will be taught through repeated, scaffolded examples.
Professional Scope
The course prepares students to recognize publishing issues, organize rights information, ask informed questions, and communicate with collaborators and professional advisers. Classroom analysis does not constitute legal advice.
About the Author
Marc T. Gaspard Bolin
Marc T. Gaspard Bolin is an ethnomusicologist, performer, author, and educator working at the intersection of jazz studies and African American Studies. His career spans recording, touring, independent music production, commissioned work, and cultural entrepreneurship. As a professional low-brass musician, he has performed across jazz, popular music, film, television, and concert settings, work that has given him firsthand experience with the contracts, rights, licensing, royalties, and financial structures that shape a musician's working life. His current scholarship examines music, cultural history, creative labor, and the institutions through which musical work circulates.
Bolin has taught jazz, music history, African American Studies, and world music at UCLA and Cal Poly Pomona. He is the author of the forthcoming Continuities at the Center of the Jazz Universe: Echoes and Heirs of Congo Square and the interactive textbook Jazz Cultures in Motion. In the classroom, he draws on his experience as a performer and scholar to ground each subject in the cultural history and working realities of musical life.