What's the difference between a publishing company and a record label?

Publishing companies and record labels are responsible for two seperate (separate) aspects of a song:

• A publishing company exploits and administers musical compositions (i.e., this song is written by x and y).
  
• A record label exploits, promotes and distributes catalogues of music recordings.

This means that several companies are usually involved when you want to clear rights for one song; each one is entitled to receive royalties for the part they own.

See also...

• How does music licensing work?

Was this information helpful?

Yes

No