The basic principle is very simple: you follow the instructions and enter the songwriters, their IPI numbers and split percentages as described clearly in the sample license. And if you have have a publisher, they will do the registration for you.

The practical reality is more complicated: different publishing rights organizations allow for different types of registrations, some of them split up writer and publisher rights into two different pies/parts, some of them have a 100% pie and others 200%. Often there is also a difference between what you can register as a copyright control songwriter, and what a publisher can register.

The membership service at your local PRO can help you register the work correctly - your local PRO is responsible for collecting performance royalties from the country you are based in. But if you don’t want to deal with song registrations outside of your country, you can just sign up with our partner Songtrust and they will help you collect your royalties globally. Use the code ”tracklib” and get 15% off the normal rate - worldwide registration to 43 PROs as well as global revenue collection is included.

If you still want to do it yourself, outlined below is how it works with the most common PROs in the world.  But for any society, the following guidelines should apply.

• Register 100% of the song including the writers of the original composition you have sampled as well as the writers of the new work including the sample.  In the examples below, we will use a 15s sample of a Category C track, meaning that 10% is allotted to the original songwriters, and the remaining 90% is to be split between you and any co-writers on the new work.
• For example, if the sample was written by 2 writers, each of those writers would have 5% of the total new work. Then if you wrote the new song with one co-writer and agreed to split your shares evenly, each of you would receive 45%, or half of 90%.