The business of exploiting music compositions in every and any way possible is the the business of "music publishing". Needless to say this is a for "profit" business. Their job is to exploit musical "assets", aka "songs". Songs are like property, they are intellectual property, and the owners are the songwriters, however, songwriters assign publishing and admin rights to publishers for something in return. That said, publishers make the best effort in having the songs placed where these could earn revenue.
That way, to "exploit" means to have "revenue-generating" songs. The more revenue the publisher gets from the song, the better for the publisher and in turn for the songwriter. For example publishers exploit their catalogue of assigned songs, via placements in TV, and film, cover songs, and any other usage where a publishing stream of revenue could be identified. The professional publisher has the means and contacts to sell the sheet music version of your song. Or an instrumental version, or any other kind of version. A well established publisher, and even an indie one, will have connections in the business that songwriters don't have. Plus, they have the much needed time to push the music that artists themselves don't usually have or want to pursue. And they have the business savvy to make deals that might be more difficult for artist themselves to make. In this sense, writers could spend more time writing sings and less time pushing them.
For their exploitation services, the publisher usually gets either partial or total ownership of the song copyright for a specific amount of time or "term". Since the copyright initially belongs to the songwriter, this is known as an "assignment" or "transfer" of the copyright. Once the copyright is settled, the publisher pitches the songs to record labels, ad agencies, film, TV, and video game producers, or anyone else who might be interested in the song. Then the publisher licenses the right to use the song, and charges a fee. The subsequent fee is then split with the song writer, usually at a 50-50 split, or whatever was agreed upon in the publishing deal. For example, CD Baby and Tuncore's publishing deals have a split similar to each other with variating percentages depending on the placement secured for the song.
Now, what about the recording and music production industry? How are publishers getting into this market? Well, in addition to the other mentioned music users, the publisher will also pitch the song to other recording artists and performers. If you write a song, and another singer records it. You still get writing/publishing royalties on that new recording, even if you didn't perform on it. Performers get paid out of a different royalty pie, and more on that in a later post. Now you may be asking, why would I sign away my copyright, as well as 50% of my licensing royalties to some giant publishing company, who didn't write on any of my songs? Well, you really don't need to sign up with a publishing company and in fact, getting a deal from a publishing company may be just as difficult as getting a record deal, that is why may independent music libraries and licensing companies are tailoring what was known as the old publishing deal. Many songwriters set up their own publishing companies in order to get their entire publishing royalties. But again, it is a business of not what you know but who you know, and how effective is your pitch of your same song going to be.
So in the case that you publish your music under your own company, and license a song to be used in a commercial, you get paid your full song-writing share, as well as the entire publishing share. So it's like you're getting paid twice. Of course the trade-off for collecting 100% of the publishing royalties, is that if you're publishing your own music, you might have fewer publishing opportunities and effective contacts. That is why the upside of publishing through an established music publisher is that they have a large pool of contacts to pitch music to. It's the publisher's job and in its best interest to sell a song as often and in as many forms as possible, therefore if you (the writer) do not get paid, neither will the publisher. Get why having even an indie publisher dedicated to your catalog could be of a great service to you the artist???!!!
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