I'VE CO-WRITTEN A SONG. HOW DO WE SPLIT THE ROYALTIES?

(from the musicians union)

There are no set rules about who is entitled to what share in a particular work. This has to be discussed and common sense used. Some bands split all publishing royalties equally amongst all band members, regardless of who actually wrote the songs. Other bands may have one songwriter who collects all the publishing royalties. Obviously, if only one person collects the publishing royalties this can lead to an imbalance of earnings and frustration on the part of the other band members. The old days of splitting a song 50/50 (lyrics and music) as a matter of course have gone but such an arrangement is often not a bad starting point for negotiations. Some people divide it into thirds (lyrics, topline melody and music) but again, this is often just used as a guideline or starting point for negotiations. If you feel you have both made an equal contribution to the writing process then perhaps a 50/50 split would be sensible. If your contribution was small, then anything from 5% upwards may be right. It's all down to negotiation. The Union has co-writers' forms that we can send you to use. Fill them in for each track as it's written and as soon as you decide how you want to split the song.

try and be mates with the rest of your band, that way its a thing beetween mates and not formal, and thats the way music works, unless your contracting someone to write the songs for you, in which case you dont deserve any royalties anyway!