What is the difference between a publishing administrator and a traditional publisher?
When a songwriter/composer chooses to keep the rights to their publisher rights they hire a publishing administrator to handle all the day to day administration such as mechanical and synchronization licensing, registering of song titles with their affiliated performing rights society, tracking and collecting royalties, etc. To perform these duties the administrator collects a small nominal fee. A traditional publisher enters into an agreement with a songwriter and within that agreement the songwriter has transferred all ownership and rights to that publisher. For the transferring of ownership and rights all royalties generated are collected by the publisher, with the exception of performance royalties, and are split 50/50.
