Official Position On Joint Work

The Society of Composers & Lyricists has adopted a formal position on the subject of Joint Works:

The Officers and Board of Directors of the SCL would like to thank the Joint Work Committee for the long and diligent task of updating the SCL’s Official Position on Joint Work which was subsequently adopted and reaffirmed by the Board at its meeting in Los Angeles, California on June 5, 1995. The official position is as follows:

When a collaboration exists between lyricists and composer members, thus creating a new or joint work, any and all rights in that work will be shared equally by the collaborators, Composer to receive 50% of the rights and Lyricists to receive 50% of the rights.

If the equal sharing of the rights between the collaborators requires an assignment of the rights from one collaborator to another, such assignment must be made immediately and the appropriate performing right organization notified.

When the new or joint work is written for a motion picture or television show and appears in the body of the film, the names of the composer and lyricist shall appear on the cue sheet, for all uses, permutations, variations, or fragments of the joint work, whether performed with or without the lyric.

When a joint work has been created after the release of a motion picture or television show and does not appear in the body of the film, all prior uses of the theme, shall be credited solely to the composer.