How many rights can you lose?

If you are a famous pop star, fans want your autograph. I you want to become one, others want your signature: recording companies, collecting societies like PRS and ASCAP, music publishers, managers. Before you know it you haven’t got anything left but your underwear.

Copyright gives an author the final say in the use of his compositions and lyrics. He may grant permission to make his creations public or to reproduce them. For this, he may demand a remuneration. More specific, these are the rights:

- Performance rights
The right to perform means that you can let a public hear your songs. Before a live audience or by radio, television and the internet.

- Recording and reproduction
This rights means that you can record your songs on sound carriers like cd or dvd and make copies of them.

There are also rights stemming from these rights:
- Music publishing
Originally, this was about sheet music. Nowadays music publishers engage in promoting artists.
- Mastering
Mastering is completing a mix and improving the sound. This is a special form o the right to record, sometimes part of contracts with record companies.
- License
This means that you grant a right to use your songs to a company that takes care of your exploitation. You are still the main rights holder. Most of the time this is about stock music. This music is specially made for movies, television series and commercials.
- Distribution
Distributions rights are given to record stores, like Tower Records.
Synchronization
- Synchronization in a recording contract is when the recording artist's music is synchronized to a video: music video, movie, television, commercial, etc.
- The right to have income from concerts and merchandising
This has got nothing to do with copyright. Every artist earns money by gigs or selling T-shirts