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Matt Cottingham Joins AIMP Podcast on Music Publishing Deals

Nashville, Tenn. (August 31, 2022) – Nashville Partner Matt Cottingham recently joined the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP) “Nashville Pubcast” for an episode focusing on the basics of music publishing deals, hosted by Tim Hunze, Big Machine Music's vice president of publishing.

Mr. Cottingham discussed how songwriters should approach publishing deals and offers, especially when it is their first time entering the industry. “The most important piece, even for a freshman deal, is the co-pub, whether you’re retaining any of the copyrights,” he said. “Nashville typically has been a full-pub town, where writers are assigning 100% of the copyright to the publisher in exchange for a monthly advance.” 

Mr. Cottingham talked about the type of work his practice focuses on, which enables songwriters to retain copyrights and build long-term assets that they can sell down the line.

When asked about term lengths for these types of contracts, Mr. Cottingham said that the majority of deals he has facilitated for first-time songwriters are within a 4-year range. “The biggest issue I’ve run into with these deals on the term are when the songwriter is also an artist and is going into a publishing deal without a label agreement in place, and the publisher wants to get involved in the artist-development side,” he said. “We usually try to keep the term as short as possible because we are betting on ourselves and believing that the songwriter is going to write hit songs, which we will hopefully be able to use as a renegotiation tool to get better terms down the road.” 

Mr. Cottingham also discussed the evolution of publishing advances in Nashville, which average around $25,000 to $35,000 annually for first time deals. “From my perspective, that’s the deal point that I care about the least,” he said, while acknowledging that every writer has different financial situations, which might prompt them to prioritize money up front. “Sometimes we’re able to negotiate a travel budget for when songwriters need to travel for co-writes, a demo budget, and a gear budget for studios. If you have multiple offers, you can drive that advance monthly number up.” 

Mr. Cottingham is a member of Lewis Brisbois' Entertainment, Media & Sports Practice. He represents individuals and companies in the entertainment industry and provides experienced guidance to recording artists, songwriters, record producers, independent music publishers, new media companies, and independent record labels. 

You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts here or on other platforms, under the title “AIMP: Nashville Pubcast.” 

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