What is Music Rights Passport?
Music Rights Passport is a platform for songwriters, composers, lyricists, and publishers to document, confirm, and organise their music rights.
Last updated August 22, 2026
What MRP does
Music Rights Passport (MRP) is a music-rights ecosystem for documenting composition ownership, publishing relationships, registration readiness, sound-recording information, and private earnings. It gives the people working on a song a shared record of who created it, what each writer owns, and how publishing is arranged.
Who it's for
MRP is built for anyone involved in creating or publishing original music:
- Songwriters and composers — solo writers and collaborators
- Lyricists — those who contribute lyrics to a composition
- Publishers — publishing companies that hold rights on behalf of writers
- Managers and music professionals — those who help artists manage their catalogues
Copyright note
MRP documents and confirms rights information between collaborators. It is not a legal copyright registration service. Copyright in an original composition exists automatically from the moment it is created — you do not need to register it to own it. MRP helps you record, confirm, and share an accurate picture of who owns what, which supports PRO registration and helps prevent disputes.
Key concepts
A few terms come up often in MRP:
- Composition — a musical work: its melody, lyrics, and structure (not the recording)
- Passport — the page in MRP that tracks all rights information for one composition
- Writer share — the percentage of the composition owned by each songwriter or composer
- Publisher share — the percentage of publishing rights controlled by a publisher
- Writer IPI / CAE number — the identifier assigned to an individual writer by their PRO
- Publisher IPI / CAE number — the separate identifier for a publishing company; it does not replace a writer IPI
- PRO — Performing Rights Organisation, such as ASCAP, BMI, SOCAN, or PRS; collects royalties on your behalf
- Sound recording / master — a particular recorded performance of a composition, with its own owner and ISRC
- Split Sheet — a formal document capturing the confirmed rights information at the moment a composition is locked
How MRP fits into your workflow
A typical MRP workflow looks like this:
- Create a composition and work through Guided Song Setup, or add several works through Bulk Register
- Set writer shares, add collaborators, and complete a publishing choice for every writer
- Invite co-writers to review their own proposed share and publishing information
- Complete the composition details and PRO/readiness information requested by the Passport
- Lock the composition once the readiness checks allow it; MRP captures immutable rights evidence and generates a Split Sheet
- Use Register Composition and Authorize Registration when the locked work is ready for the applicable registration workflow
- Track recordings, master ownership, and private earnings separately from the composition split