Understanding publisher shares
Publisher shares work differently from writer shares. Here is how they are calculated and what they mean.
Last updated August 22, 2026
What a publisher share represents
A publisher share is the percentage of a composition's publishing rights that a publishing company controls. Publishing rights are separate from songwriting rights — a writer can own a percentage of the composition as its creator (writer share) and simultaneously have a publisher who controls some or all of the publishing income from that portion.
How publisher share relates to writer share
Publisher shares apply within each writer's portion of the composition. For example, if a writer owns 60% of the composition and their publisher controls 50% of their publishing rights, the publisher's share is 50% — applied to that writer's 60% slice. The publisher share percentage and the writer share percentage are not added together; they operate on different things.
Publisher total must be 100%
MRP prevents publisher over-allocation. Where publisher shares are present, the applicable allocation must balance according to the current readiness checks; when no publisher share exists, MRP does not invent one. Review the contribution cards and the Ready to Lock messages rather than treating a company saved in Profile as an automatic share.
Self-published writers and the publisher total
When a writer is self-published, their writer share is also counted toward the publisher total. MRP handles this automatically — you do not need to enter a publisher IPI or share percentage for a self-published writer.
Compositions with no external publishers
If every writer on a composition is self-published or unpublished, there are no external publisher entries to balance. In that case, MRP does not require publisher shares to total 100% across external publishers — because there are none.
Publisher share cap
MRP enforces a hard cap to prevent over-allocation: the total of all publisher shares assigned to external publishers cannot exceed 100% of the composition. If adding a publisher share would push the total over 100%, MRP will block the action and show an error.