What a split sheet is, and why it is signed before the release, not after

A split sheet is a short document that says who owns what share of a piece of music. It is signed by everyone with a claim before the music is released, and it is the thing everybody wishes they had when the money arrives and the arguments start.

Two things get split, and they are different

The composition — the song: melody, lyrics, chords. Its owners are the writers, and its money comes from publishing: mechanicals, performance royalties, sync fees for the song.

The master — the recording of the song. Its owners are whoever paid for and controls the recording, often the artist and a producer, sometimes a label. Its money comes from streams, downloads, and sync fees for the recording.

A producer who wrote part of the hook has a writer's share of the composition and, if the deal says so, a share of the master. A featured vocalist may have a master share and no writer's share. A split sheet records both, separately, because they are paid by different people from different money.

What goes on it

• The title, and the working title if it differs.
• The date of the session or the agreement.
• Every contributor's legal name, stage name, role, and contact details.
• Each contributor's performing-rights organisation and IPI number, for the composition.
• The composition split, as percentages that sum to exactly one hundred.
• The master split, as percentages that sum to exactly one hundred.
• Any samples or interpolations, with what is owed to whom.
• Signatures, dated.

The most common failure

Percentages that do not sum to one hundred. Three writers agree to "a third each"; the sheet says 33, 33, 33, and one percent of the song belongs to nobody. Or the producer is added after the fact at ten percent and nobody reduces anyone else, so the sheet says 110. Publishing administrators and distributors will reject or hold a registration whose splits do not sum correctly, and the money waits.

Decide the split in the room, write it down so that it sums to one hundred, and have everyone sign it before the session ends. A split agreed by text message a month later is a negotiation, not a record.

Why before the release

Once the recording is delivered, every store, every collection society and every distributor has a copy of the ownership metadata. Changing it afterwards means changing it everywhere, and the money that arrived in the meantime has been paid on the old split. Before the release, it is one document. After, it is a project.

From shares to money

A split sheet is only useful if the shares turn into payments that add up. That is harder than it looks.

Say a recording earns $100.01 in a month and the master is split three ways. A third of $100.01 is $33.336666… Round each share to the cent and pay it, and you have paid $100.02 or $99.99. Across a year of statements and a dozen collaborators, the difference is a real number and nobody can explain it.

The correct method is the largest-remainder method: compute each share exactly, floor each to the cent, and hand the leftover cents, one at a time, to the shares with the largest remainders until the total is exact. Every payout run then reconciles to the money that came in, to the cent, every time.

What SNVRKOTICS does

A split sheet in SNVRKOTICS is attached to the work and the recording it covers, with composition and master shares held separately and required to sum to exactly one hundred percent — the sheet cannot be saved otherwise. When statements are imported, earnings are matched to recordings by ISRC and allocated across the sheet's shares by largest remainder, so a payout run always adds up to the imported total. Each collaborator's statement shows the recordings, the shares and the money.