Horus Music Publishing

Earn more from your music and lyrics

+44 (0)116 253 0203

Horus Music Publishing

Our new music publishing platform is open to any songwriter or publishing rights holder to sign up and register their music compositions with a global network of collection societies.

Publishing royalties are being generated on top of the revenue you’re making from distribution, so don’t leave any money on the table!

When you sign up and submit your compositions with Horus Music Publishing, we will pay you royalties from the following revenue streams:

Performance Royalties

  • Generated each time the composition is performed in public (a live show, in a bar, gym, restaurant, played on radio, broadcast on TV, streamed.)
  • Collected by Performance Rights Organisations (PRO’s)

Mechanical Royalties

  • Generated each time the composition is reproduced (on CD, vinyl, cassette, streams, downloads)
  • Collected by Mechanical Rights Organisations.

Lyric Royalties

  • Generated when the lyrics are reproduced (displayed on Spotify, Google Search, Instagram stories).

Horus Music Publishing works on a monthly subscription basis, starting at £3 per month. With your subscription, retain 90% of your publishing royalties (Horus Music Publishing takes a 10% commission).

Flexible and Affordable

We understand that accessing your publishing royalties shouldn’t break the bank. A monthly subscription for one songwriter is less than a cup of coffee these days.

Horus Music Publishing works on a monthly subscription basis, starting at £3 per month for an individual songwriter profile.

If you represent multiple songwriters, create your publisher profile starting with our Publisher Starter subscription at £5.50 per month. Pay only £2.50 for each additional songwriter sub profiles you add to your publisher account

Writing and releasing music as a band? – Then register your band as a Publisher profile and take advantage of the reduced rates. £5.50 a month for two songwriter sub profiles, £2.50 for each additional songwriter in the band.

Working With Multiple Songwriters?

If you represent or work with 20+ songwriters, speak to our team and we can look to provide you with a custom monthly fee based on the volume of songwriters and works you expect to submit to our team:

Contact The Team

What Is Music Publishing?

Music Publishing deals with the copyright within the lyrics and melody of a song (the composition).

When you record and release a song, there are two types of copyright within it. These are the composition and the sound recording.

If you are writing or composing melodies and lyrics, it’s important that you understand how you can earn money from the songs that you write as music publishing emerges as one of the most important revenue streams for independent artists.

Contact The Team if you wish to learn more about music publishing and how it can generate more royalties for the songs you write.

Publishing FAQs

We’re happy to answer any questions you may have, but by reading through our Frequently Asked Questions you may find the answers you were looking for.

How does an existing Horus Music artist sign up for HMP?

To access Horus Music Publishing services from your ‘My Music Distribution Zone’ account, head to the dashboard in the My Music Account Zone and you will now see the option to enter the “My Music Publishing Zone” application.

When you select this option, you will be taken to sign up to Horus Music Publishing.

Can I still register my songs with Horus Music Publishing if I do not use Horus Music's distribution services?

Yes you can. Horus Music and Horus Music Distribution are two separate services, and if you are using one you do not need to be signed up on the other. Horus Music Publishing is open to any songwriter or publishing rights holder to sign up and register their music compositions with a global network of collection societies.

How often do the collection societies pay Horus Music Publishing?

Royalties are typically distributed to publishers on a quarterly basis in the following months: April, July, October, December. A small number of our partners pay monthly e.g. The MLC and Pretzel.

Please note that it can take up to 12 months for royalties to start to be paid for a song once it has first been registered with PRO’s

When will Horus Music Publishing pay Songwriters?

Royalties will be paid on a monthly basis for any income received during the previous month.

If I have never registered with a publisher or a PRO before, does that mean all my songs have uncollected publishing royalties?

Correct, when your song is “reproduced”, i.e. streamed, downloaded or purchased physically (CD/Vinyl), on top of the revenue made from the sale/stream, publishing royalties are also generated and are paid to PROs / collection societies. Likewise, if you’re playing your songs live, played on the radio, or your song is added to a film, TV show, advert, video game etc. your song will also generate publishing royalties.

If you have not registered your songs with a PRO directly or through a music publisher, then the publishing royalties they generate will remain unclaimed.

Can we claim backdated publishing royalties for a song?

This varies per collection society/platform. Some can collect royalties as far back as three years. Some more, some less. We can make no guarantees about backdated publishing royalty payouts because they depend on individual societies and deals the songwriter may have made with publishers in the past.

If the Artist is in a band, do they just need one MMPZ account?

All band members will need an individual Horus Music Publishing profile to be able to collect their share of the publishing royalties. Register your band as a Publisher Account and take advantage of the reduced rates. £5.50 a month for two songwriter sub profiles, £2.50 for each additional songwriter in the band.

As a band, do we each have to upload the song to our Horus Music Publishing profile and enter royalty shares and metadata?

Although each band member will need to have a songwriter profile on Horus Music Publishing, only one band member needs to upload and submit the song. When entering the details of the songwriters (songwriter names, IPI numbers etc.) our system will first search the database for existing songwriter profiles on Horus Music Publishing and map the song to their profiles once submitted to our team to begin PRO registration. Royalties will also be split amongst the songwriters and sent to each songwriter profile separately.

How does a Songwriter report their live performances?

At present, songwriters and publisher clients can email setlists to the Horus Music Publishing team to process with the relevant collection society. In the future this will be an automated feature soon to be added within Horus Music Publishing accounts.

Is there a list of PROs you would suggest to join?

Please email our team and we can provide a list of PROs that are available to join.

Ultimately it is up to each songwriter to decide which PRO to affiliate with, however a good place to start is to look to connect with the PRO / collection society operating in your home territory. Some societies will accept international songwriters, and all have their own sign up fees and requirements to consider.

What is the difference between streaming platform royalty collection through the publisher and through the distributor?

Every time your song is streamed or downloaded via a DSP (i.e. Spotify, Apple, iTunes) there are two different types of copyright generating royalties. Firstly, you have the composition (i.e. the lyrics, melody and written music), which is collected by PROs. Secondly, you have the master recording sale/reproduction, which is paid to the distributor or the record label.

Two different royalties being generated at the time and being collected by two different entities.

Why do I need a CAE/IPI number if I already have an ISRC for my track?

The IPI/CAE number is a unique identifier for you as the songwriter, whereas the ISRC is a unique identifier assigned to each of your master recordings.

What's the difference between PPL and PRS - and do you need both?

PPL is a UK and international collection society for the reproduction of your master recordings (i.e. what is being distributed through Horus Music / your music distributor) and is the public performance of your master recording. PRS is the public performance of your composition (written music, melody, lyrics). They are two different societies collecting two different types of royalties.

If you are the songwriter, recording artist and performer, you’d need to be affiliated with both.

Because PPL isn’t a publishing society, Horus Music Publishing won’t be registering your works with PPL, this is something you would need to do this youself, via your manager or through your record label.

I am already registered direct with my local PRO, is there a still a benefit in joining Horus Music Publishing?

Most major territory PROs are part of the reciprocal network, which means if royalties are generated outside of your home territory, the royalties are sent through the local PROs to your home PRO to be then paid out to the publisher/songwriter. However, when the royalties are transferred from one PRO to another, each PRO will take a cut of the amount generated from your works..

When registering your works with Horus Music Publishing, we are direct members with, and register your works directly with worldwide PROs covering 83 territories, which means we help cut out the middlemen all taking a percentage of your royalties.

Our team are working to add more worldwide PROs to our network.

Another benefit to working with Horus Music Publishing, is that we are here to handle all the tedious admin work for you. This includes: making sure all yours works are registered correctly, isn’t in conflict, submit correct metadata, report live performances, making sure royalties are matched and paid etc.

If you sign up for Horus Publishing would that prevent you from signing up to another publisher deal?

Once you submit a song through your Horus Music Limited account, that song would be exclusive to Horus Music Publishing term duration of the agreement. However if you were to sign a deal with another publishing company, you can simply email our team and we can issue a takedown of the songs you request from our system.

If you compose music without lyrics do you still need to register as a member of a PRO, or sign to a music publisher?

Yes, even if you are composing instrumental music, you are still a songwriter and your written music will still generate publishing royalties.

If I move from one publisher to Horus Music Publishing, how will you ensure past royalties are collected?

This will be based on what the termination clause is in your previous publisher’s contract. So this will be a process we go through on a case-by-case basis with you and your previous publisher to make sure that the works are correctly transferred to Horus Music Publishing.

If you would like to start this process, please contact our team.

Society Partners

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