Publishing & Licensing
- Global music publishing administration and sync licensing. Keep 100% ownership of your original songs.
Horus Music
Music Publishing for Songwriters from £3/month
Horus Music helps you take control of your publishing rights and unlock new revenue streams.
From just £3 a month, we’ll handle all admin so you can focus on making great music.
With our Horus Music Publishing plan, here’s what’s included:
Upgrade to Publishing+ and access sync licensing opportunities:
- Pitch your original songs to global briefs for TV, film, ads, video games and more.
- Access exclusive songwriting opportunities.
- Become part of a community where you can connect, collaborate and grow with other songwriters.
Music Publishing for Bands from £5.50/month
Start with our Publishing Starter subscription, it includes 2 songwriter profiles for just £5.50/month.
Need more? Add additional songwriter profiles for only £2.50/month each.
Pay annually for your publisher account and get 1 month FREE
Perfect for bands with shared songwriting credits, our platform ensures every member gets paid fairly and efficiently, while opening the door to global publishing opportunities.
Note: To collect royalties for a band, each member must create a songwriter sub-profile.
Looking for sync licensing opportunities?
Upgrade to Publishing+ and unlock potential placements for your entire band across film, TV, games, and more.
Pricing
Accessing your publishing royalties doesn’t need to break the bank!
From just £3/month (or £33/year) create a songwriter profile to maximise publishing revenue, easily manage royalty collection, and protect your music rights.
Monetize your original songs globally
Pay annually for your publisher account and get 1 month FREE
Receive 90% of performance and mechanical publishing royalties, and retain 100% ownership across all account models.
£3 / pm
£5 / pm
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:
How Publishing Royalties Are Generated
- Performance royalties
Performance royalties are generated each time a composition is performed in public, such as a live show, played on the radio, broadcast on TV, or streamed.
These royalties are collected by Performance Rights Organisations (PROs) who act on behalf of songwriters, composers, and publishers to ensure you’re paid when your music is publicly performed.
- Mechanical royalties
- Lyric royalties
Pitch Your Songs for Sync Licensing Opportunities
With our Publishing+ subscription tier, we provide songwriters and publishing rights holders with access to submit their songs for global sync licensing briefs and bespoke songwriting opportunities, on top of all the administrative benefits you receive with with a Horus Music Publishing subscription.
What Is Music Publishing?
Music publishing is a term used to describe the managing, protecting, and monetising of your song’s composition. As the songwriter or composer of a song, you own the copyright to the composition, and a music publishing company ensures you receive the royalties whenever the song is used, either through performance, mechanical or digital use.
Music publishing companies like Horus Music Publishing handle the complicated side of things, such as registering the song with copyright agencies and collecting royalties from PROs and MROs.
Music Publishing can also negotiate contracts with record labels and film or TV production companies to boost revenue even further. That way, you can spend less time worrying about whether you’re going to receive the royalties you’ve earned, and more time focusing on what you love most – creating your next masterpiece.
Contact the team if you’d like 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 110 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.
Register Your Songs With
Horus Music
Song Publishing and Sync Licensing from £5/month
Horus Music helps you take control of your publishing rights and unlock new revenue streams. From just £3 a month, we’ll handle all admin so you can focus on making great music.
With our Horus Music Publishing plan, here’s what’s included:
- Submit your original music for a range of global sync briefs.
- Write new songs for global record labels and popular artists.
- Access bespoke songwriting opportunities.
- Join the exclusive Publishing+ community: share your work and collaborate on new music.
- All of your publishing admin is taken care of, so you have more time to focus on being creative.
- Maximise your publishing royalties and protect your music globally through direct registrations with collection societies in 100+ countries.
- Claim back-dated royalties from multiple global collection societies.
- Personalised support from our experienced team via email and phone.
- License and monetise lyrics worldwide, with visibility on popular platforms.
Opportunity Through Media
What is sync licensing?
A sync license gives someone the permission to use your music and lyrics in a moving picture. For example: to be used in films, TV series, adverts, video games or other audio-visual productions.
Sync licensing offers significant opportunities for independent artists, songwriters, and composers to increase their exposure whilst generating additional revenue.
Our in house team, work with music supervisors from across the globe, and pitch music to the media daily.
If you have any questions about the sync process, how to prepare your music for sync submissions, or music publishing in general, please don’t hesitate to email / call our dedicated support team.
The Process
How does sync licensing it work?
When you sign up and create your Horus Music Publishing+ profile, you will follow these steps:
1. Global Registration:
Upload your music and lyrics to your account. Our team will get these registered with global collection societies to make sure your publishing royalties are being collected and paid to you.
2. Sync and Songwriting Briefs:
3. Submit Your Songs:
4. Success:
What sync opportunities will I be sent?
Your Publishing+ subscription provides you with exclusive access to a variety of
sync briefs and publishing opportunities. This includes:
Priority Sync Briefs
Priority sync briefs are specific and usually consist of a particular company looking for a song which meets stricter criteria.
For example, it could be a Netflix film looking for a romantic love song within the indie pop genre.
Rolling Sync Briefs
As a music publishing service, we notice a regular demand for certain types of music or themes. This could be seasonal (i.e. Christmas, Halloween, Valentines) or a style (french pop, popular song covers). Our team hold your submissions in our internal database, so if your song(s) are a good fit, we will put them forward for consideration.
Song Pitches
Labels, artists and publishers are often looking for unreleased original songs for their artists to record and release. For example, a label working with K-pop artists may request a song for one of their artists to record and release under their artist’s name.
Bespoke Songwriting Opportunities
As a HMP+ subscriber you will also be notified of a variety of additional opportunities. This can be anything from applications for a songwriting camp, a producer asking for a topline to be composed and performed or a request for a new original song to be written about a specific theme or tell a certain story.
Compare Our Music Publishing Services
Horus Music Publishing is perfect for songwriters and composers who want to protect and monetise their original works with a trusted global partner.
Upgrade to Publishing+ to access exclusive sync licensing opportunities for TV, film, ads, games, and more.
Get started from just £3/month or £33/year (with one month FREE when you pay annually).
Monetize your original songs globally
Pay annually for your publisher account and get 1 month FREE
Receive 90% of performance and mechanical publishing royalties, and retain 100% ownership across all account models.
£3 / pm
£5 / pm
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.
What does my subscription include?
As a HMP+ member, your monthly subscription includes the following:
- Access to a variety of priority sync briefs you can submit your music for.
- Song pitch and bespoke songwriting opportunities.
- Registration of your songs with collection societies in 110 countries worldwide.
- Direct support from our expert team via email and phone.
- Efficient collection and payments for your performance, mechanical and lyric royalties.
- All of your publishing admin is taken care of, so you have more time to focus on being creative.
- Exclusive access to our Horus Music Publishing+ discord community.
- Monthly sync briefs sent to you via email for you to submit your music.
How will I be notified about new briefs I can submit for?
We have two methods of notifying your with new briefs:
On our private Discord Server: We add new opportunities to our Discord Server, on a regular basis. When providing new sync briefs we will share a summary of what the music supervisors are looking for, the submission deadline, and a link to an online form where you can input details about your songs
Through our monthly newsletters: Every month we will send out a newsletter to all our HMP+ members containing a Rolling Sync Brief to submit your music for, as well as any other ongoing priority sync briefs and song pitches you can submit for.
For more information, drop one of our publishing team an email, and they will be able to add you to our discord server and your email to the newsletter.
What happens after I submit my song for a sync brief?
Our team will review all submissions to make sure they meet the brief requirements (i.e. match the genre they are wanting) and then they will submit your music to the relevant supervisor before their deadline.
Please note that submitting your songs for sync opportunities is not a guaranteed success. The music supervisors will need to review your music. Unfortunately if not selected, music supervisors are not able to provide feedback on your submissions.
What happens if my song is selected?
If your song is successfully selected for a sync, our team will contact you directly over email to discuss next steps and ensure all the necessary assets are provided.
From here, we will talk you through the process and help liaise with external teams to ensure a smooth and efficient placement of your song. For any successful syncs obtained via your Horus Music Publishing+ service, you will receive 75% of the total flat fee.
In addition to this, as per your standard admin service as part of your HMP+ subscription, you will retain 90% of all royalties generated from the song. This is separate to the flat fee you will receive for any successful sync placement.
Are there any requirements for sync briefs?
Firstly, we can only submit your songs for sync briefs if they have been uploaded to our My Music Publishing Zone system.
Your submissions are only valid if you have provided all of the following when uploading to your Horus Music Publishing account:
- Main & Instrumental version of each song.
- Clean versions of the song (if the original contains explicit language).
- Wav audio files ONLY.
- Songwriter(s) information: Full name, IPI number, % share.
- Lyric sheet.
- Artwork (if available).
Will I need to register my songs with a PRO?
Registering your music with a PRO will ensure that you’re collecting performance royalties. If a song isn’t registered at the point of license, it can be licensed afterwards, just ensure that the licensee has the correct PRO information for the license.
How can I make sure a sync representative is a good fit for me?
It’s important to speak with your music publisher / sync representatives before deciding to work with them. This way you know that your goals and styles are aligned.
Feel free to contact our team here.
Can a sync placement affect my streaming numbers?
In short, Yes! Through sync your music is broadcasted to a new and larger audience.
Some well known examples of sync placement songs boosting streaming numbers are ‘Running Up That Hill’ by Kate Bush, this had a renewed resurgence when it was featured in the fourth season of ‘Stranger things’.
The result of this placement meant the song returned to the charts and became the song of the summer in 2022.
Other examples include, The Lumineers, who gained recognition through their songs being included in sync placements. The most notable is ‘Hey Ho’ which was included in a Bing Advertisement.
What do music supervisors do?
A music supervisor will choose (and license) music to be used in any visual media, for example, TV shows, films, and games. They will work closely with the director and producer on the visual media to find what music will work best for scenes.
How can I make my music syncable?
This will be dependent on the type of sync briefs you are looking to submit your music to. However before submitting your music make sure to you’ve fully understood the brief and met all the acceptance criteria.
Having easy access to the lyrics of the song, individual stems, songwriting split agreements and an instrumental version of the song will help.
In general consider creating music with strong moods, hooks, or emotional impact can help it be more sync-friendly as you can easily connect the song with a scene or desired emotion the project wants to heighten in their audience.
Do I need a publisher to get sync placements?
No, you don’t always need a traditional publisher.
However through our Publishing+ service you can pitch your tracks for sync opportunities. Having a publisher like Horus Music Publishing can improve your chances, as it ensures your music is properly registered, cleared, and ready for licensing.
What genres of music are most in demand for sync licensing?
Sync supervisors look for a wide range of genres depending on the project. That said, indie, pop, electronic, hip-hop, cinematic scores, and acoustic singer-songwriter tracks are often in high demand. Music with strong moods, hooks, or emotional impact tends to be more sync-friendly.
Can I still submit my music if I don’t have a PRO membership?
Yes, you can. A PRO (Performing Rights Organisation) membership isn’t required to submit music for sync licensing. However, joining a PRO such as PRS, BMI, or ASCAP ensures you’ll collect the performance royalties generated once your music is used.
Do I need to own 100% of the rights to my song?
Ideally, yes. Sync deals require clear rights ownership. If you share rights with other writers, producers, or labels, you must have their consent to license the track. Without 100% clearance, music supervisors are less likely to use your song.
How are sync fees different from royalties?
A sync fee is the upfront payment you receive when your track is licensed for use in a TV show, advert, film, or game. Royalties are ongoing payments earned when the track is broadcast or performed publicly after the sync placement. Both can add up to valuable income streams.
Do sync placements affect copyright ownership of my music?
No. A sync placement only grants the licensee permission to use your track in their project. You retain full copyright ownership of your music.