> Every recorded song has two copyrights—one for the songwriting (the melody and lyrics) and another for the sound recording itself (the “master” recording). So

> Every recorded song has two copyrights—one for the songwriting (the melody and lyrics) and another for the sound recording itself (the “master” recording). Songwriters and publishers, who are separate from record labels, own the songwriting copyright, earning royalties on sales, streams, performances (radio, live) and the song’s use in television, films and videogames. Labels historically have owned the sound-recording copyright, in exchange for taking the financial risk to develop performers. The software analogy would be source code = melody and lyrics and compiled/deployed software = sound recording, but the analogy doesn’t hold in that it’s easier to replicate compiled/deployed software from its source code.