This is a contract between an artist and a music publishing company.  The music publisher will be responsible for the collection of all income from the exploitation of the copyright in the music and lyrics of the song.  Whilst the MCPS and the PRS collect this income and it is possible for an artist to simply become a writer member of those particular organisations and receive their income directly from the collection societies, there are several reasons why an artist usually engages a publishing company and passes the responsibility for royalty collection over to them.

• Publishers often pay annual advances to the songwriter against furure royalties.
   
• Many songwriters are not also performers and in this case the publishing company will use their industry contacts to sell the songs to well known artists.
   
• If the songwriter is a performer but does not yet have a recording contract, the publishing company will then be able to use it's contacts to help secure a recording deal.
   
• Each deal is different but a writer could expact to sign up with a publisher for 1-6 years. Times have changed, and the old notion of signing away your copyrights for life or a 50/50 split have lukily changed to situations where you might sign a deal where you receive 70-80% of your publishing income and only have to sign your copyrights away for up to 15 years.
   

'Synchronisation' is the combining of recorded sound with visual images (e.g. music used in films, TV programmes or videos).  Before the music can be used with the visual images a synchronisation licence must be obtained from the copyright owner of the music (the songwriter or his publishing company) and the copyright owner of the sound recording (the record company).