Guides
Music publishing in Japan
How music publishing actually works in Japan: who claims which rights, what the national copyright system does, and what it takes for a publisher to set up and collect.
Who claims which rights
Performance and mechanical: JASRAC, or NexTone for repertoire whose owners have moved specific uses there. Sync: direct, but customarily via the Japanese publisher.
Copyright registration in Japan
Copyright is automatic; the Agency for Cultural Affairs keeps a voluntary registration system used mainly for transfers and first-publication dates, not day-to-day music practice.
Setting up to claim publishing rights
Japan is the textbook case for local presence. JASRAC's trust contract requires a legal entity with a Japanese bank account and Japanese-language capability — in practice, a Japanese office or company. Foreign publishers therefore either establish a Japanese entity (the majors all do) or appoint a Japanese sub-publisher, who signs with JASRAC/NexTone, registers the catalog from your CWR, files the fixed-format documentation, and remits. Expect the sub-publisher to take a territory share; expect nothing to move without one. One more thing worth checking from the other direction: US streaming mechanicals for Japanese works accumulate at The MLC, and unmatched royalties are common — Japanese writers and publishers can search for money held there at musicsearch.jp, built by the same team as this site.
The societies
JASRAC · NexTone — each linked page covers the society’s history and how registrations reach it.
Two free checks for your CWR file. Is the file correct? Every record, share and control total against the spec, each problem on its exact line. Do its writers match their registrations? Every writer cross-checked against public registration data, including works registered under another spelling or IPI. Nothing stored: check a file at cwrcheck.com.