Guides
Music publishing in United Kingdom
How music publishing actually works in the United Kingdom: 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: PRS for Music (MCPS handles the mechanical side). Sync: direct.
Copyright registration in the United Kingdom
No national registration system — protection is automatic under Berne. Evidence of authorship is contractual and archival, not registral.
Setting up to claim publishing rights
PRS publisher membership is open to foreign companies: the bar is a catalog of at least 15 works by two or more writers, with one-time fees of £400 for PRS and £400 for MCPS. Registrations land in the ICE database. Smaller catalogs often route through a UK administrator or sub-publisher instead until membership pays for itself.
The societies
PRS for Music · ICE — 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.