About splits.
If you've ever made a song with someone else, this is the part that decides who gets paid. No legal background needed.
What a split is
When more than one person makes a song, nobody owns all of it. The song gets divided into percentages, and those percentages are the splits. Two people write a song together and call it even: 50/50. One of them wrote the hook and both verses, the other helped shape one line: maybe 70/30. There's no formula and no rulebook that picks the numbers for you — the people who made the song agree on them, and the shares always have to add up to 100%.
What a split sheet is
A split sheet is the page that writes that agreement down: the song title, everyone who wrote it, each person's PRO, their IPI/CAE number, their publisher, and the percentage they own. Then everyone involved signs it. That's the whole thing. It's the receipt for who owns what — dated, in writing, and agreed before anyone gets paid rather than after.
Why it matters
Your PRO — ASCAP, BMI or SESAC — pays performance royalties based on the ownership information you give them. When two co-writers file different numbers for the same song, the payment usually doesn't sort itself out. It gets held, split the wrong way, or frozen while the claim is worked through. A signed split sheet is what prevents that: it's proof both sides already agreed, so the split you register is the split you signed.
Master splits vs publishing splits
Every song you finish is really two things. The composition — lyrics and melody, the song as it exists before anyone hits record — is the publishing side. The recording you make of it is the master. Splitting the publishing means deciding who owns the song and how songwriting income is shared. Splitting the master means deciding who owns that recording and how recording income is shared.
The two lists don't have to match. A producer who took a share of the master but didn't write a word may own none of the composition. A writer who owns publishing may own none of the master. People who only ever talk about one side end up paying or getting paid the wrong way.
What happens when you skip it
Nothing feels wrong on the day you finish the song, which is exactly why it gets skipped. Then one of three things happens. Money sits unclaimed because nobody could prove their share. Or it goes to the wrong person, and the friend you wrote with becomes an ex-friend the first time the song earns something. Or the song can't be licensed for a film, show or ad at all — sync deals need someone who can sign off on ownership, and if the owners were never written down, nobody can.
What splits. does
splits. is free, and it does two things. First, a directory: look up any writer's PRO, IPI/CAE number and publisher, so you can fill a sheet out without chasing five people for their details. Second, a split sheet tool: start a sheet with just a song title, invite the people who wrote it, and everyone adds themselves and their own info. Anyone on the sheet can propose percentages and whoever started it approves the final numbers. When the shares total 100% and everyone has confirmed, the sheet goes out for signatures over email links and you get a PDF with them on it. Every edit stays in the version history, so you can see who changed what and when.
splits. isn't a lawyer and this page isn't legal advice — it's the basics most people learn the hard way.