About to release an album, how much profit am I entitled to and what rights do I have

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grantsupak

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I am an independent artist and have been working on an album for about a year now. Besides being a musician and writing the songs, and also am the producer and audio engineer. I own my own studio equipment and have been using it to record the album. Originally, I intended to do everything on my own, but about three months ago drummer who is a good friend of my mine offered to perform some backing tracks and I decided that would be a great idea. I had been using electronic drums and I'm not a drummer myself. We have also been working on performing these songs live and have formed a band. I have not offered any compensation and he has not asked for any, but I do intend to share the profit from the album. As of now, no contracts have been written or even agreements made.

My main question is how much of the profit am I entitled to and how much is he entitled to? What do I actually own? It's definitely not a 50/50 partnership, the album is 12 songs and his drums appear on six of those with some additional percussion on three songs. I wrote the melodies, I wrote the lyrics, recorded the guitars, bass guitar, and vocals. I also am responsible for mixing/editing the tracks. This has not yet been discussed; it is touchy because I am younger than him and I don't know how he will react if I tell him that I should get a higher % of profit because I have done more work.

One other issue is we are sending it off to be mastered, duplicated, packaged, anything it needs to be a commercial product; this isn't cheap so we are splitting the cost. Does that mean we should each get half the profit even though I have done most of the work?

My last question is what I need to do before I "release" the album. I know I need to get it copyrighted, but how do I go about that? Is there anything else I should know? This is my first time doing so I am unfamiliar with the procedure. Thanks for any advice that can be offered
 
There is no easy answer for your question. If you wrote the songs, then you could always get someone else to play the tracks and be done with it if he doesn't want to accept the terms. How much you think each of you are entitled to is subject to negotiation. It could be 90-10, 70-30. If I were you I'd see an attorney before doing anything. There are several different rights you need to make clear, including copyright on the song, the sound recording, etc. This is not a simple matter. I'm hoping that he won't challenge the fact that you own the compositions and that should be made clear. Best of luck to you...
 
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