How does BananaRat Studio handle co-authorship splits?
How does BananaRat Studio handle co-authorship splits?
Plain English. This is not legal advice — for professional guidance, consult a music attorney or your performing rights organization.
What a split sheet is
A split sheet is a written agreement between co-authors specifying who owns what percentage of a song. Performing rights organizations (PROs) like ASCAP, BMI, and SOCAN require split sheet information to distribute royalties correctly. Recording contracts, sync licensing deals, and publishing agreements typically require one before a song can be exploited commercially.
A PRO-ready split sheet export is planned but is not generated today. When it ships, you will fill in the human authors and their percentages, and the platform will provide the song metadata, composition date, and a structured record of what was AI-generated versus human-authored.
What the split sheet records
The split sheet records the credits you enter — each contributor's name, role and percentage share — and checks that the shares total 100%, warning you if they do not. It does not grade your authorship or assign a designation based on your Authorship Evidence score; that score lives in the Authorship Record and the Human Authorship Statement, which are the documents to reference in a filing.
Songs below this threshold still receive a split sheet, but the narrative will note that the Authorship Evidence is minimal and recommend the songwriter obtain a legal review before commercial exploitation.
What the split sheet export includes
- Song title, composition date, BananaRat Studio session ID
- A structured breakdown of human-authored elements (lyrics provided by import, melodic choices, structural decisions documented in the Witness Log)
- AI-generated element disclosure (required for many PRO filings as of 2024–2025)
- Fields for each human co-author's name, IPI number, PRO affiliation, and ownership percentage
- Signature fields
Platform-generated content and splits
BananaRat Studio is not an author and does not claim a split. Our position is that the AI-generated portion of a work is the result of a tool you directed — similar to how a DAW or notation software is not a co-author of music produced with it. This is consistent with the platform's no-platform-license stance: we assert no ownership or royalty interest in what you create.
Some PROs are still developing specific policies for AI-assisted works. We recommend checking with your PRO directly before filing a split sheet for a song intended for commercial release.
Multiple human collaborators
If multiple people contributed to a song — one wrote the lyrics, another directed the arrangement — each should appear on the split sheet with their agreed percentage. The split sheet export has fields for up to six named authors. For more complex co-authorship arrangements, use the PDF export as a starting point and work with a music attorney to finalize the agreement.