Turn a half-remembered studio conversation into one page everyone can read, argue with and sign. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is registered, and nothing leaves your browser.
Splits get agreed in rooms where nobody writes anything down, and then remembered differently by everyone in the room. This tool takes the song title, the date, and the list of people in that room — with what each of them actually did — and lays it out as a single printable page with a share next to every name. You can split evenly across everyone, or split the total fifty-fifty between the music side and the lyrics side and then evenly within each side. What you get back is a formatted sheet you can print and sign, a plain-text version to paste into an email thread, and a copyable summary. It is a memory aid for a conversation between collaborators. It is not a contract, and it registers nothing with anyone.
The song
Contributors
Shares are percentages of the whole writer’s share. The two helper buttons only write numbers into the boxes — they do not decide who deserves what.
Why this is the thing that actually matters
A split sheet exists for one reason: the disagreement happens years later, not now. Nobody argues about the song while they are making it, because making it is fun and the money is hypothetical. The argument arrives the first time a statement shows a number, or a sync licence comes in, or a cover version gets registered — at which point every person in the room remembers a different conversation, and every one of them is honest about it. Memory is not the problem; the absence of a contemporaneous record is. A page written on the day, in the room, with everyone’s name and share on it, settles most of these in about thirty seconds.
The second reason is that the numbers are usually wrong in a specific, fixable way. Four people in a room split evenly at 25 each, and it looks fair until you notice that one of them wrote the topline and the hook, one played the chords, one programmed the drums they found in a pack, and one was there. Take a concrete case: a track with five contributors where everyone agrees the lyrics are half the song. You tag the lyricist and the topline writer as lyrics-side and the three others as music-side, hit the 50-50 button, and you get 25 / 25 on the lyrics side and 16.67 / 16.67 / 16.66 on the music side — with the extra hundredth on the first music row so the column adds to exactly 100. Nobody has to do that arithmetic in their head at one in the morning, and nobody has to be the person who says out loud that the drums are worth less than the hook.
How to use the result
- Print it before the session ends, not after the release. A split sheet signed on the day it was agreed is worth a great deal more than one signed eighteen months later, because nobody can argue that they were tired or did not understand.
- Write the contribution, not just the role. “Composer” is arguable; “composer — the chord loop in the chorus” is not. Change the role dropdown to whatever is true and put the detail in the note line.
- Do the 50-50 split before anyone anchors on a number. Once somebody has said 20 out loud, every later number is a negotiation away from 20. Agreeing the music/lyrics division first, then splitting within each side, keeps the conversation about the work.
- Keep the IPI and ISRC lines empty rather than wrong. A wrong identifier on a registration is worse than a blank one, because it sends royalties to the wrong account and takes months to unwind. Fill them in later, from the source.
FAQ
- Is this a legal split sheet?
No. It is a formatted page that records what you typed. It has no legal standing by itself, and it does not become binding because it was printed. What gives a split sheet weight is that everyone signed it while they still agreed, preferably with a witness and a date.
- Does building this register the split anywhere?
No. Nothing is sent to any performing rights organisation, publisher, distributor or database. Registration is a separate step you do yourself, with your own accounts, after everyone has signed.
- Why does the even split put an odd number on the first row?
Because three people cannot share 100 evenly — 33.33 each totals 99.99. The helper gives the remainder to the first row so the column adds to exactly 100, which is what a registration form will check. Move that hundredth to whoever you like.
- What if someone should get zero?
Put them on the sheet at zero with their role, or leave them off entirely — but decide which, on the day. A person who contributed and is not listed is the single most common source of a later claim, and a person listed at zero is at least a record that you discussed it.
What this cannot do. This is a memory aid for a conversation between collaborators, not a legal document. It registers nothing with any performing rights organisation, publisher, distributor or collection society; it does not file anything, notify anyone, or create a binding agreement, and no copy of what you type is kept anywhere. A real split sheet gets signed by everyone in the room, on paper, before any money moves — and if the song is likely to earn real money, or if anyone disagrees about anything, you want a lawyer, not a web page. Everything here runs in your browser: no upload, no storage, works with the internet off. The site disclaimer explains where this tool’s responsibility stops. Built by Nico, who also maintains the lyric generator library at WrittenTone.