A writer role identifies who is responsible for different elements of a musical work. A description of what each writer role entails is below:
Writer Roles
Composer/Author: The person who wrote the music and/or lyrics contained within each musical work.
- NOTE: At least one composer/author or composer writer role is required to submit a work registration with The MLC.
Author: The person who wrote the lyrics contained within each musical work.
Adapter: An adapter is someone who takes multiple parts of a piece and changes them or marries them in a way to create a new work. For example, taking a poem and setting that poem to a melody.
Arranger: An arranger is someone who takes an existing work and changes the instrumentation or key of the work. For example, if I re-write Für Elis to be played on Ocarina, I can credit myself as the arranger of the work.
Composer: The person who writes the music only.
Translator: The person who translates the lyrics of a piece from one language to another.
Sub Arranger: A sub arranger may have contributed in part to a musical work, but not significantly enough to be considered the arranger of the work. For example, someone would be a sub author if they changed a small percentage of instrumentation of a musical work.
Sub Author: A sub author is someone who may have contributed in part to a musical work, but not significantly enough to be considered the author of the work. For example, someone would be a sub author if they wrote a line or two of lyrics for a musical work.