---
title: Controlled composition clause: what it means and what it does to the money
publisher: RapCanon
canonical: https://rapcanon.com/glossary/controlled-composition-clause/
license: CC-BY-4.0
retrieved: 2026-08-12
---

> A controlled composition clause reduces the mechanical royalty a label pays a songwriter-artist on songs that artist wrote or controls, and typically caps how many songs per album are paid at all.

Glossary · Economics

 
# Controlled composition clause

 
also filed under: controlled comp, controlled composition

 
 

 
 A controlled composition clause reduces the mechanical royalty a label pays a songwriter-artist on songs that artist wrote or controls, and typically caps how many songs per album are paid at all. 

 
## The mechanism

 
Mechanical royalties are otherwise set by statute per composition. The clause contracts around that for compositions the artist controls, commonly at a reduced percentage of the statutory rate and with a cap on the number of tracks counted per album.

 
## A worked example

 Under a clause capping payment at ten tracks, an artist who writes fourteen songs on their own album is paid mechanicals on ten of them, at the reduced rate. 

 
## What it is confused with

 - Performance royalties Performance royalties are collected by PROs for public performance and are not affected by this clause, which concerns mechanicals.
 

 
## Why it matters

 
It applies specifically to artists who write their own material, so the more of your own album you wrote, the more it costs you.

 
Sources: US Copyright Office
 This entry is part of an open dataset published under CC-BY 4.0. Reuse it, including commercially, with attribution.
 Related: Recoupment · Black box royalties · 360 deal

---

## How to cite this page

**APA**
RapCanon. (2026). Controlled composition clause: what it means and what it does to the money. Retrieved from https://rapcanon.com/glossary/controlled-composition-clause/

**BibTeX**
```bibtex
@misc{rapcanon-glossary-controlled-composition-clause,
  title  = {Controlled composition clause: what it means and what it does to the money},
  author = {{RapCanon}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://rapcanon.com/glossary/controlled-composition-clause/},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-08-12}
}
```

**Wikipedia**
```
{{cite web |title=Controlled composition clause: what it means and what it does to the money |url=https://rapcanon.com/glossary/controlled-composition-clause/ |publisher=RapCanon |access-date=2026-08-12}}
```

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Canonical HTML: https://rapcanon.com/glossary/controlled-composition-clause/