A Peru release can have a clean streaming split and still have an incomplete songwriter claim. As Peru’s CIMP music-industry congress meets on November 10-11, the durable paperwork question is worth revisiting. The Asociación Peruana de Autores y Compositores (APDAYC), Peru’s author and composer society, asks for identity documents when a declared work has co-authors outside its membership. Its work-declaration guidance calls for the DNI of a Peruvian co-author who is not an APDAYC member, or a passport or foreign-resident card image for a foreign co-author.
That is an administrative rule with a commercial consequence: the label’s recording split cannot substitute for a complete composition declaration. Before release, make one ledger for the master and another for the song, then check whether the people and percentages in the song ledger match the documents you can actually submit.
Two rights ledgers, two different jobs
The recording is the particular audio file delivered to streaming services; the composition is the music and lyrics embodied in it. Peru’s copyright agency, Indecopi, identifies APDAYC with authors, SONIEM with performers and UNIMPRO with phonogram producers. One musician can occupy more than one role, but the society and claim for each role are separate.
A distributor can allocate master income among a label, producer and featured artist. That instruction does not establish who wrote the melody or lyrics. If the singer wrote the topline and a beatmaker composed the music, record those songwriting contributions separately, even if the same people share master revenue.
What APDAYC asks you to prove
APDAYC’s declaration instructions require an MP3 or WAV of the work. For a Peruvian co-author who is not an APDAYC member, they specify a copy of that person’s DNI. For a foreign co-author, they specify images of a passport or foreign-resident card. The instructions also distinguish an unpublished work, for which a S/10 declaration charge is listed, from a work with evidence of dissemination.
There is another document at the membership stage. APDAYC’s author onboarding guide says an applicant who created a work with someone not yet registered at APDAYC must supply a co-authorship letter. That page lists evidence that at least one work has circulated, an identity document, a tax document, a photo and an audio file, plus a one-time S/90 admission charge. Treat the letter and the work-declaration identity checks as two parts of the workflow, rather than assuming one replaces the other.
Agree the song shares before the upload
APDAYC’s distribution rules give a default for a song with music and lyrics: 50% to the music creators and 50% to the lyric creators unless the parties agree otherwise. For an instrumental, the composers receive the whole composition share; where they have not specified percentages, the rules provide for equal division. A negotiated agreement may produce a different result, so the written split must be consistent with the declaration.
That default is easy to misread. Two people who both wrote a melody do not automatically get 50% each of the entire song if a third person wrote the lyrics. List each contributor’s role and agreed percentage, then make the totals add to 100%. If a publisher is involved, check its agreement too: APDAYC’s rules set the publisher portion at no more than 50% in the listed edited-work configurations.
A release-day audit that survives the next royalty cycle
Make a single work file with the agreed composition splits, full legal names, co-author identity documents, audio and any co-authorship letter needed for membership. Submit the declaration, then use APDAYC’s member portal to compare the registered participants and percentages with your agreement. The same portal shows repertoire and work-level liquidations, which gives a later reconciliation point.
Keep the master ledger in your distributor’s reporting alongside it. A correct streaming payment is only evidence that the recording side moved; it does not prove the song side was registered. For a related Peru recovery question, our guide to unidentified APDAYC works explains the claim window. Our Peru takedown guide explains why a distribution contract still matters after the metadata is right.
