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September 13, 2024

How to Collect All Your Royalties in the Music Industry

The music industry can be extremely complex, especially when it comes to navigating the various royalties that artists are entitled to collect. With different types of royalties—each requiring affiliation with specific organizations to ensure you get paid—understanding the music industry landscape is crucial for any artist looking to maximize their earnings. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, but it’s essential to know where your money is coming from and how to claim it. Continue reading to learn how to streamline this process and ensure you’re collecting every royalty you deserve.

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Registering You Music With Different Organizations

Let’s begin by discussing the various organizations you must register your music with in order to collect your royalties. Each organization is denoted as a “Publishing” or “Masters” royalty. To freshen up on their differences, read through our article discussing Publishing Rights vs. Master Rights.

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Public Performance - Publishing

To collect performance, streaming, and publishing royalties, you must be registered with a Performing Rights Organization, or PRO. The three major PRO’s in the United States are ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. You should do your own research to choose which PRO you would like to be associated with based on the company in which you pay taxes and reside.

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Mechanicals - Publishing

This is one of the more complicated rights to collect on properly. How to retrieve your mechanicals usually depends on if you are associated with a US PRO or an Ex-US PRO. Often Ex-US PROs such as PRS or SACEM will offer to or default collect on your mechanical publishing royalties alongside your Public Performance. In the United States this is not the case with the Performing Rights Organizations. If you would like to collect on your Mechanicals, you can sign up directly with The Mechanical Licensing Collective to collect on your US Mechanical Publishing Rights. This will however, not include your Ex-US rights. This often leaves artists and songwriters in a difficult scenario whereby they register direct with the MLC and collect US but have no one to collect Ex-US, or they work with a publishing administrator who will collect worldwide but take a % of the US mechanical publishing royalties.

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Neighboring Rights - Masters

Collecting on your neighboring rights royalties must be done by registering your music with a Neighboring Rights Collections society. The sole entity in the United States responsible for directly collecting on these royalties is SoundExchange, and a common one outside of the USA is PPL. It's important to know that there are 3 sides to neighboring rights called the Featured Artist share, The Rightsholder Share, and the Non-Featured artist share.

Featured Artist Share - Share of royalties that are meant to be paid out to the main artist of a song
Rightsholder Share - Commonly known as the label share, if a label or other entity owns your Master then they collect on this portion. If you distributed independently usually you are entitled to collect on this share.
Non-Featured Artist Share - This smaller 5% of the total pie is reserved for those who are credited on a song but might not be the main artist. You can collect this share through SAG-AFTRA in the United States.

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Sound Recording - Masters

To collect your streaming and digital download royalties, you typically go through your distributor, which will aggregate and process revenue from platforms like Spotify and iTunes. If you have a record label, they should be handling the collection and distribution of these royalties on your behalf.

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How to Register Your Music

For an in-depth tutorial on how to register your music with the various organizations discussed above, visit our Registration How To’s page!

Managing All Your Royalties

Once you’ve registered your music with all the organizations discussed above, you are able to start collecting royalties. Depending on the organization, you may be automatically paid, or you must manually collect your earnings through their system. The next step is to track and manage those royalties to make sure you’re getting paid what you’re owed.

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The Best way

The easiest, yet most efficient way to make sure you are collecting all your royalties is through Mogul. With Mogul, you can seamlessly track and manage every revenue stream in one centralized platform, ensuring that no royalties slip through the cracks. Mogul’s intuitive interface links all your earnings from various sources, whether it’s from streaming, licensing, or performance royalties, so you can focus on your music while Mogul handles the complexities. By simplifying the entire process, Mogul ensures that you’re maximizing your income with minimal effort.

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The Traditional Way

It’s common for artists to choose to work with a manager who tracks artists’ earnings and attempts to maximize their revenue. While managers can prove their efficacy in bringing in more revenue for an artist, they often require a commission of 10% to 20% of your gross revenue. And even then, there is no guarantee that a manager will make sure you are getting 100% of the money you are owed.

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To avoid the costs of a manager, many artists turn to Excel or other simple organization softwares to track their earnings, creating detailed spreadsheets to manage their various income streams. However, as your career grows and income sources multiply, it may be difficult to keep track of multiple tabs, update various figures, and cross-reference data. This process can be very time-consuming and demands a lot of attention to avoid any discrepancies. While it’s possible to manage your finances this way, it certainly requires a significant investment of time and effort to maintain accuracy.

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Allow Mogul to hone in on tracking your earnings. An easy way to stay focused on producing more music while claiming 100% of your royalties!

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