Give us the money, honey!

‘Making money from music is impossible’ I often see people with long faces posting on FB groups…Big hairy goat’s bollocks!!

There’s never been a better time to make money from music! Fact.

Yet so many artists are ignorant of how and where this money is coming from.

Hope this will help a bit, but by all means keep educating yourself and keep doing so as it’s an ever changing world.

I also often hear the opposite too: ‘ I’ve a song on Spotify, I have to look into it as they probably owe me royalties.’  Wrong. To have a song on streaming platforms doesn’t mean there are royalties to be collected.

What you need to generate money is plays: streaming plays / radio plays / sync (tv,movie) plays.

The first thing you have to understand is that there are 2 main type of rights: 

- the songwriting rights (who wrote the song)

- the recording rights (who owns the recording)

Example:

You wrote the song by yourself, hired a producer to make a record, use Distrokid or another distributor to put your song on streaming platforms. You’re sending your song to local radios.

a. Any songwriting royalties will be collected by your P.R.O (if you don’t know what that is, type it in Google and register with your country’s P.R.O) and go to you.

b. Any income generated by streams on digital platforms will go to you (you are the owner of your recording since your hired someone - The producer may ask for production points (a tiny % on the money generated by the recording) and that’s totally normal -,  and will be collected by Distrokid for example (or any other distributor).

c. Any income generated by placements on film / tv shows, etc will go to you (you are the owner of your recording so you are your own ’publisher’) on the basis of the contract you negotiated for the use of your music. If it’s played often on TV, for example, your P.R.O will collect your songwriting royalties on it.

Simple!

There are many, many more cases and little twists and turns but this is the main picture!

The graph below is super useful. I got it from Aris’Take website that is full of great resources for you to check. Educate yourself, it is KEY: if you want to make an income from music and don’t understand this inside out, then you’re not being serious about it and shouldn’t complain if you don’t!!!!!!

When you understand it, then  have a plan : what way do you think would work best for you?…and go for it! :-)