Primer for Artists & Music Managers: Streams of Revenue for the Recording Artist

Before an Artist can truly become a business, they have to understand and stay ahead of the business or they will get taken advantage of in a very cruel industry. Knowing this, I wanted to put out a primer for Artists and their team to understand all of the different streams of revenue available, including royalty and publishing payouts in a extremely complicated streaming era. The entertainment industry is generating more revenue than it ever has in the past and the opportunities for creative partnerships in all arenas exist and leveraging your Intellectual Property is key in building an empire. Let’s Begin!

Music

Every song is split into two separate copyrights: composition (lyrics, melody) and sound recording (the audio recording of the song).

MASTER RECORDING ROYALTIES

This is the most known and understood royalty. This royalty is paid out to artists and labels every time their master recording is downloaded or streamed (I have attached a chart below that shows which streaming services have the largest payouts). If you are completely…