Learn the Music Industry
Start a firm

Knowledge

Guides to the money

22 guides to how music-industry money works, written for the professionals who advise on it. Each one pairs with the interactive lessons that teach the topic properly.

How the money works

The structural picture: the two copyrights, the pipelines, and who pays whom.

  • How music royalties work in the UK

    Every piece of recorded music carries two copyrights, and each one earns separately. A working map of UK music royalties: masters, publishing, mechanicals, performance and neighbouring rights, and who pays whom.

  • How streaming royalties are calculated

    There is no fixed per-stream rate. Streaming services pay rights-holders a share of a revenue pool, so the value of a stream changes every month. How the pool works, what moves a client's number, and why two artists earn differently per play.

  • What a record label actually does

    A label is a rights business: it funds recordings in exchange for owning or controlling the masters. What the departments do, how majors differ from independents, and where the money a label touches actually goes.

Collecting royalties

The societies, the registrations, and why money goes missing.

  • PRS, PPL and MCPS: which society pays what

    The three UK collecting societies cover different rights and pay different people. What PRS, PPL and MCPS each collect, who should register with which, and why a client can be owed money by all three at once.

  • US royalties for UK rights-holders: ASCAP, BMI, the MLC and SoundExchange

    The US splits collection across more bodies than the UK, sets mechanical rates by tribunal, and pays no terrestrial radio royalty on recordings. What each US society does and how a UK client actually gets paid from American plays.

  • Music metadata: why royalties go missing

    Royalties are paid by matching usage reports to ownership databases. When codes, spellings or splits disagree, money parks in suspense or distributes to the wrong people. The identifiers that matter and the hygiene that keeps a client collected.

Deals and contracts

What each deal type does to the money, clause by clause.

  • Record deal types compared: label, licence, distribution, 360

    Every recording deal is a different answer to two questions: who owns the masters, and who takes what share. The main deal structures side by side, what each is for, and the traps to check before a client signs anything.

  • Music publishing deals: admin, co-pub and full, compared

    A publisher looks after songs, not recordings: registration, collection, pitching and licensing. What each publishing deal type costs a writer, what the publisher's share buys, and the terms that matter more than the headline split.

  • Recoupment and advances, explained for accountants

    An advance isn't a loan and isn't income in the way clients assume. How recoupment actually works, why an unrecouped balance isn't a debt, and what cross-collateralisation does to a client's earnings.

  • Artist management deals: commission, term and the sunset clause

    Managers typically take 15–20% of an artist's income, but the contract decides 15–20% of what, for how long, and for how long after the relationship ends. The commission base, the term, and the post-term clause that outlasts everything else.

  • Producer deals: points, fees and producer publishing

    Producers are paid a fee plus 'points': a royalty carved out of the artist's share, often payable from record one after recoupment of the fee only. How points work, when a producer becomes a co-writer, and what an all-in deal does to the maths.

  • Songwriter splits: how co-writers divide a song

    Every co-written song needs an agreed percentage split before it earns, because societies pay against the filed shares for the life of the copyright. How splits are agreed, what a split sheet must contain, and how disputes freeze the money.

  • Sample clearance: what it costs to build on someone else's record

    Using a piece of an existing recording needs permission from both its copyrights, at whatever price the owners name. How sampling and interpolation clearances work, what they cost in shares and fees, and why uncleared samples are uninsurable risk.

Statements, audits and tax

The working disciplines: reading statements, auditing them, and keeping a client solvent.

  • How to read a royalty statement

    A royalty statement is a ledger with a story in it: gross receipts, deductions, reserves and the recoupment balance. What each block means, the order to read them in, and the patterns that signal money is leaking.

  • Music royalty audits: when to audit and what you find

    Royalty audits routinely surface underpayments, mostly from process error rather than fraud. When an audit is worth the cost, what the audit clause allows, the classic findings, and how claims turn into settlements.

  • Tax for musicians in the UK: the questions that actually matter

    Music income is lumpy, multi-source and international, which stresses every part of the UK tax system built for salaries. The structural decisions: sole trader or company, what counts as deductible, VAT registration, and foreign withholding.

  • What a music business manager actually does

    Business managers run the financial side of a music career: collections, cashflow, tax reserves and the monthly close. Where the role sits against the manager and accountant, how it is paid, and when a client needs one.

Sync, live and direct-to-fan

The income streams that run on their own economics.

  • Sync licensing: how music gets into film, TV and adverts

    Every sync needs two licences, one per copyright, and the fee is negotiated per use. How sync deals are structured, what drives the fee, who takes a cut on each side, and why cue sheets decide the long tail.

  • Touring money: how live income and costs settle

    Live music quotes gross numbers and pays net ones. How guarantees, promoter deals and settlement work, what the cost stack really contains, and where VAT and foreign withholding bite on a UK tour.

  • Direct-to-fan economics: margin over reach

    A thousand true fans spending directly can out-earn millions of streams, because direct channels keep most of each pound where streaming keeps a fraction of a penny. The D2C margin stack, the platform fees, and how to read a fan-funded business.

Catalogue and ownership

Rights as assets: term, reversion, valuation and the sale.

  • Catalogue sales and valuation: multiples, diligence and tax

    Music catalogues trade on multiples of normalised annual earnings. How NPS is built, what moves the multiple, what diligence actually checks, and why the sale structure drives the after-tax outcome.

  • Copyright term and reversion: when rights come back

    Copyrights outlive careers, and deals signed young can control rights for decades unless something brings them back. How long the copyrights last, the contractual and statutory routes to reversion, and why re-recording exists as a bargaining chip.