Your music royalties explained and how to get paid

Music royalties are the payments that should be received by the rights holders of a piece of music when their musical work is used. The rights holders can be the composers, lyricists, songwriters, recording artists, etc. When your music is played on streaming platforms like Spotify, Deezer, or Apple Music, or broadcasted on a radio station or TV channel, you should receive royalties.

In simple terms, artists compose and record music. These recordings get played and streamed, or the compositions get performed or covered. The rights holders get paid. You probably already noticed: There are different rights that can be monetized and as an artist you can wear multiple hats.

Let’s dive into the different types of music rights.

What are master rights? Or a master? Or even a master recording? So many deviations of the term itself. And what about publishing rights?

The Master Recording (or master) is the original sound of the recording of a song. The recording of a composition is owned by the recording artists, record label, the producer or the person who financed the recording. The master rights can be licensed to a record label or third party for a period of time defined clearly in a contract.

Master rights are automatically created when a song gets recorded, for example in a studio or during a concert. In a lot of cases, the master rights are owned by the recording artists themselves but they can also be licensed to a record label or third party for a period of time defined clearly in a contract.

One thing to understand: a master right belongs to a recording meaning that if you record another version of the song, it is not the same master right.

On the other hand, publishing rights (or songwriting copyrights) are the rights of the composition of the music and its lyrics (if there are lyrics). Songwriters, composers and lyricists own them. And in Europe they can’t be sold. When you create music or lyrics, you’re the owner of the publishing rights no matter what (well, until 70 years after the death of the individual creator or author if no publisher is involved). However, you can license your publishing rights to a music publisher who will monetize them for you.

• Digital Sales (Streaming Royalties & Download Royalties)
• Physical Sales
• Mechanical Royalties
• (Public) Performance Royalties
• Neighboring Rights Royalties
• Digital Performance Royalties
• Sync Licensing Fees

Digital music consumption has continued to increase in the last couple of years — and there is no end in sight. While the share of revenue from digitally downloaded music is decreasing, revenue from streaming made up 62.1% of the global recorded music industry revenue in 2020 according to the IFPI Global Music Report.

Digital Service Providers (DSPs) are required to pay royalties to songwriters and publishers; you’ll read more about that later in the ‘Mechanical Royalties’ section. The greater share of digital revenue is generated through streaming royalties and download royalties.

Streaming Royalties

Every time a track is streamed on a streaming platform (e.g. Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, Amazon Music, etc.), artists, record labels, and any other third party involved earn money through streaming royalties. You’ll read more about how streaming royalties are calculated below.

Download Royalties

Even though digital music consumption continues to move from download to streaming, download royalties can still constitute a considerable share of your income from digital sales. For every track downloaded from digital download platforms (e.g. iTunes, Beatport, Traxsource, etc.), musicians get a share of the amount that the user paid for the download.

While physical revenue continues to decrease, the rate of decline has slowed down considerably in the last couple of years. Within this category, there’s also a shift from CDs to vinyl or tapes — and with that a shift in the meaning and purpose of physical music to become collector’s items that you’re proud to show to your friends.

Whenever a CD, vinyl record, or tape is manufactured, compositions are reproduced. The same goes for digital downloads and streams: Every download or stream is considered a reproduction of a song. For the reproduction of music compositions, mechanical royalties are due for the songwriters and publishers; this money is collected by collecting societies (e.g. GEMA, SUISA) or other rights management agencies (e.g. the Harry Fox Agency) on behalf of the rights holders.

A public performance is when you play music in public, or when your music is played in public. You get royalties for the composition (e.g. for live shows) or the master AND the composition (e.g. on TV, Radio; at DJ events). Obvious examples are live shows at concert events or festivals. At these events, you might have to fill out a tracklist for the event promoter or producer because money gets paid to the songwriters of each song that you’ve performed. But there’s more: TV, radio broadcasts, or background music in restaurants, shops, bars, nightclubs, etc. are considered public performances. For all of this, you might be eligible to receive performance royalties through your Performance Rights Organization (PRO).

Neighboring rights (or related rights) are public performance royalties due to the sound recording (master) copyright holder. So when a sound recording is publicly broadcasted or performed, the master rights holders need to be compensated and this goes by neighboring rights. For example, it can be clubs, restaurants, TV, radio stations, streaming radios, or any public space where the music work is broadcasted.

Digital royalties are payments to the recording owners for radio airplay on platforms such as Pandora, SiriusXM, and internet radio stations. There are royalties for the featured artists (45%), the rights owners (50%), and the non-featured artists (5%). Digital performance royalties are specific to the US as they don’t use neighboring rights. The official collection society for this is SoundExchange. Digital or internet radio stations must get a license from SoundExchange to use licensed music, and on the other side, the artist(s) must be registered with SoundExchange to collect those royalties.

Sync is short for synchronization. Synchronization of what? This is the operation of two things at the same time and here, it can be for motion pictures and other audiovisual products such as TV, movies, Netflix Series, advertisements, video games, TV Shows, DVDs, Blu-Ray, etc. The producer of this audiovisual product synchronizes your music with this other product (video, moving images…) and will get a license to be allowed to do so. It’s often an upfront fee and in certain cases, you get a % of the sales - it really depends on the deal. This payment is called sync licensing and you need to register your music in order to be in a position to collect the fees paid for the use of your copyrighted music.

Now that we know what kind of music royalties exist, we have to understand who the stakeholders are, who gets paid, at what percentage, when, and how?

Depending on how many people are involved, from your label manager to the one who wrote your lyrics, several parties need to be paid. Apart from songwriters and artists, there might be many more entities in between operating as intermediaries on your behalf, assisting you to collect all the royalties you’re eligible to claim.

We know what you can get paid for, but when are you actually paid?

You get paid when someone plays or downloads your music on streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer, Traxsource, or other download or streaming platforms. When the user plays more than 30 seconds or pays to download your track, the money is due and the shop will collect this money, take their share, and reverse a large amount to the distributor (for example, iMusician) and to the collection society as streaming also generates mechanical and performance royalties. There might be a record label in between the distributor and you, an artist/songwriter, so they will collect this money, take their share, and give your part as agreed upon in the artist/label contract you’ve signed.

Types of royalties involved:

• Digital sales (Streaming royalties & download royalties)
• Mechanical royalties
• (Public) Performance royalties

When do you get paid?

About 3-4 months after the stream or the download is confirmed by the shop.

Important note: some shops might delay some payments and that’s why it’s quite hard to reconcile what you could see on your Spotify for Artists account or our Music Analytics tool.

The consumer will pay a price to buy your vinyl, CD, or tape and it can be different depending on which shop, which country, and which currency. A part of this money will be transferred to the physical distributor which will take its share and deliver the rest to either you as the artist or to your record label if they're the one dealing with it. A physical sale generates mechanical royalties.

Types of royalties involved:

• Mechanical royalties

Other payment:

• % agreed with the record label or distributor from sales

When do you get paid?

It depends on the contract, some physical distributors wait for your royalties to accumulate to a specific amount before sending your money but otherwise, it is about a couple of months.

Your sync agency will promote your music to music users so it can be placed in a product. When it happens, the sync agency deals with this user to get you the best deal possible as they will also receive a cut (%) from it. You will receive an upfront fee (sync licensing fee) and neighboring royalties.

Types of royalties involved:

• Sync licensing fees
• (Public) Performance royalties (once the audio/visual product is broadcasted)
• Neighboring rights royalties (or Digital performance royalties)

Other possible payments:

• % from sales or views from this final product

When do you get paid?

The fee will be almost instant once the sync agency and you have signed the contract with the user. Neighboring rights can take up to 2 years depending on the country in which you are registered and the country in which the music is used.

You will play your songs live in front of a public audience. This generates royalties on top of the fee you will receive from the promoter of this event.

Types of royalties involved:

• Public Performance royalties

Other payment:

• Fees paid by the promoter organizing the event

When do you get paid?

It can take up to 2 years for the performance royalties to arrive, depending on the country you are registered in and the country in which the event is taking place.

On the other hand, the fee you receive from the promoter is usually paid right after the event.

Your song will be broadcast on the radio and in many cases, this will generate great exposure for you depending on the reach of the radio station. Even better, it generates money for you. Depending on if you’re from the US or not, there can be different types of royalties when it comes to different types of radio (i.e Pandora or internet radio stations).

Types of royalties involved:

• Public Performance royalties
• Neighboring rights royalties (or Digital performance royalties)

When do you get paid?

It can take up to 2 years depending on the country in which you are registered and the country in which the radio station is based.

In our guide How To Make Money on Spotify, we mentioned that the average revenue per stream on Spotify is $0.00437. This is an average only taking into account Spotify and it changes every month depending on how much music is streamed, where your music is streamed, and from which user’s subscription (freemium, premium). This might give you some headaches.

On Information is Beautiful, you can have a look at the average artist revenue per stream from the main shops such as Napster, Tidal, Spotify, Deezer, etc.

Music download shops like iTunes, Beatport, or Amazon have their own price-tiers, and usually set the price for tracks or whole releases themselves, based on their own price policy. The shop takes its cut and sends the rest to the aggregator (or music distributor), and a small part to the collection society (e.g. for mechanical rights). You will get about 50 to 70% of the price that’s displayed in the shop.

This one is tricky. If you sell your CD and vinyl alone without a record label or distributor, you get the price that you sell it for. If you deal with a record label, you will get a smaller cut, and the record label might have a deal with a distributor which lowers the share.

An artist usually gets about $ 1.50 to $ 2.00 for a CD sold. If you’re dealing with an independent label, you might get a bigger part of the pie (i.e $ 5.00 to $ 7.00).

So many possibilities that we can’t really put a figure on this but you could easily earn around $50,000 to license your music for a Netflix series.

Depending on if a booking agency is involved or not, you will receive a fee from performing (please, never accept the pay to play offer!). It can be very low if you’re a small band touring the UK and it can be about $150 to $500 for a band playing shows in Europe or in the US. That is for small acts, bigger bands will usually work with an agency when they start garnering larger audiences and higher performance fees.

On top of that, you will receive public performances royalties.

How public performance royalties are calculated? In some countries, for certain performances like concerts, the royalties make up a fixed percentage of the revenue that the venue generates during an event. The collected fees are then split between the rights holders of the songs that were performed, which is why the venue or the promoter of the event might ask you for a setlist. Generally, most of the money in the "pool" to be paid comes from charging venues an annual fee based on such key factors as their capacity, location, and revenue. This also applies to radio and television stations, which pay a blanket license fee based on their market share, audience size, and revenue. The money in the "pool" then gets divided using a technique called sampling. Since they can't tell what small venues playing music from their personal accounts are playing, they ask a small sample of these venues what they're playing in detail and estimate how many people get paid out based on those numbers. So in the unfortunate situation of your music not being included in any of the sample surveys, you would end up earning far less than you actually deserve.

According to PRS, they calculate the royalties per minute of playing time on the radio. They also have a radio rate checker for their members. To have an average is very hard as many factors are to be considered but we know from Prescription Music PR what some big radio stations have paid:

• BBC Radio 1: £13.63 per minute
• BBC Radio 2: £24.27 per minute
• BBC 6 Music: £5.25 per minute

See our paragraph above about how public performance royalties are calculated to know more.