The Royalty Game: What Independent Artists Actually Need to Know

Know Your Money

You drop a track on Spotify, it gets some plays, and a check comes through months later. Cool. But if you think streaming royalties are the only money flowing from your music, you're leaving stacks on the table.

Turns out there's a whole ecosystem of royalties independent artists don't always know about—and should. We're talking mechanical royalties when your song gets covered or sampled, performance royalties when your track plays on radio or in a café, sync royalties when a brand licenses your music. The list goes on, and each one requires you to actually claim it or set it up properly through the right channels.

The gap between what artists could be earning and what they are earning usually comes down to not knowing the rules. You can have a distributor like CD Baby getting your music everywhere, but if you're not registered with performing rights organizations or tracking mechanical rights, you're basically handing money back.

This is the foundation stuff every indie artist needs to understand before your next release. The game rewards people who know the rules.

Read the full story at DIY Musician → https://diymusician.cdbaby.com/music-rights/the-6-types-of-music-royalties/