Collect Your Royalties
Five organizations owe you money when your song comes out. None of them pay until you sign up.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
The map below is finished. The copy-paste producer block is still being wired in. Check back.
START · YOU BOUGHT THE BEAT
You own your recording. I keep my songwriter share of the composition. From release day your song earns from five separate faucets, and none of them turn on by themselves. Every registration below is free; the only thing on this map that costs money is the distributor you almost certainly already pay.
PHASE 1 · SET UP ONCE · ABOUT AN HOUR, $0 IN FEES
Join one PRO
BMI or ASCAP. Pays composition performance royalties: radio, venues, TV, a slice of streaming. Signing up gets you an IPI number, your songwriter ID everywhere else. One, never both. Joining twice freezes your payments.
Register at The MLC
themlc.com. Pays US streaming mechanicals, a separate stream your PRO does not touch. About 15 minutes. The one most artists miss: skipping it leaves ~15% of your US streaming money unclaimed. If Songtrust or a distributor publishing add-on handles your songs, they do this. Skip.
Register at SoundExchange
soundexchange.com. Pays digital radio: Pandora, SiriusXM, webcasts. 45% to the featured artist, 50% to the recording's owner. Register as BOTH "Performer" and "Rights Owner." You own this recording. Performer-only leaves the bigger half behind.
Have a distributor
DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby, take your pick. The faucet for Spotify and Apple Music money on the recording. You probably already have one.
PHASE 2 · EVERY TIME YOU RELEASE
- Register the song with your PRO listing every writer: you and me, legal names and IPI numbers, at the split written in your deal.
- Register it at The MLC with the same split, or let your publishing administrator do it.
- In your distributor: songwriter legal names in the credits, "Produced by prod.mason" on the track, and save the ISRC it assigns. The other forms ask for it.
- After release day, log into SoundExchange and claim the recording.
THE GOLDEN RULE: the splits must match everywhere. Same numbers at the PRO, at The MLC, in the distributor. Mismatched claims fight, and nobody gets paid until it's untangled. Write the split down once, then copy it.
PHASE 3 · GET PAID
Five streams, one song, all flowing to you. Each organization pays on its own schedule, most of them quarterly. Money you registered for this year keeps arriving for as long as the song earns.
Enter this for your producer
This block is the part under construction. It will hold my legal name, IPI number, PRO, publisher, and your split, formatted to paste straight into every form above.
The other half of the deal
Registering is how you collect what's yours. Your license also covers what flows back this way: the credit, the quarterly statement, the royalty. The Beat Deal lays all of it out in plain terms. And when the store opens, every beat comes with this whole guide as a free PDF, including the chapter on holding up your end.
FAQ
Can I just use DistroKid?
No, and this is the most expensive misunderstanding in independent music. DistroKid and the other distributors collect exactly one of the five streams: the recording's store money from Spotify and Apple Music. They do not register you with a PRO, they do not claim your mechanicals at The MLC, and they never touch SoundExchange. Stop at distribution and one faucet runs while the other four stay shut, with your money sitting in piles you never claimed. Some distributors sell a publishing add-on that covers the PRO and MLC side for a cut; that's a real option, but it still leaves SoundExchange to you.
I joined BMI, so I'm covered, right?
Same trap from the other side. The PRO pays performance royalties and nothing else: no streaming mechanicals, no SoundExchange, no store money. It's one faucet of five. The map above is short. Do all of it once and it's done.
Can't we figure out the splits later?
"Later" is how money freezes. Every organization cross-checks registrations against each other, and the moment your numbers don't match your collaborators' numbers, payments stop for everyone until it's untangled. Your split is already written in your deal. Write it down once, copy it everywhere, never improvise it from memory.
What if I just register 100% to myself?
The databases match claims against each other, and my side registers too. An overclaim doesn't reroute the money; it collides with the producer's registration, freezes the song, and on top of that it breaches your license. The honest split pays faster than the greedy one.
Should I join ASCAP and BMI to double up?
Double membership isn't double coverage, it's a conflict that blocks your payments. One writer, one PRO. Both are free for writers right now, so pick whichever you like and stay put.
Can I register under my artist name?
The paperwork wants your legal name and IPI number; your artist name belongs in the credits. Stage names on registrations jumble the databases and orphan your money under a person who doesn't legally exist.
Can I register once it blows up?
The cruelest shortcut, because unclaimed money doesn't wait for you. Claiming windows close, and The MLC eventually redistributes unmatched royalties to everyone who did register. Wait until it blows up and the biggest streams of your life, the early ones, pay strangers. Register the week you release.
Won't YouTube just find my money?
Content ID is one platform's matching system, not a registration. It catches some YouTube uses and misses everything else on earth. Nothing on this map happens automatically; that's the whole reason the map exists.
This page is general information, not legal or financial advice.
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