Music royalties are the payments you earn when your songs get played, streamed, downloaded, or synced to film and TV. As an indie artist there are two sides to every song: the recording (masters) and the composition (publishing). If you wrote the song and paid for the recording, you are owed money on both sides — but only if you’ve set up collection properly.
The main royalty types: streaming royalties from platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, paid through your distributor; performance royalties when your music plays on radio, TV, or live venues, collected by your PRO; mechanical royalties from reproductions of your composition, collected by publishers or the MLC in the US; and sync fees when your music lands in film, ads, or games.
Getting Paid on Every Stream
Register with a PRO (ASCAP or BMI are free or cheap to join), sign up with SoundExchange for digital performance royalties on the master side, and use a distributor that passes through 100% of royalties. Register your works with the MLC so you don’t leave mechanicals on the table. Check your statements every quarter — unclaimed royalties sit in black boxes for years waiting for someone to claim them.
Here’s the part nobody tells you: billions in royalties go unclaimed every year because artists never registered properly or never checked their statements. A song that earns $200 a year in performance royalties is $2,000 over a decade — multiply that across a catalog and you’re talking about real money left on the table. Use a publishing admin service to chase global collections, audit your distributor statements for missing territories, and file claims on unmatched works. The money is already yours; you just have to show up and collect it.
About the Author – Ruben Burgos: Ruben Burgos brings over 25 years of music expertise and more than 15 years of model guidance to the table. He is the indie major pinnacle to retaining credits for musicians and helping them navigate this wicked industry without the fuckery.