Income

The news that took over the entire world this past week was how Neil Young gave Spotify an ultimatum to either remove Joe Rogan’s podcast or Young would remove his music.  Why? Young said in an open letter to his...

Hey all, hope you're staying warm out there. With the January 31st issue deadline right around the corner, let's have a quick talk about 1099's. First, what is a 1099? A 1099 is a statement of income issued to a taxpayer...

This post is about blockchain technology, which makes some people’s eyes glaze over. But trust me, once you understand the basic idea, it’s actually easy to grasp. And it’s all very exciting for indie musicians.   This post will cover how the...

Once you've decided to officially become a professional musician, you are faced with a problem that every working American has to face - you need to file a tax return. This fact alone is enough to dissuade some very talented...

If you’re a songwriter or publisher with BMI, or you’re thinking of joining BMI, this post is for you. Just for clarity, BMI is actually not a publisher. It simply collects royalties for publishers and songwriters.

In 2009, after working in music and venue marketing for 10 years, I started answering the phones at a busy tax prep firm in Chicago. It was supposed to be a temporary gig, but before long, my musician friends...

If you are reading this, you probably already know about "sync licensing." If you don't, then head over to this amazing podcast with Vo Williams: "Hip Hop Artist with over 1,000 TV, Film and Video Game placements." Listening to the podcast...

YouTube and the major labels and publishers are in cahoots. YouTube knows its Content ID claiming system is far from perfect, but it’s the best we got.

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) came out of the Music Modernization Act (MMA). Wow there were a lot of buzz words and phrases you may have never heard of in that first sentence. To not get into the weeds of how...

I have a new album coming out April 9th. No, I'm not about to pimp another album NFT (more on this in a bit). This is only for reference to say I'm A) a working musician and B) I...