Income

Deep breath. Shit’s scary right now. Yeah. I put on CNN for 15 minutes last night and nearly fell into a full on panic. Shut that shit off. Cable news is not helping anyone. Oh, and don’t listen to that Joe Rogan podcast episode with the infectious disease specialist either....

Photo: Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee California is on fire. But this economic blaze will ignite abruptly on January 1st and will affect the California music industry so drastically that it could completely burn it down. As the fifth largest economy in the world and the...

A detailed breakdown of how songwriter and producers split up song ownership.

Photo by Maya DondonyanI just had a meeting with Sentric Music publishing CEO, Chris Meehan. I’m currently working on a admin publishing company comparison between Sentric, Songtrust, CD Baby Pro Publishing and Tunecore Publishing. Chris happened to be in town so we decided to...

The first thing that most young songwriters in the US hear is “you need to sign up for ASCAP or BMI to make sure you get your songwriter royalties.” I have to hand it to ASCAP and BMI’s PR departments. They do a great job of making themselves known. So much so, that most so...

At this point I'm sure you've heard by now that “songwriters just got a raise!” Woohoo! But what does this really mean? And how do you get your money? Ok, lemme break this down for you in plain English. Currently streaming services (otherwise known as DSPs - Digital Service P...

I bet you didn't realize that most cover videos on YouTube are illegal. Unless the artist worked with a Multi Channel Network (MCN) that had an agreement with the publisher, the only way the cover video could be legally monetized (uh, earn money from ads) was if the publisher hap...

So as many of you know I was off the grid last month in New Orleans on a (book!) writing retreat. As much as I love LA, it's very difficult to block out all the distractions of my daily life and solely focus on a creative pursuit. Meetings and (acting) auditions come up and it's...

On December 28th, 2015 long-time streaming foe, David Lowery, who runs the Trichordist blog and fronts the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, filed a class-action lawsuit seeking at least $150 million in damages against Spotify. The lawsuit alleges that Spotify knowingly, wi...

I need to start off by saying that an incredible album dropped last week. You should go and listen to Vulfpeck's Thrill of The Arts right now. It's funky. It grooves. It's soulful. There are some fantastic guest vocalists on there. And guitarist Blake Mills (producer of my favori...