Income

One of the biggest reasons that artists sign with major record labels is for the upfront cash.  The advance is very attractive for artists getting a 6- or 7-figure check waved in front of their face - even if it...

On Thursday, July 16th, in a brave act of solidarity and dissent against their employer, black musicians penned an open letter to the founder and leader of Postmodern Jukebox, Scott Bradlee.  Many posted this letter and subsequent demands to social...

Yesterday, the SBA clarified that if you’re self-employed, a freelancer or independent contractor you can get a PPP loan with forgiveness. It was previously thought that the PPP program was only for companies with W2'd employees on payroll. But now...

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...