You distribute a song.

Spotify pays your distributor.

The money arrives.

It is tempting to assume that means every royalty generated by the song is being collected.

It doesn’t.

A normal music distributor primarily collects income associated with the sound recording.

The underlying composition can generate separate royalties.

Master royalties

These relate to the recording.

When Spotify, Apple Music or another service streams your master, the distributor can collect the relevant recording revenue under its agreements.

That is the money artists most commonly see in their distribution dashboard.

Publishing royalties

The song underneath the recording is separate.

Publishing income can include:

  • Mechanical royalties
  • Performance royalties
  • Publisher share
  • Certain YouTube composition income

RouteNote Publishing currently collects performance royalties, mechanical royalties and YouTube micro-sync income alongside other eligible rights collections.

Public performance

A song may earn composition royalties when played:

  • On radio
  • On television
  • In shops
  • In restaurants
  • In public venues

Those payments do not simply appear because your distributor delivered the master to Spotify.

Mechanical royalties

Streaming can also generate mechanical royalties for the songwriters and publishers.

Again, this is separate from the recording royalty shown by a normal distributor.

Neighbouring rights

Recorded performances can generate neighbouring-rights income under applicable systems.

Eligibility and collection vary by territory.

One stream can create several payments

Imagine you wrote and recorded your own song.

A Spotify stream may generate:

  1. Master income.
  2. Performance publishing income.
  3. Mechanical publishing income.

If you are only collecting number one, you may be missing part of the money.

Audit your catalogue

For your best-performing tracks ask:

  • Who owns the master?
  • Who wrote the song?
  • Is it registered with a PRO?
  • Is there a publishing administrator?
  • Are mechanical royalties being collected?
  • Are neighbouring-rights registrations complete?

Your distributor is important.

It is not necessarily collecting every royalty your music generates.