Tag: payments

How does RouteNote’s royalty payment process differ from other distribution services

RouteNote’s royalty payment process has some unique aspects compared to other distribution services:

  1. Flexible pricing models: RouteNote offers both a free plan and a premium plan. With the free plan, artists keep 85% of their royalties while RouteNote takes 15%. The premium plan allows artists to keep 100% of their royalties for a flat annual fee.
  2. Plan switching: Artists can switch between the free and premium plans at any time, allowing them to optimize their earnings based on their current performance.
  3. Payment schedule: Royalty payments are made automatically between the 15th and 20th of each month, provided the $50 minimum earnings threshold has been met.
  4. Royalty types: RouteNote collects various types of royalties, including performance royalties, mechanical royalties, YouTube micro-synchronization royalties, and neighboring rights.
  5. Delayed ingestion for compositional royalties: Compositional royalties can take 6-9 months to ingest due to RouteNote collecting from over 100 countries and societies, each with its own upload period.
  6. Combined payments: For artists who distribute through RouteNote, publishing royalties are paid alongside master/sound recording royalties.
  7. Transparent reporting: RouteNote provides monthly reports to artists, allowing them to track their earnings across different platforms.

Unlike some services that may have more complex pricing structures or longer payment delays, RouteNote aims to offer a straightforward and relatively quick payment process. However, it’s important to note that the actual speed of payments can vary depending on the type of royalty and the specific platforms involved.

Owning Your Music Masters: Demystifying Artist Rights and Control

In the music industry, “owning your masters” is a phrase often thrown around, but what does it truly mean? For artists, understanding the concept of master ownership is crucial, as it significantly impacts their creative freedom, financial gain, and overall control over their music.

What are Music Masters?

Simply put, music masters are the original sound recordings of a song. These recordings include the final version of a song captured in a studio, encompassing the artist’s performance, instrumentation, mixing, and mastering. They are distinct from the musical composition itself, which falls under copyright protection as an intellectual property.

Why Owning Your Masters Matters:

Owning your masters grants you, the artist, a bundle of rights associated with the recordings, including:

  • The right to reproduce: This allows you to decide how and where your music is distributed (e.g., streaming platforms, vinyl pressing).
  • The right to distribute: You control where your music is made available for purchase or download.
  • The right to create derivative works: This includes authorizing remixes, covers, or other versions of your original recordings.
  • The right to receive royalties: You earn a portion of the revenue generated when your music is used, such as through streaming, downloads, or licensing for films or commercials.

Not Owning Your Masters:

When artists sign traditional record deals, they often give up ownership of their masters in exchange for upfront funding, production support, and distribution assistance. While this arrangement can be advantageous for launching a career, it means the record label retains ownership of the masters and controls the aforementioned rights.

Benefits of Owning Your Masters:

  • Creative Control: You have the final say over how your music is presented and distributed, ensuring artistic integrity.
  • Financial Gain: You reap the majority of the royalties generated by your music, potentially leading to greater long-term financial benefits.
  • Long-term Ownership: Masters remain your property, potentially appreciating in value over time and allowing you to pass them on as part of your legacy.

Challenges of Owning Your Masters:

  • Financial Investment: Independent artists need to cover recording, manufacturing, and distribution costs themselves, which can be a significant financial hurdle.
  • Marketing and Distribution: Establishing distribution channels and promoting your music independently requires additional effort and resources.
  • Legal Expertise: Navigating contracts and copyright complexities might necessitate legal counsel, adding to the costs.

The Decision:

Ultimately, the decision of whether or not to own your masters is a personal one that depends on your individual circumstances, career goals, and risk tolerance. Weighing the benefits and challenges carefully, alongside seeking professional guidance, can help you make an informed choice that aligns with your long-term vision as an artist.tunesharemore_vert

Apple Tap to Pay is Going to Help Small Businesses Accept Card Payments Immediately – No Hardware or Contracts Required!

Apple announced back in February that they were going to launch Tap to Pay.

Tap to Pay is a new feature that will enable any merchant to accept payments with only an iPhone – this could obviously really hurt companies that take a cut in the middle like Square or Stripe.

This is going to be an amazing feature for small businesses – who wont need any new hardware or contracts. Just an Apple phone and a dream!

Now, it turns out that Apple is already testing the feature at its own Apple Park visitor center in Cupertino.

Apple Will Allow iPhones to Accept Contactless Payments by NFC

Apple is reportedly going to allow iPhones to start accepting contactless payments. This is huge news!

It will dramatically affect any card company and how they collect their fees – as well as companies like Square and other POS services.

Apple has reporting been working on this service since 2020, when it purchased a Canadian startup called Mobeewave. Mobeewave’s technology only needs an app and the phone’s NFC to work.

I expect that Apple will roll out such a service as part of Apple Pay.

Game changer!

Does Audius Pay Artists, Musicians and Record Labels for Streams?

No.

Audius has been live for over 3 years now and it is still yet to have a full payment system for artists and record labels.

Audius provide tokens to 5 top artists each week, but that has little to no value for any artist that is going to use their platform with the hopes of reaching more fans and making money from their music.

This feels like it is a completely dead project – even though they have over $1 billion stakes in the platform with a market cap of now less than $500 million.

What is the fundamental difference between Amazon and Alibaba? They seem similar, but with different business models

Here is the key difference.

Alibaba is a marketplace. They do not own the inventory of the merchandise sold. They put buyers and sellers together. Buyer and seller agree on terms online via their platform or offline.

Amazon’s main business is they own the inventory, and sell directly to the customer.

Both models have their Pros and Cons. Amazon has also turned into a very strong third party seller platform in recently years, but they still like to control a lot of the fulfilment.