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How Music Royalties Work

Follow one play — from the moment someone streams your song to the money landing in your account. Five steps. Branch off into any part whenever you're curious.

Step 1

A play happens

Someone streams your song, hears it on the radio, or plays it in a venue. That single use is about to generate money in more than one place at once — which is exactly why so much of it goes uncollected.

▶One play

Explore: streaming royalties, music royalties

Step 2

One song, two copyrights

Every recording is really two copyrights, owned and paid separately: the composition (the song you wrote) and the recording (the master). Each splits again among the people who made it.

Explore: composition vs. recording, writer's share, recording royalties

Step 3

What each side earns

Those two copyrights earn different royalty types, and which ones depend on where the play happened. Hover the ring or the table to see how they connect.

Music Royalties
Distribution Broadcast Publishing Performance
  • Distribution
  • Broadcast
  • Publishing
  • Performance
Platform type RecordingMechanicalPerformanceNeighboringSync
Interactive streaming (Spotify, Apple Music)●●●——
Non-interactive radio (Pandora, SiriusXM, iHeartRadio)●—●●—
Download / DJ stores (Bandcamp, Beatport)●●———
Short-form & social (TikTok, Meta, Snap)●●●—●
Fitness, sync & background (Peloton)●—●—●
Karaoke & sing-along (Singa, WeSing)—●●—●

Interactive streaming (Spotify, Apple Music) pays recording, mechanical, and performance royalties, not neighboring rights, which come from non-interactive radio via SoundExchange. Karaoke also generates a print (lyric) royalty not shown above. ROXi-style on-demand music-video and karaoke TV is audiovisual, so it leans on sync and master-use licensing rather than the statutory mechanical.

Explore: performance, mechanical, neighboring, sync

Step 4

Who collects each one

Each royalty has its own collector — and you usually have to be registered with each before it can pay you. That fragmentation is where money gets stranded.

Collect everywhere

One song. Collected worldwide. Paid to you.

Your music earns through two layers. The first is distribution — the recording's streaming and download royalties, paid directly by the platforms everywhere they play it: one delivery, collected worldwide, no society involved. The second is society collections, and that's what this map shows — every territory has its own societies gathering what's earned there: performance and mechanical on the composition, plus neighbouring rights on the recording. The highlighted territories are where Notes is registered and collecting now; Notes reconciles both layers and pays it to you, with no percentage taken — and more light up as we sign them.
AndorraUnited Arab EmiratesAlbaniaArmeniaAngolaArgentinaAustriaAustraliaAzerbaijanBosnia and HerzegovinaBarbadosBelgiumBurkina FasoBulgariaBeninBoliviaBrazilBotswanaBelarusCanadaRepublic of the CongoSwitzerlandCôte d'IvoireChileChinaColombiaCosta RicaCubaCabo VerdeCzechiaGermanyDenmarkDominican RepublicAlgeriaEcuadorEstoniaSpainFinlandFranceUnited KingdomGhanaGuineaGreeceGuatemalaHong KongHondurasCroatiaHungaryIndonesiaIrelandIsraelIndiaIcelandItalyJamaicaJapanKenyaSouth KoreaKazakhstanSaint LuciaLesothoLithuaniaLuxembourgLatviaMoroccoMoldovaMontenegroMadagascarNorth MacedoniaMaliMacauMauritiusMalawiMexicoMalaysiaMozambiqueNamibiaNigeriaNetherlandsNorwayNepalNew ZealandPanamaPeruPhilippinesPolandPortugalParaguayRomaniaSerbiaRussiaSwedenSingaporeSloveniaSlovakiaSenegalSurinameEl SalvadorThailandTürkiyeTrinidad and TobagoTaiwanTanzaniaUkraineUgandaUnited StatesUruguayVenezuelaVietnamKosovoSouth AfricaZimbabwe
  • Collecting now
  • On the map

What a song earns

  • PerformanceComposition · PROs
  • MechanicalComposition · MROs
  • Neighbouring rightsRecording · societies like SoundExchange
  • Master recordingsPaid directly by DSPs everywhere a song streams — distribution, not a society

The map shades the society-collected layer — the part that differs by territory. Master recordings are paid worldwide through distribution, so they sit outside the map.

Distribution + collectionsMaster worldwide, societies in every territory
Notes reconcilesOne place, no percentage taken
Paid to youThe musician, in full

Collection Sources

Explore: PROs, The MLC, SoundExchange

Step 5

How it reaches you

Every source above pays a different piece, in a different place, on a different schedule. Notes registers and connects your catalog across all of them — recording and composition, every collector, worldwide — and reconciles it into one place, so each share actually reaches you.

See what you're owed

Find the royalties you're missing.

Go deeper: the full reference, the glossary