Royalties
Music Royalties
Music royalties are the payments creators earn when their music is streamed, played in public, sold, or licensed.
Every play of a song actually earns money in two places at once: for the composition (the song itself — the melody, chords, and lyrics) and for the recording (the specific captured performance of it). "Yesterday" is a composition; the Beatles' 1965 studio take is one recording of it, and a cover is a different recording of the same composition.
Those two sides pay out separately. The composition earns publishing royalties (split into performance and mechanical), and the recording earns recording royalties (split into digital-performance and recording mechanicals). Different organizations collect each one, which is why royalties are so easy to miss — and why Notes registers and reconciles all of them in one place.
Good to know
Music Royalties: common questions
- Why do I get paid from so many different sources?
- Because one stream generates several royalty types — performance and mechanical on the composition, plus digital-performance and recording royalties on the master — and each is collected by a different organization. Notes consolidates all of them into one account.
- Does Notes take a percentage of my royalties?
- No. Notes is a flat subscription, so every royalty it collects is paid to you in full.