SONGTRUST
BLOG

Navigating the music business can be tricky for creators, especially when dealing with the minute details of rights management and music contracts. Entertainment lawyer/music business professor Karl...

Have you heard the term “sync” or “synchronization” before, but asked yourself “What is music sync”? At a basic level, granting a sync and recording license allows a third party to use the copyright...

Whether you’re a label, manager, publisher, or distributor, industry leaders should always encourage their artists to have honest and open conversations about split sheets. After all, not having them...

Lyric sheets may sound relatively simple — a piece of paper capturing a song’s key verses and choruses — but they’re often a deciding factor in securing major songwriting gigs or sync placements.

When TikTok shared its music report at the tail end of 2021, the company was quick to clarify its position on creators: “Music is at the heart of the TikTok experience. It’s the glue that connects...

Depending on how you define it, the phrase “royalty-free music” is either slightly misleading or woefully inaccurate. For one thing, there’s a big difference between songs that are exploited via a...

According to an encouraging Ampere Analysis report, more than $220 billion was spent on global content in 2021 — a 14% increase (a little over $20 billion) over the previous year. Subscription-based...

When Congress passed the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) in 1992, “digital recordings” didn’t mean Spotify downloads or bitcrushed MP3s. Back then — a decade before Napster’s shutdown, and Apple’s...

A crucial part of the publishing process is affiliating yourself with pay sources and registering your songs so they can be properly tracked for royalty collection. Not following these steps means...

If you’ve ever wondered “is sync licensing worth it?”, the answer may have been in the RIAA’s annual report for 2022. While streaming revenue saw its first stretch of single digit growth since the...

If there was ever any doubt about the relative sway of syncs in an on-demand world, one needn’t look any further than the fourth season of “Stranger Things”. Aside from the sudden boost Metallica got...

Now that the dust has settled from last year’s NFT rush — a flurry of non-fungible activity that generated millions for such early adopters as Grimes, The Weeknd, and Kings of Leon — you may be...

From sample-heavy hip-hop tracks to synth-laced pop singles, producers have played a pivotal role in shaping recordings since the music industry’s shellac days. They’re even the star of the show...

In a surprise move set to benefit songwriters and publishers throughout the U.S., three major gatekeepers of the music industry — the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), the Nashville...

“I couldn’t believe it,” Ghanaian-American singer/songwriter Moliy said in a recent interview. “I’m singing about getting paid, but I’m not getting paid.”

Ed Sheeran won the latest in a string of copyright infringement lawsuits against him in early April of 2022. This time, he and his legal team took a different tactic in dealing with the claim that...

An Interview with Bill Werde of Full Rate No Cap “I’ve always been kind of obsessed with what’s next,” Bill Werde told me, when I asked about his career choices and why he’s become a particularly...

Members of several major trade groups have finally reached an agreement to raise the compulsory rate for physical releases, downloads, ringtones, and music bundles to 12 cents per track. The National...

Elliot Aronow is a professional life coach and creative consultant and has supported artists and brands including GQ, The Strokes, RCRD LBL, Noah, and The FADER. His specialties include creative...

From hard rock to hip hop, it’s hard to find a hook-driven artist who hasn’t worked with a producer. But what if you’ve never stepped foot in a proper studio before? What is that experience actually...

While they were once considered a sign of “selling out”, sync deals have become a significant source of income among independent musicians in recent years. According to a recent Global Music Report...

Ever since the start of the music industry in the 1920s — when record players and records themselves became mass-produced objects, and radio was available from coast to coast— our collective taste...

When Clover Hope started brainstorming her first book a couple of years ago, the Pitchfork editor/adjunct NYU professor kept coming back to one topic: the sparsely told storylines of women in hip-hop.

Songtrust was founded by Downtown Music in 2021, and since then, the Downtown family of companies has grown to include CD Baby, FUGA, AdRev, and more. While these companies have distinctive roles...

Taylor Swift is one of the most well-known singers and songwriters in the world. In addition to her eleven Grammy wins over her almost twenty-year career, she was named the American Music Awards...

Stylistic changes in music over the last century have pushed songwriters to navigate how to write a hit song through myriad types of music consumption. But what a No. 1 smash hit sounds like when...

Navigating the music business can be tricky for creators, especially when dealing with the minute details of rights management and music contracts. That’s why we asked entertainment lawyer / music...

For the sixth consecutive year, the global recorded music market has seen exponential growth. Revenue for 2020 was $21.6 billion, up by 7.4 percent compared to 2019, per IFP’s 2020 Global Music...

According to IFPI’s annual Global Music Report, Latin America saw a 25.9% spike in revenue in 2022, with Mexico — one of its biggest markets — up by nearly the same amount (24.3%). The only region in...

According to IFPI’s annual Global Music Report, Brazil became the world’s ninth biggest market in 2022, landing right in between Canada and Australia. Adding to its position as a global power player...

When we talk about song parodies and satire in music, the first name that comes to mind is probably “Weird Al” Yankovic. His parodies of songs, from Michael Jackson to Nirvana to Lady Gaga, made him...

Radio broadcasting plays a significant role in the British media landscape, led by the publicly-funded and genre-agnostic British Broadcast Corporation (BBC). Unlike in the U.S., terrestrial radio in...

The music industry didn’t just enjoy its seventh straight year of growth in 2021. According to the BBC, international revenue increased at the fastest rate in more than two decades. So fast, in fact,...

We get a lot of questions asking us what the differences are between what Songtrust does, and what SoundExchange does. This makes sense - both companies collect royalties, both names start with an...

Ensuring your fans are able to listen to your music is the primary concern of any recording artist. It would be impossible for you to send your music individually to every one of the hundreds of...

Producers have long flown under the radar in the music industry but they are starting to get more public attention; for example, producer tags are now very common, especially in hip-hop.

While the film “One Night in Miami” depicts a fictionalized night of conversation between Sam Cooke, Malcolm X, football star Jim Brown, and boxer Cassius Clay, there was one piece of dialogue that...

Over the last decade, video games have gone from a fun pastime to the main source of entertainment for younger generations. Or as The Guardian put it in a recent opinion piece, “video games have...

For most music creators, making their music available where people can listen to it is a crucial step towards making a living as an artist. And, with a lot of online distribution options, it’s never...

Whether you’re hosting a jam session in your basement or helping a pop star write their next hit single, collaborating with other musicians can be an incredibly productive way to create new material...

Music royalties are payments distributed to you for the use and/or reproduction of your music. To understand the importance of music publishing, a complex but vital piece of your music career, you...

In January 2021, The Mechanical Licensing Collective, also known as “The MLC,” began administering blanket mechanical licenses, in addition to collecting and distributing mechanical royalties, for...

Women working as performing artists, songwriters, producers, and on the business side of the music industry have long bonded with each other over stories of sexual harassment, being scolded for...

The high-dollar advance is a highly sought-after and much-discussed phenomenon in the music industry. Many musicians and songwriters hope to get signed by a major label or big-time publisher and get...

Songtrust is a publishing administrator who is working to get all of your hard-earned publishing royalties collected and reported in one place, but what happens behind the scenes? How does Songtrust...

Music publishing can be a key revenue generator for authors and rightsholders in the music industry. However, in order to maximize those opportunities, it’s crucial to verify what the copyright law...

Disclaimer: The information provided below is not to be considered legal advice. Songtrust cannot provide legal advice or assistance but does encourage you to do as much research as you can, ask...

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article may vary from country to country and is US-centric. Songtrust cannot provide marketing or creative advice but does encourage you to do as much...

As your career develops, you will find that you need professional support to help you grow. One area you may need support in is around your media visibility and public image, which is where...

One of the most vital steps in ensuring you collect all your royalties is affiliating with your home collection society. This allows you to officially register your songs for royalty collection and...

Whether or not you need a music manager depends on where you are and want to go with your music career. According to Digital Music News, managers were once the main liaison between artists and their...