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...

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...

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...

Whether you just signed a deal with a publisher or label, want to record and release a cover song, or plan on monetizing your music in any other manner (e.g., through its lyrics and viral YouTube...

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...

Songtrust offers YouTube monetization on behalf of our clients’ compositions as part of our worldwide publishing administration services. Here’s how it works: Once you add songs with at least one...

“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.”

As a music creator, you probably focus most of your attention on songwriting and performing, and rightfully so. But understanding how royalties are generated, collected, and deposited in your bank...

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...

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...

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...

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...