Types of Royalties in Music Publishing Explained

Most musicians have no idea how they’re supposed to make money from their music. You write a song, maybe record it, put it online, and then what? Sure, you know streaming pays something, but what about when radio stations play your track or when someone uses it in a TikTok video?

The truth is, your music can generate income in ways you probably haven’t even thought about yet. Every song you create has multiple revenue streams built right into it. You just need to understand who pays what and when.

How do Royalties Work?

At its core, a royalty is a payment to the people who own a piece of music whenever that music is used. One song can involve several “owners”: the writer who composed it, the publisher who represents that composition, and whoever owns the actual sound recording (often a label, sometimes the artist). When the track is played on the radio, streamed online, performed in a cafe, downloaded, pressed on vinyl, or synced to a video, money flows back to those rights holders.

Types of Music Royalties

There are a few main royalty stream types, each triggered by a different kind of use.

Performance Royalties for Public Plays

They are probably the most straightforward to understand. Every time your song gets played in public (radio, TV channels, a coffee shop down the street, a live concert), you earn performance royalties. The keyword here is “public”. If someone’s listening to your song through headphones at home, that’s not generating performance royalties, but you’re owed money if it’s playing where other people can hear it.

Performance royalties go to the songwriter and publisher, not necessarily the recording artist. So even if someone else records your song and it becomes a massive hit, you still get paid every time it plays. In the US, organizations like ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC collect and distribute these payments to their members.

Mechanical Royalties for Reproductions

They get triggered whenever someone reproduces your song. It meant pressing vinyl records or manufacturing CDs originally (hence the “mechanical” name). Now it covers streaming, downloads, and any other form of reproduction.

A mechanical royalty gets calculated and paid to the songwriter every time someone streams your track on Spotify, Apple Music, or similar platforms. These payments flow through different channels than streaming artist royalties, which is why you need to register with organizations that specialize in collecting mechanicals.

Master Recording Royalties

Master recording royalties are tied to the actual sound recording of a song, not the composition itself. If performance and mechanical royalties take care of the songwriter and publisher, master royalties are what pay out to whoever owns the recording. In many cases, that’s a record label, though independent artists who release their own work can own their masters and collect directly.

Every time your track is streamed, downloaded, sold, or licensed, a royalty flows back to the master owner. That’s why labels often heavily invest in recordings: they control the rights to the finished product. 

Synchronization Fees for Pairing Music with Visuals

Sync royalties happen when your music gets paired with visual content like movies, TV shows, commercials, video games, YouTube videos, you name it. This type of licensing often provides some of the biggest single payouts in music, especially if your song lands in a popular show or major advertising campaign.

Sync usually requires two separate licenses: 

• one for the composition (paid to the songwriter/publisher);
• one for the master recording (paid to whoever owns that specific recording). 

If you wrote and recorded the song yourself, you can collect from both streams.

There are also digital performance royalties (for non-interactive digital radio services), print royalties (come from sheet music, songbooks, and other printed formats of your song), and neighbouring rights (additional royalties when your recordings get broadcast on radio or television). 

In practice, one play can trigger multiple lanes. Stream a track on a platform and you’re generating performance plus mechanical royalties (for the composition) and a master royalty (for the recording). Put that same track under a commercial, and you also negotiate a sync license.

Who Gets Paid When Royalty is Dealt?

When a song starts generating royalties, the money doesn’t just go to one person. There’s usually a whole chain of people who contributed to creating and distributing that music.

Songwriters

The most obvious recipient is whoever actually wrote the lyrics, melody, or musical arrangement. If you penned the song, you get paid every time it plays, even if someone else records it and turns it into a hit. That’s your composition copyright at work. When multiple people write a song together, they need to figure out who contributed what percentage, usually through something called a songwriter split sheet. 

But the person who wrote the song isn’t necessarily the same as the person who recorded it. The recording artist owns the master recording copyright and gets paid from a completely different set of royalty streams. 

Music Publishers

Publishers come into the picture as the business side of songwriting. They register your songs with collection societies, chase down payments from around the world, and handle licensing deals. Standard publishing deals split everything 50/50 between songwriter and publisher. Some writers choose to self-publish, keeping both shares for themselves. Others prefer working with established publishers who have better resources for tracking down money from obscure sources.

Record Labels

Record labels muddy the waters because most recording contracts transfer master ownership to the label. Sign a deal, and you’re usually handing over your recordings in exchange for marketing, distribution, and hopefully some career advancement. The label then collects all the master recording revenue before paying you whatever percentage your contract specifies, and those percentages vary depending on your negotiating power. 

Session Musicians and Producers

They can grab a piece too, depending on their deals. Many countries pay neighboring rights royalties to session players when recordings get broadcast. Producers often negotiate points on albums, meaning they get a percentage of whatever the recordings earn long-term.

What makes this system particularly complex is that one person can wear multiple hats. An independent artist who writes, records, and self-publishes their music can potentially collect songwriter royalties, publisher royalties, artist royalties, and master recording owner fees, all from the same song. That’s why you should understand these different roles. 

How Are Artist Royalties Calculated?

Royalties are lots of small streams that flow in different directions depending on what happened to the track. A Spotify play isn’t the same as a vinyl sale, and neither works like a movie placement.

On streaming, there isn’t a fixed “price per play”. Platforms pool subscription and ad money each month, then split it by share of total streams. Your recording share goes to whoever owns the master (label or you, if you’re independent). If you also wrote the song, the composition side pays you via performance and mechanical royalties. One listen can trigger both sides at once.

Sales are simpler: a cut of each download or physical copy. Signed artists usually split with the label and wait for costs (recording, videos, marketing) to be recouped; DIY artists keep more, but handle more themselves. Sync is different again: a one-off fee negotiated for a film, ad, or game, typically paid to both the song’s publisher/writer and the master owner. Land one good placement, and it can eclipse months of typical streaming income.

In short, the calculations depend on where the music is used and which rights you hold. Own more of the rights, keep cleaner metadata, and agree splits in writing: these three habits do more for your royalty statements than any “per-stream” number.

Royalties Rights: Where Do I Register to Collect My Music Royalties?

Use this quick-hit checklist to make sure every royalty type is tracked and paid. Register each song once, keep the data identical everywhere, and you’ll capture the full revenue breakdown.

1. Pick one PRO for performance royalties: ASCAP, BMI (open sign-ups), or invitation-only SESAC. These societies monitor every public performance of your recording (radio, live venues, even cafes) and split the money 50% songwriter, 50% publisher.
2. Cover your master side with SoundExchange. It collects U.S. digital-performance income (Pandora, SiriusXM, internet radio) for the featured artist and backing players — money your PRO cannot touch.
3. Lock in mechanical royalties. In the U.S., streaming mechanicals flow through the MLC automatically, but download/physical sales still run through the Harry Fox Agency or your DIY distributor. Outside the U.S., join the local mechanical society (e.g., MCPS in the U.K.) to protect that right.
4. Add a publishing administrator for global reach. Services such as Songtrust or CD Baby Pro register your work in dozens of foreign societies and chase unclaimed micro-sync fees, taking about 15% for the hassle.
5. File a formal U.S. Copyright (optional but smart). A $45 eCO filing proves you own the composition and the master copyright, which makes it easier to calculate damages if infringement occurs.
6. List tracks with a sync-licensing hub. Libraries like Songtradr or Musicbed will pitch your music for film, ads, and games; they handle contracts and upfront sync payments so you stay focused on creating.
7. Distributors matter too. DistroKid, TuneCore, etc., will deliver your recording to streaming stores and deposit the master-side revenue in your account; this is separate from the PRO/MLC money flow.

Finally, keep a single spreadsheet with all ISRCs, writers, and split percentages. If the metadata doesn’t match, systems can’t calculate what you’re owed, and the cash sits in limbo.

What About Creation with Mubert?

So far, we’ve looked at how royalties work when you’re releasing traditional tracks, but there’s another angle worth considering: creating music with Mubert. Instead of dealing with all the usual licensing and collection organizations, Mubert gives artists and creators a way to generate tracks instantly with a clear royalty-free license.

With Mubert Render, you can type a text prompt, upload an image, and the AI will generate a track on the spot. Every piece of music comes with a royalty-free license, so you can safely use it in YouTube videos, podcasts, games, or commercial projects without worrying about collecting or paying ongoing royalties.

But why does this matter for royalties? Because there are:

• no ongoing payments (you license once, and your usage is covered);
• no copyright strikes;
• time savings (you generate what you need, when you need it).

Creators and artists can contribute sounds and samples to Mubert, earning a share of licensing revenue when their materials are used in AI-generated music. Content makers can instantly produce background tracks, intro music, or full songs for their projects — and they don’t navigate the complex royalty system we outlined earlier in this breakdown. Whether this makes sense for you depends on your goals. 

AI Music Company

Mubert is a platform powered by music producers that helps creators and brands generate unlimited royalty-free music with the help of AI. Our mission is to empower and protect the creators. Our purpose is to democratize the Creator Economy.

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