SoundExchange
SoundExchange
Official site of SoundExchange, the U.S. nonprofit that collects and distributes digital performance royalties for sound recordings played on satellite radio, internet radio and cable music services. Explains how artists and rights owners register, claim unpaid royalties and understand payment splits.
More resources on Royalties & Publishing
Music Business Foundations
This course has been developed to provide students with the latest instruction on the best way for creators, consumers, and facilitators to navigate the resurgence of one of the world’s most exciting industries: the music business. Three things are clear about today’s music industry: The consumption of music is expanding at the greatest rate in history and from the most portals ever imagined, the cost of producing music is decreasing, and the number of artists creating and seeking to expose their work and develop careers through the Internet has increased dramatically. Whether you’re a music creator, consumer, or facilitator of this process, you’ll want to understand the history, underpinnings, and basics of the music business. Course author John Kellogg—administrator, educator, entertainment lawyer, performer, and radio and television personality—offers students the opportunity to learn the fundamental principles of the developing new music business, for now and into the future. What you'll learn: -- The basic history of the music industry and today's business trends -- How recording agreements are formulated -- The basics of copyright law as it pertains to the music business -- The role of agents, managers, attorneys, and specific business entities
ASCAP
Website of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, a US performing rights organization. Explains how public performance royalties are collected and paid, how licensing works, and how to register works, so writers understand how their songs earn performance income.
The Plain & Simple Guide to Music Publishing (5th Edition)
Publisher Randall Wixen's 2024 fifth edition covering copyright fundamentals, mechanical, performance and sync income, sub-publishing and foreign collection, administration versus co-publishing deals, and reversions, written for songwriters but detailed enough for working professionals.
BMI Royalty Policy Manual
This is the rare case where the primary document is also the best teaching text: it exposes the 200% writer/publisher split, the follow-the-dollar principle, census versus sampled usage data, and per-source weighting. A learner who reads it understands why two songs with identical play counts pay differently — a model no summary conveys. BMI's own royalty rulebook, updated August 2025, detailing how a performing rights organization converts license fees into writer and publisher payments across radio, television, digital, and live, including sampling methods, bonus tiers, and quarterly distribution timing.
The MLC Free Micro-Courses: Music Registration 101 and The MLC 101
Two free self-paced courses from the U.S. mechanical licensing collective. Music Registration 101 walks through registering works with the Copyright Office, a PRO, The MLC, and SoundExchange; The MLC 101 covers mechanical licenses and post-MMA royalty flow. Solves the exact operational half of this topic — where a songwriter must actually register to stop leaving money uncollected — from the organisation holding the money. Roughly 3 and 2.5 hours, free, with quizzes and a certificate.
Music Modernization Act Educational Materials
Official U.S. Copyright Office hub of videos, one-page explainers, and Circulars 73a, 73b, and 57 covering statutory mechanical licensing, the blanket license, the MLC's role, sound recording versus musical work rights, and how songwriters and performers get paid. Free, post-MMA (the only landscape that matters after 2021), and built as a teaching set rather than a statute dump: a six-part video series plus print explainers that give the learner the mental model of who licenses what, which right generates which royalty, and why the composition and the recording are two separate copyrights.