Music earns money in more places than most artists collect from. The gap is rarely a dispute. It is usually paperwork that nobody filed.
Money you are owed and money that reaches you are two different numbers. Closing the distance between them is administrative, unglamorous, and worth more than most of what ends up on a marketing budget.
One song, two works
Every song is two separate pieces of property.
There is the composition, which is the song itself, the melody and the lyrics. And there is the recording, which is one particular performance of that song. They are owned separately, registered separately, and they pay separately.
If you write and record your own music you hold an interest in both. That is two sets of registrations, not one, and skipping either leaves money sitting somewhere you cannot see it.
Splits before release, in writing
Write down who owns what percentage while everyone is still in the room and still happy with each other. A split agreed in a group chat the same night beats nothing. A split agreed on the day in a document everyone signed is what actually holds.
Splits negotiated after a song starts earning are the hardest conversations in this business. Avoiding them costs about fifteen minutes.
Registration is what turns owed into paid
Registration is how the systems that collect money learn that a work exists and that it is yours. Unregistered works still earn. The money simply sits unmatched, and a great deal of it is never claimed by anybody.
The part that is not glamorous
Believing you are owed money and being able to show it are different positions. The second one requires a record, kept as you go, in one place. Almost nobody does this until the first time they need it and cannot produce it.
Build it early. It is the least interesting hour of work in a music career and it is the one that decides whether the rest of this reaches you.
Register and Receive Royalties covers registration end to end and finishes with the tracker we use. See the workshop.