Every song is really two things

This is the idea everything else rests on. A piece of music has two distinct copyrights:

  • The recording (also called the "master") — the specific audio file you uploaded. This is what plays when someone streams your track.
  • The composition — the underlying song itself: the melody, the chords, the lyrics. This exists even if someone else records a cover of it.

Because there are two copyrights, there are two kinds of royalties. Recording royalties pay the artist and label. Publishing royalties pay the songwriter and composer. If you wrote and recorded your own song, both belong to you — but they are collected through different channels.

Streaming (recording) royalties

These are the ones most artists already know about. Every time your track is streamed on Spotify, JioSaavn, Apple Music or YouTube Music, the platform pays a recording royalty. Your distributor collects this and pays it to you — with Tunetradr, that's up to 95% of it, for life.

This is the money that shows up in your distribution dashboard. It's real, but it is only one half of the picture.

Publishing royalties — the half people miss

Publishing royalties are generated by the composition, and they come in several forms:

  • Mechanical royalties: earned every time your song is reproduced — including on-demand streams and downloads. Yes, a single stream pays both a recording royalty and a mechanical royalty.
  • Performance royalties: earned when your song is played in public — on radio, in cafés and malls, on TV, at live events, and through streaming. In India these are collected by societies like IPRS.
  • Sync royalties: paid when your song is used in a film, web series, ad or game.
  • Neighbouring rights: paid to performers and master owners for public broadcast of the recording.

Your distributor does not automatically collect publishing royalties. They sit in collection societies and publishing administrators waiting to be claimed — and after a few years, unclaimed money is redistributed to others. This is the income most indie artists never see.

A simple example

Say your song gets streamed 100,000 times on Spotify.

  • Your recording royalty flows through your distributor into your account. Good — you're collecting that.
  • The mechanical and performance royalties from those same 100,000 streams are sitting with publishing administrators and societies. If you never registered the composition, that money is unclaimed.
One stream. Two royalties. Most artists only ever collect one of them.

How to actually collect both

  1. Keep distributing to collect your recording royalties — that part you likely already have covered.
  2. Register your compositions with a publishing administrator or society so your mechanical, performance and sync royalties are tracked and paid. Tunetradr's music publishing service handles this for you.
  3. Credit your songwriters accurately in your release metadata so splits are clear from day one.
  4. Don't double-register the same composition through two publishers — it creates conflicts that freeze your money.

The takeaway

Distribution gets your recording royalties. Publishing gets everything else. If you've only ever set up distribution, you're collecting one of two paychecks for the exact same work. Set up publishing once, and the second paycheck starts catching up to you — often retroactively.

#Royalties#Publishing#IPRS#MusicBusiness
TT
Tunetradr Editorial Verified by Tunetradr — This article has been reviewed, fact-checked and published by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and reliability for our readers.

The Tunetradr editorial team writes practical, no-fluff guides on music distribution, royalties, rights and growing as an independent artist in India.