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Distribution: Why “Keep 100% of Your Royalties” is a lie.
You have probably seen the promise that you will “Keep 100% of your royalties” when taking up a subscription-based distribution deal with...
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Apr 6, 20216 min read


Welcome to Meeksville: The Incredible World of Joe Meek.
Robert George “Joe” Meek was a song-writer, producer and sound engineer. He was also an independent label, publisher and studio owner. He...
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Oct 25, 201969 min read


Record your next release in Iceland and get 25% of your costs reimbursed by the State Treasury!
Several countries around the world offer incentives to get movies and TV shows filmed and produced in their country. It’s usually some...
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Oct 11, 20192 min read


The Lion King’s Ransom: The story of “Mbube”, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”
I’m sure you’ve heard at least one of the versions or adaptations of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. It has been re-recorded or adapted over...
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Jul 29, 201926 min read


Mime & Punishment? The rise and fall of Milli Vanilli
On the 21st of July 1989, during a “live” performance for MTV the playback device failed and began to skip. Not only did it halt the...
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Jul 21, 201935 min read

PledgeMusic goes bankrupt, other sites in decline. What is the future for crowdfunding in the music
In early May 2019 music crowdfunding website PledgeMusic announced it was officially entering bankruptcy. Most of the artists who were...
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Jul 11, 201910 min read


Bittersweet Victory: Why The Rolling Stones owned 100% of a song they didn’t write and how the
At the 2019 Ivor Novello Awards, Richard Ashcroft announced that after 22 years the dispute over his song, “Bittersweet Symphony” was...
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May 27, 20198 min read


Who should you join? (In order to make sure you are paid everything you are entitled to)
Aside from the distributors and retailers of music, there are a huge number of societies, organisations and companies that collect and...
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Feb 24, 20199 min read


The Possible Effects of Brexit on Independent Artists from the UK
As March 29th, 2019 approaches, with no Brexit deal in sight, it’s still unclear what will actually happen if the UK leaves the EU as...
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Jan 10, 20195 min read


UK Distributor dumps independent labels with “Dear John” style letters (that in some cas
A well known UK distributor early last year starting dumping independent labels, sending some the following letter. “Dear “label name...
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Jan 10, 20193 min read


The Truth About Spotify. Part 3.
What Not To Do As the modern music industry is in constant change, with many of the platforms and resources we now rely on in their...
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Dec 19, 20186 min read


The Truth about Spotify. Part 2
In part 1, I went over the basic principles of how Spotify works and addressed some of the talking points around the audio streaming...
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Dec 17, 20186 min read


The Truth about Spotify. Part 1
Streaming accounts for 37% of all the revenue from recorded music and with over 220million subscribers and a market share of 36% Spotify...
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Nov 21, 20187 min read


Picking a Distributor
One of the most important decisions you will have to make as a self-releasing artist and/or independent record label is which digital...
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Nov 11, 20183 min read


Trump Signs “Music Modernization Act” but the USA is still decades behind the rest of th
On the 11th October 2018, President Trump signed the Music Modernization Act (MMA), or the Orrin G. Hatch-Bob Goodlatte Music...
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Oct 15, 20183 min read


Bandcamp: 9 Reasons every self-releasing artist should have one.
I first started selling music online, independently, around 2005. At that time there were almost none of the tools and resources...
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Aug 12, 20184 min read


PPL and PRS for Music launch joint venture
And now on centre stage…TheMusicLicence You may have seen in the music press that PPL and PRS for Music have launched a joint venture,...
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Aug 10, 20182 min read


Unhappy with your PRS and PPL royalties? 6 Things you can do today to increase your future payments.
0n June 29th, PPL made their main annual distribution of royalties to its members. More than £150million was paid out, a 12% increase on...
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Aug 1, 20186 min read


Self-Release Checklist: 8 Essentials you must have before you release your music yourself.
So you’ve finally finished mixing your latest project and you’re ready to release it, or are you? I’ve met a lot of people who spent...
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Jul 2, 20185 min read


You are not just a self-releasing artist, you are an independent record company… here’s
One of the mandatory questions on the PPL rightsholder registration form is “label name”. Quite often people would get stuck on this...
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Jun 24, 20184 min read
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