The digital services that TuneCore distributes your music to pay for downloads and streaming sales. Streaming services (like Spotify) pay artists based on a percentage of revenue that the service receives. For example, if your music was streamed on MySpace, MySpace reports to TuneCore your royalties based on a percentage of their revenue and we then post that money to your TuneCore account.
In addition, you may be eligible to collect other types of streaming royalties from SoundExchange. SoundExchange is a non-profit organization established by the Copyright Royalty Board. SoundExchange collects and distributes digital performance royalties on behalf of recording artists, master rights owners (like record labels), and independent artists who own their masters. SoundExchange collects these royalties from three main sources:
- Non-interactive webcasters : SoundExchange collects royalties from non-interactive webcasters, that is service providers that do not allow users to pick and choose what they listen to. Pandora is an example of a non-interactive webcaster, whereas MySpace or YouTube are interactive (or on-demand) streaming services because a user picks exactly what he/she wants to listen to.
- Satellite and Digital Cable TV : When your song is played through digital cable and satellite television music related services like Music Choice (Digital Cable) and Muzak (Dish), SoundExchange collects and distributes the royalties.
- Satellite Radio Services : In the world of terrestrial radio, it's only the songwriter and publisher that receive performance royalties, not necessarily the performing artist (unless they own or control their underlying composition(s)). However, in the world of satellite radio, like SiriusXM, SoundExchange monitors their plays and allocates the money to recording artists accordingly.
Important: TuneCore does not register your releases with SoundExchange.
To collect potential royalties owed to you on these types of services, you will need to register with SoundExchange directly, which is free. If you have any other questions about SoundExchange and their service, we suggest you contact them directly, which you can do here.