Code Group Music · London
Journal
Music publishing is the business of managing and monetising the rights in a musical composition, separate from the recording. Understanding it is essential for any independent artist who wants to collect every pound their music earns.
Music metadata is the structured information attached to every recording and composition; it is the invisible infrastructure that determines whether your royalties reach you. Poor metadata is the most common cause of payment failures, misattributed streams, and permanently uncollected income.
Not all distributors are equal. This guide covers what independent artists should actually evaluate when choosing a distribution partner, and what the fine print often hides.
Music publishing is the business of managing and monetising the rights in a musical composition, separate from the recording. Understanding it is essential for any independent artist who wants to collect every pound their music earns.
UK music royalties fall into four main types - performance, mechanical, neighbouring rights and sync - and each is collected by a different organisation. This guide explains what each one pays, who collects it, and how UK artists, songwriters and labels can register to collect everything they are owed.
PRS membership is how UK songwriters and composers collect performance royalties when their music is streamed, broadcast, or played live. This guide explains what membership costs, who is eligible, what you get, what it does not cover, and how to decide whether it is worth joining.
PRS and PPL memberships do not pass automatically to the family when a member dies. Executors must notify each society separately, provide probate documentation, and nominate a successor to the account. This step-by-step guide explains what to send, to whom, and what happens to royalties while you wait.
Music metadata is the structured information attached to every recording and composition; it is the invisible infrastructure that determines whether your royalties reach you. Poor metadata is the most common cause of payment failures, misattributed streams, and permanently uncollected income.
A catalogue's sale price is a multiple of its verifiable income, and metadata gaps quietly suppress both the income and the multiple. Here is how metadata cleanup increases music catalog value through two compounding routes - recovering royalties the catalogue is already earning, and making the rest provable to a buyer.
A music metadata check catches ISRC errors, missing credits, and distributor mismatches before they cost you royalties. Running one before every release takes minutes and prevents problems that can take months to fix after the fact.
DDEX's Catalog Transfer Standard (CTS) 1.0, released in 2022, provides a standardised format for transferring music catalogue data between distributors. It addresses one of the most painful operational problems in music: switching distributors without losing or corrupting catalogue metadata.
Not all distributors are equal. This guide covers what independent artists should actually evaluate when choosing a distribution partner, and what the fine print often hides.
A flat-fee distributor is cheaper on paper once you earn more than a few hundred pounds a year, but the comparison that matters is net income - what each model actually collects for you, minus what it costs. This guide gives you the honest break-even maths and the situations where each model wins.
UK music distribution in 2026 costs anywhere from roughly £20 a year for DIY flat-fee services to 15 to 30% commission for full-service distribution and label services. This guide explains the four pricing models, what each actually includes, and how to work out which is cheapest for your catalogue.
A royalty drop after changing distributor is usually one of five things - reporting lag, a takedown gap, changed ISRCs, broken playlist placements, or streams that never moved because the migration was incomplete. Here is how to work out which one hit you, in order of likelihood.
Music label services give independent artists the operational infrastructure of a label (distribution, publishing, metadata, royalty collection) without signing away ownership. Here is a complete guide to what they are, who they are for and how to choose a provider.
Music catalogues have become an established alternative asset class, but most acquirers still run due diligence as if they were buying a company rather than a bundle of rights and registrations. This checklist covers the three layers a catalogue acquisition actually depends on - income verification, chain of title, and the metadata infrastructure that most deals never examine.
If you are administering a deceased estate that includes music rights, the royalties are property of the estate and must be identified, protected, and transferred like any other asset. This guide explains what executors and estate lawyers need to do, in plain language, with no music industry knowledge assumed.
When a musician dies, their royalties do not die with them. Songs and recordings keep earning for decades, and that income belongs to the family or estate. But nobody pays it out automatically - here is what actually happens, and what heirs need to do to claim it.
Rights management is not just for major labels. Every independent artist who releases music is managing rights, whether they realise it or not. Here is what that means in practice.
Artificial intelligence is changing how music is created, distributed, and monetised. UK copyright law as it stands in 2026 does not protect AI- generated works in the same way as human-authored works - and the legal framework is actively evolving. Here is what independent artists and labels need to understand now.
PRS Foundation is the UK music industry's primary grant-giving body, but most artists only know about Women Make Music. The Foundation runs multiple programmes covering international showcasing, emerging artist development, touring support, and specialist funds for underrepresented communities. This is the complete picture.
A royalty statement tells you what you've earned and where it came from, but most are written in a way that makes them deliberately difficult to understand. This guide breaks down every line in plain English so you can verify your earnings and spot if something is wrong.
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A catalogue's sale price is a multiple of its verifiable income, and metadata gaps quietly suppress both the income and the multiple. Here is how metadata cleanup increases music catalog value through two compounding routes - recovering royalties the catalogue is already earning, and making the rest provable to a buyer.
Music catalogues have become an established alternative asset class, but most acquirers still run due diligence as if they were buying a company rather than a bundle of rights and registrations. This checklist covers the three layers a catalogue acquisition actually depends on - income verification, chain of title, and the metadata infrastructure that most deals never examine.
If you are administering a deceased estate that includes music rights, the royalties are property of the estate and must be identified, protected, and transferred like any other asset. This guide explains what executors and estate lawyers need to do, in plain language, with no music industry knowledge assumed.
UK music royalties fall into four main types - performance, mechanical, neighbouring rights and sync - and each is collected by a different organisation. This guide explains what each one pays, who collects it, and how UK artists, songwriters and labels can register to collect everything they are owed.
PRS membership is how UK songwriters and composers collect performance royalties when their music is streamed, broadcast, or played live. This guide explains what membership costs, who is eligible, what you get, what it does not cover, and how to decide whether it is worth joining.
PRS and PPL memberships do not pass automatically to the family when a member dies. Executors must notify each society separately, provide probate documentation, and nominate a successor to the account. This step-by-step guide explains what to send, to whom, and what happens to royalties while you wait.
CGM works within the established industry infrastructure
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