The Music Business, In Concert

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How to run VEGA — and a plain-language guide to how the music business actually works. No jargon, no gatekeeping. Know what you own and what you’re owed.

Using VEGA

Getting started The apps & how they connect Sharing, teams & access

The music business, demystified

Masters vs. songs — the two copyrights Record deals & the language Publishing & the three royalty types Who collects your money (PROs, MLC & more)

Getting started

VEGA is one account across every app, right in your browser — no downloads. Create a free account, and you land on your home with a tile for each app. Start with Artist (free) if you’re an artist or manager, or Label if you run a record label.

Everything you enter is private to your account. The only things that ever leave your space are things you choose to share — a Music Share link, a release you send to an artist, or access you grant a teammate.

The apps & how they connect

VEGA isn’t five separate tools — it’s one connected system. Each app is a door into the same world:

Artist — gigs, releases, invoices, tours, royalties and Music Share. Your whole career in one place.
Label — catalog, P&L, contracts, distributor tracking, and team access for your roster.
Studio (soon) — producers & songwriters: splits, placements, publishing.
Live (soon) — tour managers, agents & promoters: itineraries, day sheets, offers, guarantees, settlements.
Social (soon) — plan and schedule posts across your artists and labels.

The magic is the connections. When a label signs an artist and shares a release, it appears in that artist’s app — read-only, with their split and what they’re owed, updating automatically as the label’s numbers change. That’s the whole idea: your money, visible, without asking anyone.

Masters vs. songs — the two copyrights

Every piece of recorded music contains two separate copyrights, owned and paid separately. This is the single most important thing to understand — most confusion (and most lost money) comes from mixing them up.

The composition (the “song”)

The underlying music and lyrics — the thing you could play on a piano or sing a cappella. Owned by the songwriters (and their publishers). This is the publishing side.

The master (the “recording”)

The specific recorded performance — the actual audio file people stream. Owned by whoever created/paid for the recording, usually the label in a traditional deal, or you if you’re independent. This is the master or recording side.

One song can have many masters (the original, a cover, a live version, a remix) — each a distinct recording with its own owner. When your song streams, money flows down both pipes: the master owner gets the recording royalty, and the songwriters/publishers get the publishing royalty. If you wrote and recorded it yourself and stayed independent, you own both — you get all of it.

Why it matters: whoever owns the master controls how the recording is licensed and collects the biggest share of streaming and sales income for that recording. Signing your master to a label means they own it — sometimes forever, sometimes for a set term after which it reverts to you. Always know which.

Record deals & the language

A record deal is, at its core, the label paying to build your release in exchange for owning the master and taking a share of what it earns. Here’s what the words actually mean:

Advance

Money paid to you upfront. It feels like a gift but it’s a loan against your future earnings — it’s recoupable.

Recoupment

Before you see a cent of profit, the label first recovers (“recoups”) its costs — the advance, plus marketing, video, and other agreed expenses — out of your share of the income. You’re “recouped” once those costs are covered; after that, you start getting paid your split.

Split

How the income is divided after costs — e.g. 50/50 between label and artist. Read carefully what it’s a split of: gross, or net after distribution and expenses.

Term

How long the deal runs, and — separately — how long the label controls the masters. Watch for in perpetuity (forever) versus a reversion after a set number of years.

Distribution fee

The distributor (the company that delivers your music to Spotify, Apple, etc.) takes a cut — often around 20% — off the top, before the label/artist split.

360 deal

A deal where the label also takes a percentage of income beyond recordings — touring, merch, sometimes publishing. More support, but a wider claim on your career.

None of these are inherently good or bad — they’re levers. A big advance with full recoupment and perpetual master ownership is very different from a small advance, a clean split, and reversion in 10 years. VEGA’s Label app tracks recoupment per release so both sides can see exactly where a project stands.

Publishing & the three royalty types

Publishing is the income from the composition — the song itself — and it’s completely separate from the master. Even if you signed your recording to a label, you may still own your publishing. Two shares exist in every song:

Writer’s share — always belongs to the songwriter. Nobody can take this from you.
Publisher’s share — belongs to the publisher who administers the song. If you’re self-published, that’s you, and you keep both shares.

Songwriting income comes in three forms:

Performance royalties

Earned when your song is performed publicly — radio, streaming, TV, live shows, a bar’s playlist. Collected by PROs (performing rights organizations).

Mechanical royalties

Earned when your song is reproduced — streams, downloads, vinyl, CDs. In the US these are collected by The MLC; elsewhere by bodies like MCPS (UK).

Sync royalties

Earned when your song is synced to visual media — film, TV, ads, video games, trailers. Negotiated as a one-off license fee (plus ongoing performance royalties when it airs), directly or through a publisher or sync agent.

The trap: a huge amount of publishing money goes uncollected simply because writers never registered their songs with the right societies. If you write, you should be registered with a PRO and a mechanical collector — otherwise you’re leaving money on the table every time your track plays.

Who collects your money

You don’t chase every radio station and streaming service yourself — collection societies do it for you, then pay out. Which one depends on the royalty type and your territory. You register your songs once; they handle the rest.

Performing rights organizations (PROs) — performance royalties

United States: ASCAP, BMI (the two big ones), plus SESAC and GMR.
United Kingdom: PRS for Music.
Canada: SOCAN · Australia: APRA · Germany: GEMA · France: SACEM.

You join one PRO for your home territory; it collects worldwide through agreements with the others. Songwriters and publishers each register their share.

Mechanical rights — mechanical royalties

United States: The MLC (The Mechanical Licensing Collective) collects streaming/download mechanicals; the Harry Fox Agency handles some others.
United Kingdom: MCPS (often administered alongside PRS).

Neighbouring rights — for the recording

Separately, the master side has its own performance income (“neighbouring rights”) — money owed to the recording owner and the featured performers when a recording is played publicly. In the US, SoundExchange collects this for digital/satellite radio. Many artists never claim it.

The short version: register your songs with a PRO (performance) and a mechanical collector (The MLC in the US); make sure your recordings are registered for neighbouring rights (SoundExchange in the US). Three registrations, and the money starts finding you instead of sitting unclaimed.

This guide is plain-language education to help you ask better questions — it isn’t legal or financial advice, and deal terms and society rules vary by contract and country. For anything you’re signing, get it reviewed by a music attorney. Questions about VEGA? support@vega-mgmt.com.

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