Website helps musicians input data for royalties

A new website is helping songwriters, composers and artists understand how to input data integral to receiving royalties. 

The Get Paid Guide, a partnership between PRS for Music, The Ivors Academy, the Music Publishers Association and the Intellectual Property Office, will educate music creators on controlling and managing their music data, through a step-by-step guidance on what music data is, why it matters and what to do with it.

The collaboration was driven from a 2021 DCMS Select Committee inquiry into the economic impact of music streaming on creators.

Following the inquiry, government set up a music metadata working group. The group published the Metadata Agreement last month, which identified education on data input as an area that needed vital work.

Across the sector, creators have experienced delays in receiving royalties, and in some cases haven’t been paid at all, due to a lack of awareness around accurate metadata inputs.

In response, the Get Paid Guide features tutorials on International Standard Musical Work and International Standard Recording codes and offers help on frequently asked questions from creators, such as the use of pseudonyms and what to do when covering another artist’s song.

President of the PRS Members’ Council, Michelle Escoffery, says the guide “brings us closer to achieving a healthier metadata ecosystem overall”.

“Getting the data right at the point of works registration is vitally important and is often the difference between being paid or not.

“I encourage all music creators to use this guide, get fluent with the relevant codes and empower themselves to get paid accurately and quickly.”