Artist Guide

Synchronization licensing was the fastest-growing line in the U.S. music business through June, reaching $232 million. Here is what a working artist has to control, sign and register before a music supervisor can spend any of it.

Spotify's new program gives Fresh Finds artists a year of studio time, software and therapy. Here is how editors pick records and how to use the twelve months.

T.I. has put money into pocstock, a Newark company that licenses rights-cleared images and video for AI training, while the music business is still settling its AI fights in court.

A three-year fight over the most valuable name in soul music ended in August with the registration unchanged. Here is what filing an artist name actually costs, which classes decide what you own, and where applications die.

BeatStars has paid creators more than $450 million and standardized almost none of the contracts behind it. A working artist's guide to what a beat lease actually grants, where the publishing goes, and who gets sued over the sample.

Every major distributor now passes streaming fraud penalties straight through to the artist, and CD Baby says a flag counts whether you meant it or not.

Copyright law hands every artist one chance to cancel a deal they signed decades ago. Here is the calendar, the trapdoor, and the fight over how much of the world comes back with it.

Six weeks of AI settlements turned alleged theft into a revenue line. The money lands with rightsholders. Whether it reaches artists is a contract question.

He is selling out theaters this October behind an album that turns ten, with no radio record in rotation. The decisions that made that possible are ones any artist can weigh.

T-Pain went on Twitch and explained the reasoning behind his reported $100M catalog sale. It doubles as the clearest artist-side case on ownership all year.

Young Thug just announced an R&B album, but longtime fans know it is a homecoming. Here is the complete Young Thug Artist Guide: where to start, the essential run from Barter 6 to Jeffery, and why Beautiful Thugger Girls predicted his next move.

With the posthumous album Prolific arriving August 14, here is the complete Nipsey Hussle Artist Guide: where to start in the catalog, the Proud2Pay and ownership lessons that made him a blueprint, and how to hear the whole marathon in order.