Music Business

Paid in Full

Maximize your music career: collect every royalty, build your brand, and learn to find the best deals.

32 lessons · 3h 2m · lifetime access

Core

$39

All 32 written lessons
The Paid in Full workbook (PDF)
Video lessons as they're added

Pro

$129

Everything in Core
Pro templates: split sheet, 8-week release timeline, registration checklist, 30-day content calendar, weekly team check-in (PDF + editable)
A 1-on-1, 30-minute call with Jay

One payment. Lifetime access. All sales final. Members pay less.

What this covers

Every song you release can earn from five places. Most independent artists only collect from one, their distributor, because nobody ever showed them the map. Taught by Jay Uncut, a Grammy-nominated producer published by Sony, this is the playbook for collecting every royalty, building your brand, and finding the best deals.

Run an 8-week release like a label: team, assets, pitching, release week and the 30 days after
Set up distribution and splits correctly before release, and avoid the wrong-account trap
Register every song: ASCAP or BMI, your publisher share, the MLC and SoundExchange
Collect YouTube money with the Official Artist Channel and Content ID, without the leased-beat trap
Build your identity and a video-first content engine that turns followers into listeners
Know every deal type, read an offer line by line, and negotiate the best deal
Spot the red flags in people who want a piece of your career

Who it's for: Artists already releasing music (or about to) on DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby or similar, especially if you've never registered with a PRO, the MLC or SoundExchange.

Lessons

Module 0 · Start Here
1
Welcome: Why Most Artists Don't Get PaidFree
Every song you release can earn money through five separate pipes, and each pipe only pays if you've hooked it up yourself. Most independent artists have one connected. This course connects the rest, and shows you how to release like a label while you do it.
6m
Module 1 · Release a Single Like a Label
2
The 8-Week Release Runway
A label doesn't finish a song on Monday and drop it on Friday. Give every single an 8-week runway from final master to release day, so the paperwork, the pitch, and the content are all done before the song is live and it's too late to fix them.
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3
Build the Room
A release moves at the speed of the people behind it. Put someone in every seat, give every deadline exactly one owner, and then communicate more than feels necessary. Plans rarely sink a release. Confusion about who's doing what does.
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4
The Assets Checklist
A release isn't just a song file. It's a kit: master, artwork, metadata, lyrics, visuals, clips, photos, and a one-sheet. Build the whole kit before upload, so you're never scrambling for a missing piece in release week.
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5
Pitching and Pre-Release
The biggest free placement you can get on Spotify, your followers' Release Radar, depends on pitching before release. Pitch Spotify yourself, get Apple pitched through your distributor, use pre-release tools you actually qualify for, and never pay for streams.
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6
Release Week and the 30 Days After
Release day isn't the finish line. It's the start of a 30-day push, and the start of the runway for your next song. One big drop and then silence is the most common way artists waste a good record. A steady cadence gives you more chances to land.
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7
Who Not to Let in the Room
Building a team is half the job. The other half is keeping the wrong people out. Most of the people who'll want to work with you won't come with a warning label, so learn the signs before you hand anyone a piece of your career.
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Module 2 · Distribution & Splits
8
Picking a Distributor
A distributor gets your recordings onto streaming services and pays you the master money they bring in. That's it. Pick one based on the things that actually affect your money and your options later, not on whose ads you saw last.
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9
Metadata That Gets You Paid
Metadata is how money finds you. Every name, code, and credit you type into your distributor is what every system downstream uses to match a stream to a person. Type it wrong once and it can stay wrong for years.
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10
Splits Before Release
Agree on splits in writing before the song comes out, then set them up in every place they live. And check where your money is actually going, because the most expensive split mistake isn't a fight. It's money quietly going to the wrong account.
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11
Switching Distributors Without Losing Your Streams
You can move your catalog to a new distributor, but only if you treat it like surgery. Same ISRCs, same metadata, new version live before the old one comes down.
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Module 3 · Registration & Royalties
12
Two Copyrights in Every Song
Every song you release is two copyrighted works, not one: the composition and the recording. Each one earns different money, collected by different organizations, and nobody signs you up for any of it automatically.
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13
ISRC & ISWC
Royalty money moves by code, not by song title. The ISRC tags your recording, the ISWC tags your composition, and when those codes are missing or don't line up, your money sits unmatched.
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14
ASCAP or BMI
You need a PRO to collect performance royalties on your songs. For most independent writers in the US that means ASCAP or BMI. Both are free to join as a writer. The real differences are in how they handle the publisher share, how splits are counted, and when they pay.
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15
Your Publisher Share
Performance royalties are split into a writer share and a publisher share. If you write your own songs and don't have a publisher, that publisher half is still yours. Whether it reaches you depends on which PRO you're with and what you set up.
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16
The MLC
Starting in April 2027, the MLC begins paying out unclaimed mechanical royalties to everyone else by market share, one month of usage at a time, starting with January 2021. Once a month is distributed, anyone who claims later loses that month's money for good. If you write songs and collect your own publishing, join the MLC and register your songs now.
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17
SoundExchange
When your recordings play on satellite radio and non-interactive internet radio, a royalty is owed to the artist and to the master owner. SoundExchange collects it. If you perform on your songs and own your masters, register as both, and you collect both shares.
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18
Copyright Registration
Registering with the US Copyright Office doesn't collect a single royalty. It's protection, not income. It's worth paying for on the songs that matter most, and the cheapest way to do it depends on whether you wrote the song and own the recording.
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19
The Registration Checklist
Every new song goes through the same seven steps, in the same order, every time. Each step feeds the next, so doing them out of order is how codes don't match and money goes missing.
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Module 4 · YouTube Money
20
The Official Artist Channel
Right now your music on YouTube is probably split between your own channel and an auto-generated "Topic" channel. An Official Artist Channel pulls it together under one name with one subscriber count. You apply through your distributor, and the requirements got stricter, so check them before you click.
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21
Topic Channels and Content ID
Content ID is how your music gets recognized, and potentially paid, when it shows up in videos on YouTube. But it only works on music you exclusively control. If your song is built on a leased beat, Content ID is a serious risk, not a feature.
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22
YouTube as a Growth Engine
YouTube is where people go to find music and stay with it. Every song should leave at least one real video behind, and your Shorts should point people to it. Build it so every video adds to one channel.
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Module 5 · Artist Development
23
Identity Before Content
Before you post another video, you need to know who you are, what you sound like, and what you look like. Content without an identity is just noise with your name on it.
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24
The Content Engine
You don't need to be creative every day. You need a system that turns one song and one filming day into weeks of posts, with a hook strong enough to stop the scroll.
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25
Turning Followers Into Listeners
A big following that doesn't stream your music is an audience you haven't converted yet. The fix is giving people a clear, easy path from your post to your song, and asking them to take it.
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26
Reading Your Numbers
A few numbers in Spotify for Artists tell you whether people actually like your music. Learn to read those, ignore the ones that just feel good, and learn what fake streams look like so you never mistake them for growth.
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27
The Long Middle
Talent isn't what ends most music careers. The quiet stretch after the excitement wears off is. Your job is to keep shooting long enough for one shot to land, and to build a plan that keeps you going when the numbers don't.
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28
Your Next 90 Days
You've got the whole system now. This lesson turns it into one 90-day plan you can actually run, built on the workbook, so the course doesn't just sit in your head.
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Module 6 · Finding the Best Deal
29
The Deal Menu
"Getting a deal" isn't one thing. There are at least eight kinds of deals, and each one costs you something different. Some cost you a fee, some cost you your masters, some cost you a piece of your publishing or your touring money. Know the price of each one before anybody puts one in front of you.
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30
What Labels Look For
Deals find artists who are already working. A&Rs and investors look for proof that real people care about your music, that you can keep going, and that there's a story and a team around it. The best leverage you'll ever have is not needing the deal.
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31
Reading an Offer
The number on the first page isn't the deal. The deal is in the terms: what's recoupable, how long you're locked in, who owns the masters when it's over, and how much of the rest of your income they touch. Learn to read those, and you'll know a good offer from an expensive one.
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32
Getting the Best Deal
A first offer is an opening move, not a final answer. Your leverage comes from timing, from other options, and from being willing to walk away. Get your own lawyer, know what's usually negotiable, and never let excitement sign for you.
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