royalty rising: Empowering Musicians' Success

Empowering Musicians Everywhere

Royalty Rising helps you organise your music, understand your rights and explore ways to earn, so you can build your music career with greater clarity and confidence.

ABOUT ROYALTY RISING

Royalty Rising did not begin as a software platform.

It began with a book.

We were trying to explain the music industry clearly enough that an independent artist could understand what happened to a song after it had been created.

Then we started testing the systems ourselves.

And that changed everything.

HOW ROYALTY RISING BEGAN

As we followed the same routes an artist is expected to follow, we began finding problems.

Some systems were difficult to navigate. Password recovery could send you around in circles. Important information was scattered across different organisations and websites. Processes that made perfect sense to somebody already working inside the music industry were far less obvious to somebody encountering them for the first time.

Then we started looking more closely at distribution.

We discovered something else.

There wasn't one "best distributor."

The right distributor depended on the artist, their music, their stage of development, what services they needed, how they wanted to be paid, what rights they wanted to retain and where they wanted their career to go.

That led us further.

Distribution was only one part of a much bigger picture.

There were performing rights, mechanical royalties, neighbouring rights, publishing, metadata, ISRCs, credits, splits, Content ID, licensing, direct sales, sync, evidence of creation and many other routes through which a song could create value.

There were plenty of individual services.

What we couldn't find was something that joined the whole thing together around the artist and the song, coherently, in one place, for the lifetime of that music.

That was the beginning of Royalty Rising.

THE SONG IS MORE THAN AN AUDIO FILE

One of the most important things we realised was that a song should not be treated simply as an audio file waiting to be uploaded to a distributor.

A song is surrounded by information.

Who created it.

Who contributed to it.

Who owns what.

Its identifiers.

Its lyrics.

Its recordings and versions.

Its credits.

Its registrations.

Its release history.

Its royalty pathways.

Its licences.

Its evidence of creation.

Its use of AI, if AI was involved.

Its income.

Its opportunities.

And the things that may still be missing.

Royalty Rising began to develop around that idea.

We call this the Song Object.

Instead of information being scattered across accounts, companies, emails and organisations, the aim is to create a persistent structure around the song itself.

Something that can grow with the music throughout its life.

BUILDING FROM THE ARTIST'S SIDE

Royalty Rising has been built by looking at the music industry from the artist's side of the desk.

We have repeatedly asked a simple question:

What would actually make this easier for the person who created the music?

That does not mean working against distributors, collecting societies, publishers, streaming platforms or other music businesses.

Quite the opposite.

As we developed the idea, people sometimes asked whether larger music companies would dislike something that gave artists greater understanding and control.

What we found was that better information can benefit everybody.

Correct metadata helps everybody.

Clear ownership information helps everybody.

Better credits help everybody.

Artists understanding where they should register their work helps everybody.

Fewer mistakes, fewer missing pieces and better organised information can make the entire system flow more effectively.

Royalty Rising is not trying to replace the music industry.

We are trying to make it easier for creators to navigate it and easier for the different pieces of it to connect.

WHY ACCESS MATTERS

Working in Africa brought another part of the problem into much sharper focus for us.

There is extraordinary creative talent emerging across Africa.

There is also economic inequality on a scale that can make relatively small music-business costs a genuine barrier.

We have worked with talented young people living ordinary lives, in homes and communities, who nevertheless sometimes do not know where their next meal will come from.

For somebody in that situation, being told that they need to pay for another subscription, another registration, another piece of software or another professional service before their music can move forward is not a small inconvenience.

It can stop a career before it begins.

Royalty Rising is not being built only for Africa, but what we have learned there has strengthened something we already believed.

Creativity should not belong only to people who can afford access to an industry.

Human beings are creative by nature.

Children draw, sing, build, dance, imagine, invent and make things before anybody tells them what they are supposed to become.

Somewhere along the way, much of that creativity gets funnelled into narrower paths.

We believe the world would be richer, more interesting and more beautiful if more people were able to develop their creativity and build sustainable lives around what they create.

Music can do that.

Our job is to help remove some of the unnecessary barriers standing in the way.

AI CHANGED THE MUSIC LANDSCAPE AGAIN

Then artificial intelligence arrived in music.

It created extraordinary possibilities, difficult questions and an entirely new set of problems for creators to understand.

Who made what?

Which tools were used?

What did the human create?

What was generated?

What evidence exists showing how the work developed?

What do different platforms allow?

What rights were granted when an AI service was used?

What can safely be released, licensed or sold?

These questions are still developing.

Royalty Rising therefore began looking not only at the finished song, but at the creative process behind it.

We believe evidence of creation is likely to become increasingly important, not only for AI-assisted music but eventually for independent creators more broadly.

That is why Royalty Rising is developing ways for artists to preserve drafts, versions, lyrics, recordings, session information and other evidence showing how a piece of work came into existence.

But evidence should not simply sit in a vault.

The story of how something was created can itself become part of the artist's relationship with their audience.

Over time, we want artists to be able to choose parts of their creative evidence and turn them into something shareable: the story behind a song, material for a website, social media content or a record of their creative journey.

Protecting creativity and celebrating creativity do not have to be separate things.

UNDERSTANDING THE BUSINESS SHOULD BE PART OF BEING AN ARTIST

We want artists to understand the industry they are working in.

Not because every artist should become a lawyer, accountant, publisher or rights administrator.

They shouldn't have to.

But they should be able to understand what happens to their own work.

They should know where money can come from.

They should know what they are agreeing to.

They should know which opportunities exist.

They should know when something is missing.

And they should be able to make informed decisions about their own careers.

Royalty Rising will continue investigating the ways music can create income, including traditional royalty systems, direct sales, licensing, services, new platforms and new business models as they emerge.

When we find useful new routes, we want them added to the Royalty Rising knowledge system.

The music economy will keep changing.

Royalty Rising should keep learning with it.

MAKING CREATIVITY SUSTAINABLE

Ultimately, we want more artists to be able to make a good living from their music.

Not simply because earning money is important, but because income allows creativity to continue.

A song can fund the next song.

A licensing opportunity can pay for studio time.

A back catalogue can become an asset rather than a collection of forgotten files.

A direct sale can fund equipment.

Several small income streams can become a sustainable creative career.

And sometimes understanding one previously unknown right or opportunity can make a meaningful difference to somebody's life.

We want artists to discover every appropriate way their creativity can create value so that their creativity can help support them while they continue creating.

THE FUTURE OF ROYALTY RISING

Royalty Rising is being developed as long-term infrastructure around the creator and the song.

The vision is bigger than any single tool.

A living Song Object.

A growing knowledge system.

Evidence of how work was created.

Rights and royalty information.

Education.

Income opportunities.

Back catalogue discovery.

Guidance through a changing music industry.

And new pathways added as the industry evolves.

We want the business side of music to stop feeling like the unpleasant part that comes after the creative part.

Building value around something you created can itself be creative.

Understanding your audience can be creative.

Finding new uses for a song can be creative.

Building several income streams around your work can be creative.

Developing a catalogue can be creative.

The creation does not have to end when the song is finished.

Royalty Rising exists because creating the music should not be the enjoyable part followed by years of confusion.

What happens afterwards should become understandable too.

And perhaps, eventually, enjoyable.

Because building a life around your creativity is another form of creation.

Close-up of hands adjusting audio equipment with a Royalty Rising dashboard visible on a tablet.

Get in Touch

Questions or feedback? Reach out and let's chat about your music journey.

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support@royaltyrising.com

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