WHERE'S MY MONEY? · Internz Academy

WHERE'S MY MONEY?

Real talk from the studio this morning.

I woke up at 6 AM to make phone calls. Not to a label about a new record. Not to management about a deal. I called AFM and Universal Music Group's royalty department to try to access my own money.

AFM? Automated system. No option to speak to a human. You need an extension number just to get through.

UMG? "Leave a message and someone will get back to you."

I have production credits on records with BILLIONS of combined streams. Rihanna. Nicki Minaj. Big Sean. Justin Bieber. Nas. And I spent my Monday morning fighting phone trees to find out if I'm getting paid correctly.

This is the part of the music business nobody teaches you. Everybody wants to talk about how to GET a placement. Nobody tells you what happens after. The royalty pipelines. The portals you don't have access to. The Letters of Direction nobody filed. The money that sits in systems designed to make it hard to find.

I'm 90 days into a full audit of every penny owed to me and my partner across every label, every collection society, every fund. It's been a wall at every turn. But I'm documenting everything.

Here's what I want you to take from this: the music business doesn't hand you anything. Not the placement. Not the check. And definitely not the royalties 10 years later. You have to go get it. And you have to know WHERE to go get it.

If you're a producer or songwriter with credits out there, ask yourself: do you know every pipeline your money flows through? Do you have portal access? Do you know if your LODs are filed?

If the answer is no, you're not alone. I'm learning this in real time and I'm going to teach you everything I find.

What's one thing about the business side that nobody taught you? Drop it below.

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