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Issue Nº 22Live · May 28, 2026Weekly · Tuesdays

The Brief.

A weekly dispatch on streaming, royalties, marketing and the music industry — written from real campaign data, not theory.

In the archive
278 dispatches
Read by
5,000+ artists
AllStreaming103Marketing65Business44Touring13Money36Career17
Money

Filed under Money

Editorial overhead shot of a vintage accountant's ledger with a magnifying glass over a column of payout figures, soft tungsten desk lamp light, muted teal and amber palette
Money

Deezer Just Demonetized 85% of AI Streams: What Indie Payouts Look Like Now

Daniel Brooks11 min read
Independent songwriter at a desk reviewing a Mechanical Licensing Collective royalty statement on a laptop, with sheet music and a coffee cup beside the keyboard.
Money

How to Claim Your Share of the MLC's $424M Black Box Pool (2026 Walkthrough)

Daniel Brooks12 min read
SoundCloud Artist Pro dashboard on a laptop showing royalty payouts at 100 percent next to a stack of streaming platform logos including Spotify, Apple Music, and TikTok.
Money

SoundCloud Now Pays 100% on Distribution: Is Artist Pro Worth Switching For? (2026)

Daniel Brooks12 min read
Editorial illustration of a TikTok-native artist viewing a SoundOn royalty dashboard split between ByteDance platforms and third-party DSPs, with a payout curve dropping from 100 percent to 90 percent at the year-one mark.
Money

TikTok's SoundOn 2026 Payout Overhaul: New Royalty Math for TikTok-Native Artists

Daniel Brooks10 min read
Indie musician reviewing YouTube Studio analytics dashboard showing Shorts RPM, Creator Pool revenue split, and 1 million view payout calculation on a laptop screen with notebook math nearby.
Money

YouTube Shorts Music RPM: What 1M Views Actually Pays Indie Artists in 2026

Daniel Brooks11 min read
An indie musician's late-night home studio doubling as a fulfillment room: a Focusrite interface and an open laptop showing a subscriber list with monthly recurring revenue totals, a small stack of hand-numbered cassette tapes and signed 7-inch sleeves on a packing-paper roll, a mailing label printer with a half-printed Bandcamp shipping address, a notebook open to a tier-pricing sketch in pencil, a half-cold mug of coffee, and a single warm desk lamp casting amber light across a worn pine desk.
Money

Bandcamp vs Patreon vs Substack vs Subscriptions: Where Should Your Superfans Live in 2026?

Daniel Brooks23 min read
An independent artist seated at a warm-toned walnut desk in late afternoon light, pen hovering over a multi-page contract, a calculator and a leather notebook open to handwritten royalty math, an unfolded BMI quarterly statement showing performance income line items, a half-empty mug of tea, and a closed laptop pushed to the side: the moment between reading the term sheet and signing the advance.
Money

Music Funding Alternatives 2026: Beatbread vs Gigmor vs Indify vs Royalty Exchange

Daniel Brooks29 min read
A backstage green room at the end of a show: a settlement sheet on a folding table next to a scientific calculator, a dog-eared printout of the night's box office, a half-eaten plate of catering with a fork resting across it, a sweat-soaked towel draped over a chair, a black ATA road case in the corner with stage tape labels peeling at the edges, two empty water bottles, a Sharpie, a pair of in-ear monitor packs, and a single overhead fluorescent strip casting flat blue-white light across the entire scene.
Money

Touring Economics 2026: What Indie Artists Actually Clear After Every Fee

Daniel Brooks29 min read
Money

Funded vs Unfunded Artists 2026: Capital Strategy Guide

Daniel Brooks12 min read
Money

Bandcamp vs Your Own Website: Where to Sell Music (2026)

Daniel Brooks12 min read
Money

How to Sell Music on Bandcamp in 2026: Full Guide

Daniel Brooks18 min read
Money

LANDR vs eMastered vs CloudBounce 2026: Tested by Genre

Daniel Brooks16 min read
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