Question 1

How much can I get as a royalty advance?

Accepted Answer

Typically 1.5 to 3 times what your catalogue earned over the last twelve months, paid up front and recouped from your streaming income over roughly 6 to 30 months. A catalogue with rising streams prices at the top of that range and a declining one at the bottom. Advances of this kind are usually non-recourse, meaning if the streams never materialise you do not owe the shortfall.

Question 2

Is a royalty advance a loan?

Accepted Answer

Not in the usual sense. A non-recourse advance is repaid only out of the royalties it was written against, so there is no personal liability if the income falls short and no interest rate in the way a bank loan has one. What you are giving up is the use of your streaming income until the advance is recouped. Read the terms carefully: recourse deals do exist, and they behave much more like debt.

Question 3

Should I take an advance or sell my catalogue?

Accepted Answer

An advance is temporary and a sale is permanent. Once the advance recoups, the income comes back to you in full; once you sell, it never does. A sale makes sense when you need materially more cash than an advance can produce, or when you think your catalogue has peaked. An advance makes sense when you need funding for something that will grow the catalogue, because you keep the upside.

Question 4

What multiple is a music catalogue worth?

Accepted Answer

Independent master catalogues commonly change hands at around 3 to 5 times annual net earnings, higher for growing catalogues and lower for declining ones. The very top of the market, for premium publishing catalogues, has reached roughly 9.8 times net revenue, but that is not the rate a typical independent artist is offered. The multiple is a judgement about how long your income will last, so anything that makes future income more predictable raises it.

Question 5

What do advance companies look at?

Accepted Answer

Your trailing twelve months of streaming income, the shape of it month to month, how much of it comes from a single track, and whether you control the rights cleanly. A catalogue earning steadily across many tracks prices better than the same total concentrated in one song that went viral last year, because the second one is far more likely to fall away.

Question 6

Do I lose my masters if I take an advance?

Accepted Answer

With a non-recourse streaming advance, no. You keep ownership and you keep publishing and sync income unless the deal explicitly includes them. That is the main difference from a catalogue sale, where the rights themselves change hands. Always check exactly which income streams a deal recoups against before signing.

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Advance or sale?

Royalty advances, answered