If you intend to earn money from the exploitation of music and are based in the UK you should almost certainly register with the MCPS-PRS Alliance. The rest of the world has similar collecting agencies whose services differ by territory. In the US ASCAP represents artists for royalty collections whilst The Harry Fox Agency works primarily on behalf of music publishers.

You can join the MCPS-PRS as a writer or music publisher. In both cases this 'Alliance' will collect two types of royalty from the exploitation of your music - they take their administration fee (you should remember that by joining you are employing them to collect money on your behalf) and pay you the difference.

"The PRS collects and distributes licence fees for the public performance and broadcast of musical works." This includes live performances and airplay. Venues and broadcast networks pay a licence fee, a proportion of which can be claimed every time an artist performs or their music is played.

Mechanical royalties refer to monies collected from the sale of both physical products (CD's, Vinyl etc) and digital products (downloads). This is the royalty paid to the owner of the recording (which in some cases may also be you acting as the record company or retailer.

In the case of the emusu ecommerce platform MCPS and PRS royalties are paid to the MCPS-PRS Alliance by us before net revenues are paid to our clients.