Family in Music add “Royalty Advance” to their Writer’s Toolkit

20 April 2022 - Press release

Launching this Spring Family in Music is a music creator platform housing a set of digital tools to aid all songwriters, with a particular focus on the DIY creator. Having already unveiled a suite of these tools earlier this year, Family in Music have today revealed the latest addition – the Royalty Advance tool, powered by chordCash from beatBread.

Crucially, when a songwriter gets an advance through the tool they retain 100% ownership of their masters and receive the majority share of royalties. This is in stark contrast to the 80% split that record labels tend to take.

The money is received within a couple of days of sign up and artists need to have a minimum of 15,000 monthly listeners to apply. Advances can be as high as eight times an artist’s annual streaming income and are determined in two ways. Firstly, streaming and other additional data is used to estimate the future earnings of an artist using a highly advanced algorithm. Secondly, the customisation of terms by the artist themselves including length of contract, inclusion of any catalogue along with new music and how much of their streaming income they need to keep before the advance is recouped.

From the beginning the artist is in control and can tailor the deal to their specific needs, investing in their career and building long term and sustainable relationships with their fans.

With more new music being written and released worldwide than ever before – an estimated 60,000 songs and growing are uploaded to streaming services daily – there is a rapidly expanding generation of new independent creators who simply don’t fit the existing shape of the music industry. Their creative and commercial needs are often unmet. Family in Music aim to change that.

The Finland-headquartered start-up was founded by Finnish music industry entrepreneur and Executive Chairman Juka Hynynen. Award winning producer and entrepreneur Kevin Bacon is Chief innovation Officer. Kevin co-founded AWAL (Artists Without A Label) in 2004 which forever changed the music business landscape by offering deals to artists without them giving up their rights. AWAL enjoyed huge success and would eventually be acquired by Kobalt and most recently Sony.

Kevin Bacon, Chief Innovation Officer Family in Music said “Getting the right financial backing for your music career is always very difficult but even more so for a generation of DIY creators who increasingly work outside of the traditional music business. With our Advance tool songwriters can get funded in a way that leaves them in control of their career but with the necessary cash to keep moving forward creatively as well as commercially.”