Contracts & Artist Splits

How artists can create contracts to share royalties with their collaborators — track-level splits, release-level contracts, and the full splits creation flow.

Who can create artist splits

Any child account user with the Administrator role can create splits.

The contracts that artist splits create

• The contracts created are the same contracts that your team can create in the Rights section; Artist Splits contracts will also appear there. When an Artist Splits contract is created, you will still be the one paying the various rights holders — instead of just paying your direct client, you will also be paying their contributors.
• The Artist Splits feature creates track-level contracts so that the royalties from any track can be split amongst different rights holders whenever you do a royalty run.
• For users who wish to create the same splits across an entire release, they can easily do so by creating splits for one track and then using the “Copy splits from track” option to apply the same splits to all other tracks.
• When the payees and splits differ on the various tracks of a release, Artist Splits will further automate the creation of the prorated release-level contract required to handle full-release downloads.

The artist splits creation flow

Authorised administrators can review the Artist Splits flow within their own account. Never use an impersonation or account-switching function without documented permission and an appropriate support purpose.

• If you have enabled the Artist Splits feature for your account, your clients will see the Splits interface on the Rights page of any of their releases.
• Creating splits is only possible once a release has been distributed, as that ensures the number of tracks can no longer be modified (and therefore that the prorated release-level contract will remain accurate).
• For any or all tracks, an Admin child user will be able to indicate: the payee name(s), the payee email address(es), and the payees' revenue share percentage of the track.
• All splits must be entered at once and cannot be modified directly by your clients once saved. If a client needs to modify a split, they will need to contact your support team so that you can modify the related contracts.
• If someone tries to add splits for a track/release that is already on a contract, they will be blocked and notified that a contract already exists and that they should contact Support to add or modify the splits.

Contract naming convention

Once splits are created, new contracts will appear in Rights > Contracts with this naming:

• Track contract: [Payee Name - Payee ID] Release Name - Track ISRC
• Release contract: [Payee Name - Payee ID] Release Name

Automated emails

Emails are sent to keep everyone informed:

• To the splits creator: requiring them to verify every collaborator name and email address before the split is used for notices, payment setup or reporting.
• To all other payees: notifying them they've been added to a revshare contract, prompting them to add their payment information, and (if they're already a payee) asking them to confirm the payee account is correct.

Before any split becomes payable, it should be reviewed by an authorised person. Confirm identities, email addresses, percentages and contract scope, and do not include a new payee in a royalty run until those checks are complete.

Modifying a splits contract

• You can find all Splits contracts by searching for the Payee ID in the search field (all Payee IDs are part of the contract name), or by using the Payee filter to filter contracts by Payee.
• The important thing to keep in mind when modifying a Splits contract (just like any track contract) is that it has an associated prorated full-release contract (to account for full release downloads/purchases) — therefore you may need to update the prorated splits as well.