For the accountants and business managers behind music
How the music industry's money actually works.
Interactive lessons on deals, royalties, publishing and catalogues, built for the professionals who advise on them. Assessed and credentialed, free for working musicians.
Free for verified musicians · ~7 min a lesson · For firms onboarding staff →
The cost of learning on the job
Most firms teach music-industry mechanics by osmosis: shadow a senior, absorb what you can. A structured path covers the same ground faster, and leaves less to chance.
Misread deals
Music deals turn on clauses a general accountant rarely meets, like MFN or cross-collateralisation. Knowing how they work is what keeps a client's royalties accurate.
Mentoring time
Without a path, seniors re-explain the same mechanics to every new hire. That's billable time spent on basics a structured course can cover instead.
Time to ramp
Picking up music-specific work ad hoc can take months. A paced programme gets a hire to useful, client-facing work sooner.
See how a lesson works
Every lesson follows the money from gross to net. Interactive charts, live simulators, and prediction beats replace passive video.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Gross streaming revenue | £1,000 |
| Streaming platform (30%) | minus £300 |
| Distributor / aggregator (15%) | minus £150 |
| Label share (50% of net) | minus £275 |
| Artist take-home | £275 |
Illustrative. Rates vary by platform, deal and distributor. An independent artist skips the label share but typically pays a higher distributor fee.
Teach, then test. Never the other way round.
01
Follow the money
Each lesson opens with a real mechanic: where a stream pays out, how an advance recoups. Taught before you're ever tested on it.
02
Run the numbers
Live simulators and prediction beats make the maths something your people do, not something they watch. It sticks.
03
Prove it
Competency is measured per concept, not “% of videos watched”. Each person gets an assessed, verifiable credential. You get proof it worked.
What a music-literate team is worth
Mistakes your team stops making. Work that goes faster because they know the mechanics. Senior time freed from re-checking and re-explaining. Here's what that adds up to.
Client confidence
Clients trust the advice more when the adviser demonstrably knows the mechanics.
Recruitment brand
"We invest in structured onboarding" is a differentiator in a word-of-mouth industry.
Team consistency
Everyone reasons from the same model of how the money flows. Fewer miscommunications.
Numbers you can actually trust
Authoritative
Grounded in named industry authorities
Every lesson cites the bodies a professional would actually consult: the organisations that collect, distribute and regulate. Not anonymous claims.
Honest figures
Verified vs Illustrative, never blurred
Every number lives in a structured facts table. Verified figures carry a named source and date; teaching examples are labelled Illustrative.
For advisers
Written for the people who advise
Sharp, plain, counter-intuitive where it counts. Pitched at accountants, business managers, analysts and lawyers. Not a beginner primer.
For firms
A whole team that knows the business
Put your advisers through the full curriculum and measure what each one knows. Fewer costly mistakes, faster work, a credential the firm can verify.
For the professionals who advise on music money
Not a single artist's journey. The mechanics themselves, taught directly to the people who have to get them right for a living.
Whoever advises on music money, there's a way in
Individuals
Sole practitioners & freelancers
One seat, self-serve, from £49/month. The whole course and a personal CPD certificate, no firm minimum.
For individuals →Firms
Make your whole team music-literate
Buy seats and take a team from “new to music” to a verifiable credential. Fewer mistakes, faster work, the proof to show clients. From three seats.
For firms →Industry bodies
Collecting societies, PROs & labels
A dedicated Industry plan to upskill whole royalty, membership and distribution teams. No seat minimum.
For the industry →Common questions
- What is Learn the Music Industry?
- Learn the Music Industry is an interactive course that teaches how the music industry's money actually works (royalties, deals, publishing, touring and tax) through worked examples and live simulators. It is built for the professionals who advise on it: music accountants, business managers, analysts and lawyers, not for beginner artists.
- Who is it for?
- It is for professionals who advise the music industry: accountants and business managers new to music clients, fund and catalogue analysts, lawyers, and label and publishing staff. It is also free for verified working musicians and discounted for schools.
- How is it taught?
- Each lesson is interactive: you predict an answer, drag to allocate money, and run live simulators before the concept is confirmed and deepened. Every figure is sourced in the lesson's facts table and every simulator is a separately unit-tested formula, so the numbers do not drift.
- Is it free for musicians?
- Yes. The full library is free, forever, for musicians once their status is verified. The paid tiers are for the firms and advisers who train staff on the industry.
Follow the money.
Start with where your money comes from and trace it all the way to a catalogue sale. Then prove what your team knows with assessments that build to a credential.