Page 60 - ION Indie Magazine JULYAUG 2024

1. Original Music and Permission: When you upload your music to be distributed
you need to confirm it’s your original work and that you have the rights to share

it. This keeps you out of legal trouble.
2. AI-Generated Music: If your song has more than eight bars of AI-made music,

the DIY creator should add a special code to show what is human-made and
what is AI-generated, or AI assisted.
3. Major Label Artists: If you’re with a big record label, your music should have a
unique ID that sends royalties straight to your label’s software, like Audiam or

MediaNet.
4. Purchase your ISRC codes from ISRC.com. This will help you immensely, as

your songs will have unique identifier codes generated that you can pay to have
embedded in your music, your artwork and your video creations prior to
Copyright Registration, and prior to PRO registrations.
5. WARNING: In my opinion, do not accept free ISRC codes generated from CD

Baby, BandCamp, etc, or any other offer by government or agency. This gives
them even more control of your creations and they can license your music

without your knowledge – especially considering CD Baby is not owned by USA
interests any more and as of 2019, is now owned by Downtown Music Holdings,
who are based out of Norway.

By doing this, indie artists control their music and money by make everything fair and
clear, deal with AI music issues, and bring in more music generated royalties into their
pockets!

Teaming Up with the Library of Congress

DIY creators should register with the Library of Congress to fix all the messy music
data and find lost royalties. This could:

1. Fix Data Mistakes: Make sure all music info is accurate and consistent.

2. Track Royalties: Centralize and automate royalty tracking so artists get paid
what they deserve.
3. Find Lost Money: Unlock billions of dollars in unclaimed royalties for artists.

4. Support New Music Rules: Help with the Music Modernization Act to make
everything more efficient and fair.
5. Help the MLC: Make it easier for the Mechanical Licensing Collective to manage

royalties.