What is an advance?
An advance is a form of funding for musicians that is most commonly paid out as a music royalty advance. The latter is defined as an upfront payment on account of royalties that become due to an artist, producer or royalty participant at a later date under the terms of their agreement with a record label. Advances are typically recoupable, meaning that the record label will recover it by holding back future royalties until the advance has been earned back.
What is the downside to taking an advance from a record label?
Advancing is a concept labels have been using since forever to influence artists' creative output and future releases, and has gained quite a negative reputation due to the artists’ inferior negotiating power.
While artists are seemingly getting more successful in advocating for fairer deals, labels want to see everything, from an established fanbase to a proven track record in creating viral moments, to sign an artist. Considering all the requirements, risks and horror stories, it doesn’t come as a surprise that more and more artists are “ditching the deal” and going independent.
How does Viberate’s advancing model work and how is it better?
Our advancing model provides funding for musicians by selling interest on your streaming royalties. You can put the proceeds to immediate use and spend them on whatever you want.
Meanwhile, we’ll be collecting the streaming royalties from the tracks you decide to include in the advance. When the advance is recouped, the streaming royalties will revert back to you. While we try to set a realistic term of recoupment, unforeseeable circumstances can cause the recoupment time to be either shorter or longer than anticipated. Either way, our contract is terminated when the advance is recouped.
Giving you an advance for your existing tracks does not entitle us to any proceeds from your future releases. You keep complete control over your creativity, music, and career – we just help fund it.
Who is eligible for an advance?
Our advances are primarily intended for independent artists who need upfront financing to develop their careers. Songs eligible for an advance generally need to be older than 1 year and must have gained at least 100,000 streams in the past 12 months. However, eligibility and advance size are always determined on a case-by-case basis, so we encourage every interested artist to request an offer.
How is the size of the advance determined?
The size of the advance mostly depends on the number of tracks, their streams, and the length of the term. There are other factors we take into account, so the final offer is always made on a case-by-case basis.
What happens when I recoup my advance?
When determining advance offers, we try to employ calculations yielding realistic expectations. However, unforeseeable circumstances can cause the recoupment term to be either shorter or longer than anticipated. In any case, our contract is terminated when the advance is recouped. After that, we no longer have interest in your streaming royalties and they revert back to you.
What happens to tracks I release in the future?
Getting an advance does not affect your future tracks or royalties stemming from those tracks in any way. You’ll be able to use them to request another advance.