Understanding Contracts

Contracts define how the revenue your catalog earns on the DSPs is split between your company and your payees. A contract is made up of three parts: the Terms, the Payees, and the Catalog it applies to.

Terms

The Terms define the payout rate from you to your payees. You can add multiple Terms, each with its own Payout Rate (a percentage of net revenue) and the Services it applies to. Under Show Advanced, you can scope a Term further by Delivery Type and Territory.

For example:

Term #1

• Payout Rate: 80%
• Services: All except YouTube Content ID

Term #2

• Payout Rate: 70%
• Services: Only YouTube Content ID

Payees

The payout revenue, after your Terms are applied, can be divided among different payees and collaborators. For each payee you set:

• Their email address, for login and statements
• Their PayPal account email (optional). Read: Connect your PayPal Payouts API Credentials
• Their corresponding share %
• Their initial balance, which can be positive or negative. Read: Adding Payee Advances in Revelator

Regular payees and commission payees are managed together on the contract's Payees page. A commission payee is someone whose share % is taken from the distribution fee (your cut of the contract) instead of from the royalties (the cut belonging to licensors).

Catalog

Finally, you define the catalog the Terms and payees apply to. Use the Source field to filter by Artist (Main Primary Artist) or Label, then choose what to include:

• All Current & Future Catalog — includes all current and future assets and products, excluding only what is already on other contracts. This creates a Label or Artist Level contract.
• Selected Catalog Only — includes only the assets and products you add manually. This creates a Release and/or Track Level contract.

When you add catalog manually, use the Select Catalog dropdown to search by Audio Assets, Video Assets, or Digital Releases. Your selections appear in two lists:

• Assets — individual audio or video recordings, shown with Appears On, Asset Type, and ISRC.
• Products — releases, shown with Configuration (for example, Video Single), Product Type, and UPC.

Contract levels

• Account Level Contract (Parent-Child only) — created for each Child Account, with the account owner set up as a Distribution Payee. The Default Terms apply to all catalog under the Child Account. For non-Enterprise plans, the Default Terms are set to a 100% payout rate and must be edited on a case-by-case basis.
• Label Level Contract — applied to all assets of a specific Label.
• Artist Level Contract — applied to all assets of a specific Artist (Main Primary Artist).
• Release Level Contract — applied to only specific releases of an Artist (Main Primary Artist) or Label.
• Track Level Contract — applied to only specific tracks of an Artist (Main Primary Artist) or Label.

Related articles

• How to create a Contract
• Royalty Splits: How to Share Royalties with Collaborators
• Payee Advances and Recoupments in Revelator