The short answer
Three kinds of credit travel with a release, and each is paid by a different route. Writer and publisher credits are paid by performing-rights and mechanical bodies, performer credits by neighbouring-rights societies, and producer credits by your own agreement. The distributor form displays all three; money arrives only when the same names are registered with the right body.
Three credits, three routes to money
A release carries credits for the people who wrote the song, those who performed the recording, and those who produced and engineered it. Stores display all of them, but the money behind each flows through a different channel, and only the first two have a collecting body.
Writers and publishers are paid for the composition, performers for the recording, and producers and engineers out of whatever the artist or label agreed with them. A credit in the wrong field, or a name spelled differently from the body's records, is the most common reason a credit earns nothing.
Writer credits: performing-rights and mechanical bodies
The composer, lyricist and publisher fields describe the song, and two kinds of body pay for it. A performing-rights organisation collects when the song is performed in public, broadcast or streamed and pays the writers and publishers it has on file: ASCAP and BMI in the United States, PRS for Music in the United Kingdom, SACEM in France, GEMA in Germany. A mechanical body collects for reproduction, such as the mechanical part of a stream or a download; in the United States that is The MLC, and in many countries one society handles both.
These bodies do not read your distributor form. They pay against their own registration of the work, matched to store reports by title, writer names and codes. So the writer fields must carry legal names exactly as registered with the society, with each writer's IPI number where the form allows, and the work must be registered separately. Where a Gulf country has no functioning society, writers usually join a foreign one or register through a publisher; this varies by country.
Performer credits: neighbouring-rights societies
The primary artist, the featured artist and the performer roles behind them describe the recording. Neighbouring-rights societies pay performers when a recording is broadcast or played in public, and in some countries for certain kinds of stream: PPL in the United Kingdom, SoundExchange in the United States for digital radio and non-interactive streams, GVL in Germany, ADAMI in France.
They match by ISRC and performer name, and they distinguish a featured performer from a session musician or backing vocalist, so the role matters. Use the stage name exactly as on your store profiles, put a guest in the featured-artist field rather than the title, and list session players with their instrument. Then register the same line-up with the society.
Producer and engineer credits: display, with one exception
Producer, mixing and mastering credits are shown by stores on the track page, which matters for reputation and for the credits search that playlist editors use. No collecting body pays a producer as such; a producer's income is set by the agreement with the artist or label, usually a fee, a share, or both.
The exception is a producer who also performed, who can usually register as a performer, and, in the United States, a letter of direction asking SoundExchange to pay the producer part of the artist's digital royalties.
Filling the distributor form
Treat the form as the public record of who did what. Fill every role field that applies, even for a song you wrote, sang and produced alone, because each feeds a different display and a different body. Never write a stage name in a writer field or a legal name in a performer field, and never put credits inside a title.
Arabic names need one fixed Latin transliteration, used identically in the form, at the society and on your split sheet, with the Arabic script in the localised field where a store supports it. Keep a signed split sheet for every song; a society asks for it when two claims collide. At Mazufa Records credits are delivered exactly as you enter them, the form is in Arabic, and the terms are the same for every release: no upload fee, no subscription, no per-release fee; the revenue share is set out in your written agreement.
- Composer, lyricist, publisher: legal names, IPI numbers, work registered at the society
- Primary and featured artist, performer roles: stage names, registered with a performer society
- Producer, mixing, mastering: display credits, paid under your agreement
- ℗ line: owner of the recording; © line: owner of the artwork and text
- ISRC per track, UPC per release, ISWC where known
Questions people ask
I wrote, sang and produced the song myself. Do I fill every field?
Yes. The writer fields reach the performing-rights and mechanical bodies, the performer fields reach the neighbouring-rights society, and the producer field is shown on the track page. Each is matched separately; an empty field is money left behind.
My producer asked for a credit. Does the credit pay him?
Usually not by itself. Stores display a producer credit but no collecting body pays it; the producer's income comes from your agreement. In the United States a letter of direction can route part of the digital royalties to the producer.
Do I need an IPI number or an ISWC before I release?
Stores do not require them, but joining a society before release gives you an IPI, registering the work gives it an ISWC, and both make matching faster when reports arrive. Rules vary by country; register early.