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Proton Smart Contracts

Automatic contracts & accounting to help save time!

Jason Wohlstadter avatar
Written by Jason Wohlstadter
Updated over a week ago

In the past, managers of electronic music labels have manually handled contracts, statements, and payments with their artists. This is time consuming (and boring!) so Proton built a better way.

With SoundSystem, contracts and accounting are handled automatically. This saves a huge amount of time for label managers so they can focus instead on what they do best, not the boring busy work. Here's what you need to know!

Easy Splits on Every Track

At Proton, label managers easily and completely control royalty percentages on every track, with every contributor receiving their own share.

A share can be assigned to original artists, remix artists, featured artists, label managers, and many other roles -- even mastering engineers!

It's simple: when a label manager creates a track, they also add each artists, their role (like remixer or label manager), and also gives everyone a royalty percentage.

Anyone receiving a share on a track gets a contract created for them automatically, and their earnings gets calculated and included in their statements and payments automatically, without the music label needing to do any additional work. Easy!

  • Pro Tip: At Proton, a split can be assigned to roles beyond just artists or label managers. This means Proton labels can incentivize contributors to the label beyond just their artists, without creating extra work or overhead. For example, a percentage of earnings can be given to a mastering engineer in exchange for lower mastering fees, or to an A&R scout as a commission!

  • Good to know: Label managers get notified as soon as their artists sign a Proton contract. And a special alert gets sent out when the final contract is signed. This helps label managers never skip a beat, getting a release out as soon as possible.

What about expenses & recouping costs?

Proton's smart contracts help music labels recoup costs before artists get paid.
This is a special feature that must be enabled on your account, but it's absolutely free.
Learn how it works and get started with our guide here.

How does this all work, exactly?

Here's a step by step explanation of how Proton's smart contracts work...

  1. Release Setup - First, a music label creates a release and adds tracks to each release using our website. 

  2. Artists & Shares - On each track, the music label can then allocate earnings to various profiles - label managers, remix artists, featuring artists, etc. If the profile is not setup yet in the system, a manager can easily create a new profile with just an email address. Profiles can contain multiple members, too!

  3. Expenses - If the music label is using Proton's expense tool, then all expenses must be declared before contracts are sent! Details here.

  4. Sending Contracts - Now, after the release is setup, all shares added, and any expenses declared, then the music label can easily & automatically send contracts to everyone involved. These contracts are created automatically using Proton's default template, but we can help you if you require something custom.

  5. Signing Contracts - Everyone receiving a share on any track will receive a contract they can sign easily via email with a free Proton account.  This account is used not only to sign the contract, but also grants access to daily sales/stream reports -- the account is also how everyone gets paid!

  6. Daily Reports - As soon as the release date arrives, the label manager and artists gain access to daily sales & stream reports in the "Performance" area with the account they used to sign their contract.

  7. Royalty Statements - When new royalty statements are generated by Proton, they'll be available in the "Royalties" tab inside each user's account. 

  8. Payments - By default we send payments via PayPal. Artists can add their PayPal address when they receive their 1st statement. If PayPal is not available in the user's country, we can make arrangements to pay via other services like TransferWise (bank transfer) or Western Union.

Have more questions about Smart Contracts? Our support team is standing by to help answer any questions you've got. Click the Intercom icon in the right corner, or drop us an email here.


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