Creator economics · The receipt for every track
“Ownership all
the way down.”
AI made music infinite. The old streaming math no longer works for the people actually making it. Spotify pays roughly $0.003 per play — 333 streams to earn a dollar. Suno's help docs say, in writing, that the company retains ownership of any song generated on the free tier.
Majiks's answer is structural, not promotional. Creator owns the master because Studio runs an open-source model on your hardware — the file is on your disk. Listener owns the file because Online charges $1 per song, no subscription. We don't take a cut on personal licenses. There is no tier we can revoke.This page is the receipt. Every claim sourced. Every cell in the comparison cite-able.
~5 minute read · numbers throughout · sources at the bottom · last updated 2026-04-29
Same song. Four economies.
The structural difference between renting your masters, leasing your catalog, paying a direct-to-fan toll, and owning the file outright. Every cell sourced.
| Dimension | Spotify | Suno (free tier) | Bandcamp | Majiks Online |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per-listen payout to artist | ~$0.003 / stream[3] | n/a (subscription) | n/a (purchase) | $1 / purchase or stream credit |
| Listens to earn $1 | ~333[3] | n/a | ~1 purchase[5] | 1 purchase |
| Subscription required for commercial use | Yes (label deal needed) | Yes (paid tier)[1] | No | No |
| Creator owns the master | Depends on label deal | No — Suno does (free tier)[1] | Yes | Yes — structurally[2] |
| Subscription required to keep your songs | n/a | Yes (free tier loses commercial rights)[1] | No | No |
| Platform fee on personal license | Varies (label-mediated) | Platform-controlled | ~18% (Bandcamp share)[5] | 0% |
| Direct-to-fan payout (proof point) | Per-stream pool | n/a | $218M paid 2025 · 82% pass-through[5] | $1 → $1, instant |
| ISRC + provenance receipt at upload | Distributor-mediated | No standardized ISRC issued | Optional / external | ISRC + Chromaprint + SHA-256, automatic[6] |
You make it. You own it. You sell it.
We don't take a cut on personal licenses.
The sentence that cannot exist on Majiks.
“If you are using the free version of Suno (our Basic tier), we retain ownership of the songs you generate.”
On Majiks Studio, that sentence cannot exist.
- The model is open-source (ACE-Step, MIT-licensed[2]).
- Inference runs on your hardware. MLX-accelerated, Apple Silicon native.
- The file lives on your disk. Not our cloud. Not subject to a TOS that can change tomorrow.
- There is no tier we can revoke. Ownership is structural, not policy.
Why $1 = $1 beats $1 = 333 plays.
The streaming royalty pool is the most-cited number in the industry — and the most corrosive one for the people actually making the music.
Of all Spotify tracks fall below the 1,000-stream demonetization threshold at any given time. They earn nothing.[4]
Bandcamp paid out direct-to-artist in 2025 alone, at an 82% pass-through rate. All-time fans-paid-to-artists: $1.71B.[5]
$1 = $1. Listener owns the file. No 333 plays needed.
- Personal license 0% platform fee → 100% to artist
- Commercial / exclusive 10% platform fee (industry-standard admin)
- Free tier 5 plays/track/listener
- Premium $6.99/mo · 15 download credits
Ownership isn't a marketing line. It's load-bearing infrastructure.
Four separate pillars. Pull any one out and the rest still hold. Stack them and the competitor's economics literally cannot exist on our platform.
The foundation model is open-source so the rights story doesn't depend on us. Studio runs ACE-Step locally on Apple Silicon — MLX-accelerated, fully offline, no cloud, no API bills, no rate limits. If we vanished tomorrow, your songs and your model still work.
Aaron Stransky personally cleared the ISRC application and paid the registration fees. Majiks holds an active registrant code today — DistroKid/CD Baby parity for individual issuance. The wholesale ISRC Manager tier (issuing blocks to other labels) is in flight: strong case, application filed.
Recognized data source for the Mechanical Licensing Collective's authoritative recording database — created under the Music Modernization Act of 2018. AI music registered through Majiks flows into the same federal infrastructure as commercial recordings. The MLC has processed $3.9B+ in royalties since launch.
Every track stored with both compressed-string and raw 32-bit-integer-array Chromaprint fingerprints, plus a SHA-256 provenance certificate (hash of fingerprint + creator + timestamp). Immutable. Cite-able. If someone disputes the recording's identity, the math is on file.
Sync supervisors pick good-enough that clears faster over best-fit that doesn't.
The sync-licensing market is profitable, growing, and structurally hostile to AI on demand — Epidemic, Artlist, and Soundstripe all run subscription catalog models. Majiks Media is the AI-native, indemnified, ecosystem-distributed alternative.
Profitable subscription stock-music. $13.9M adjusted EBITDA. ~50,000 commissioned tracks. Composer buyout model — composers paid up front, Epidemic owns the recording and publishing in perpetuity. No AI on demand.
30,000+ tracks, 50,000+ SFX, 900K+ assets. AI Starter / Voiceover / Professional plans launched 2025 — but library-side AI tooling, not on-demand generation. Closest existing competitor to a creator-suite model.
B2B sync agency with rolled-up M&A (MassiveMusic, Tunefind, Bandcamp, 7Digital). Laid off 50% of Bandcamp staff post-acquisition (58 of 118). Indie-hostile reputation. No AI-on-demand.
AI on demand · provenance receipts · indemnified rights · ecosystem distribution.
Suno doesn't provide copyright proof documents. Epidemic and Artlist have rights but no AI on demand. The pitch to sync supervisors is the speed-and-indemnification gap:AI in sync drives 60–80% cost reductions and 70% faster timelines vs custom commission. We deliver that without the rights ambiguity.[11]
Plain-English definitions for every claim on this page.
Registrant = approved authority to mint individual ISRC codes (the 12-character recording-level identifier). Majiks holds this, operational. Manager = wholesale tier above — authority to issue ISRC blocks to other labels. DistroKid and CD Baby hold this. Majiks's application is filed.
The Mechanical Licensing Collective is the federally-mandated body created by the Music Modernization Act of 2018 to administer mechanical licensing. Sound Source is its authoritative recording database — Majiks is an approved data source. The MLC itself has processed $3.9B+ in royalties since launch.
Personal = listener uses for themselves (Online: $1, 0% platform fee). Commercial = use in a business context — ad, podcast, brand (10% platform admin). Exclusive = buy-out, single-licensee right (10% admin). Compare Suno's free-tier commercial-rights gating — paywalled.
Spotify pools subscription + ad revenue, then divides by total streams. Each rights holder is paid pro-rata. For independent artists the average effective rate is ~$0.003/stream. Tracks below 1,000 plays/year earn nothing as of 2024.
- [1]Suno Help Center, “Who owns the songs I create on Suno?” — verbatim Basic-tier ownership clause: help.suno.com/en/articles/2416769. Quoted Q1 2026.
- [2]ACE-Step v1.5: MIT-licensed open-source music foundation model. ACE-Step v1.5 beats Suno v5 on SongEval (4.79 vs 4.72) and leads field on Style Alignment (47.9). 47,087 monthly downloads on Hugging Face. Source: ACE-Step team benchmarks; v1.5 model card on Hugging Face.
- [3]Spotify per-stream payout: ~$0.0039 average (US, 2024–25), with the practical effective rate for independent artists frequently quoted at ~$0.003. Sources: Goldman Sachs “Music in the Air” (June 2025); IFPI Global Music Report 2025; industry analyst aggregate.
- [4]Spotify demonetization threshold: tracks below 1,000 streams/year earn $0 as of the 2024 royalty model change. ~87% of all tracks fall below the threshold at any given time. Source: Spotify Loud & Clear; analyst aggregate.
- [5]Bandcamp 2025 fan-to-artist payout: $218M at an 82% pass-through rate. All-time fans-paid-to-artists: $1.71B. Bandcamp Friday cumulative payouts (2020–end-2025): $154M; record day $3.8M (Dec 5, 2025). Source: Bandcamp public data; coverage 2025–2026.
- [6]ISRC Registrant: Aaron Stransky filed under the IFPI/RIAA process. Registration fees paid; registrant code active and operational. ISRC Manager (wholesale tier) application filed; pending. Reference: IFPI ISRC Handbook; RIAA US ISRC agency.
- [7]MLC Sound Source approval: the Mechanical Licensing Collective's authoritative recording database under the Music Modernization Act of 2018. The MLC has processed $3.9B+ in royalties since 2021 launch and holds 50M+ songs across 68,000+ members. Source: themlc.com 2025 annual data.
- [8]Epidemic Sound 2024 financials: USD $181.6M revenue (SEK 1.921B), +29% YoY. Adjusted EBITDA $13.9M (+150% YoY). Subscription pricing: Personal $15/mo, Commercial $49/mo. Composer buyout model. Source: Epidemic Sound 2024 annual report; EQT Growth disclosure.
- [9]Artlist: $48M Series, KKR-led (Next Generation Tech Growth Fund II), June 2020. 30,000+ music tracks, 50,000+ SFX, 900K+ digital assets. Pricing 2025: $16.58–$24.92/mo pro audio; Artlist Max $39.99/mo. AI tooling expanded 2025.
- [10]Songtradr: $530M valuation post-Series E ($106M, 2023). Acquired Bandcamp from Epic Games Sep 2023; laid off 50% of Bandcamp staff (~58 of 118) post-acquisition, including the entire union bargaining team. Source: Songtradr public disclosures; Bandcamp coverage 2023–2024.
- [11]AI in sync — cost / timeline impact: 60–80% cost reductions and 70% faster timelines vs custom commission. Trailer cue custom composition: $10K–$20K per cue; national ad campaign custom: $20K–$100K+. Source: agency-side aggregator research (Majiks Ecosystem Research, 07-sync-licensing).
Three doors. Pick the one that fits.
If you're an artist or sync customer, the math should already be obvious. If you're press, a label, or a distributor partner, the research and the deck go deeper. If you're an investor — same numbers, different rooms.
Last updated 2026-04-29 · sources cited inline · no marketing fluff