Tidal — the music streaming service owned by Jack Dorsey’s Block payment processing company — is launching a royalty-tracking toolkit for songwriters. The new feature lets authors organize disparate publisher information in one place. “Songwriters juggle a mix of collection societies, publishing platforms, royalty management services, streaming services, and single-purpose apps to manage their royalties, careers, and catalog,” explains the company, which claims to be the first platform to serve songwriters “throughout the full writing career cycle.” Tidal has partnered with performing rights organization AllTrack to handle the backend.

The new service is primarily geared toward independent artists, which AllTrack was formed in 2019 to serve. Major writers and performers have various royalty-tracking dashboards at their disposal, including those provided by ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. Many labels, including the indie-centric Kobalt, facilitate royalty monitoring.

Tidal asserts its tracking system, found at Tidal Artist Home, is easier to use and more complete. In addition to tracking payments, it also lets artists view and manage their credits and the metadata connecting them to their music.

“To begin collecting royalties on their songs, creators need to sign up with the proper rights organizations — altogether a confusing process for most,” said AllTrack founder and CEO Hayden Bower in Tidal’s announcement, noting that his partnership with Tidal introduces tech “that makes registering for performing rights and getting paid as simple as possible.”

“The biggest challenge for artists here is tracking royalties and where their works have been used,” notes TechCrunch, explaining that “there are different royalty rights for mechanical reproduction (CDs, MP3s, vinyls, film soundtracks and publishing on streaming services) and performance (playing in public, airplay or streaming).”

New songwriters will also be able to use Tidal to sign up with the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) through AllTrack. The MLC was established by Congress as part of the Music Modernization Act of 2018 to collect and distribute royalties from U.S. streaming and downloads under a compulsory blanket license.

In January, Billboard reported that the MLC had initiated its first audit of digital service providers.

Tidal is making its royalty tracking tools available to artists free of charge, using a combination of its own catalog and third-party data. The streamer — which was founded in 2014 and purchased a year later by Jay-Z, who still owns a minority stake — has a creator-friendly approach. Dorsey’s company bought it in 2021.

Music Business Worldwide points out that Tidal has made other improvements aimed at helping build music careers. “As part of its Artist Home, the streaming service launched a new ‘Collabs’ tool last fall that enables artists to message each other and set up collaborations.”

“The company told TechCrunch that it is testing new features to help artists connect with fans through Square, and that Block is considering using Cash App to help artists get paid faster.”