Collab Chain

About Collab Chain

Imagine a world where every creative contribution is recognized, every royalty split is crystal clear, and trust is built into the very fabric of collaboration. This is the journey Collab Chain embarks on with you. Built for creators, producers, songwriters, and rights holders navigating the complex tapestry of music ownership, Collab Chain is your dedicated platform for verifiable royalty proof. It transforms the often-opaque paperwork from distributors, PROs, and publishers into a clear, structured, and tamper-evident record. This isn't about guessing earnings or scraping data; it's about taking the official documents you already have and turning them into an indisputable source of truth. By providing a secure "credit locker" for your career, Collab Chain reduces disputes, fosters transparency among collaborators, and gives you defensible proof for negotiations, audits, or resolving conflicts. It’s the missing link between creation and compensation, designed to bring clarity and confidence to every artist's story.

Features of Collab Chain

Deterministic Proof from Official Statements

Collab Chain begins its process with the most trustworthy source: your official statements. When you upload PDF or CSV exports from platforms like DistroKid, SoundExchange, or Spotify for Artists, the platform preserves the original file forever. It then parses and normalizes this data to generate a deterministic snapshot—a verifiable record that can be re-checked and confirmed at any point in the future, ensuring the proof is as solid as the document it came from.

Unmissable Split Confirmation & Validation

The heart of collaboration is fair credit. Collab Chain provides a clear, track-by-track view of split status, marked as Complete, Incomplete, or Not Set. The system enforces a crucial rule: you cannot finalize a proof until every collaborator's percentage is accounted for and totals 100%. This failsafe mechanism prevents accidental omissions and ensures every contributor's stake is locked in before the record is sealed, building trust from the ground up.

Secure, Read-Only Proof Sharing

Your proof is powerful, but your account security is paramount. Collab Chain lets you generate secure, shareable links for managers, labels, or legal teams. Recipients can view a comprehensive, read-only summary of the royalty proof without ever needing an account or gaining access to your sensitive dashboard. This allows you to disseminate verification freely while maintaining full control over your data.

Support for Contextual Evidence

We understand the journey isn't always straightforward; sometimes official exports are unavailable. For these moments, Collab Chain allows you to upload screenshots as Supporting Evidence. These images are never parsed for calculations but are clearly labeled as "Not an Official Statement" and displayed separately in exports. This feature ensures you can build a complete narrative around your proof, even when the path to documentation has a few detours.

Use Cases of Collab Chain

The Independent Artist Releasing a Collaboration

An independent artist teams up with a producer and a featured vocalist for a new single. After release, statements flood in from multiple sources. Using Collab Chain, the artist uploads all documents, confirms the agreed 50/25/25 splits, and generates a locked proof. When the producer later queries a payment, the artist shares a secure link to the immutable record, resolving the question instantly and preserving their creative partnership.

The Producer Building a Verifiable Credit Portfolio

A producer works with dozens of artists each year, often relying on verbal agreements or scattered emails for credit terms. They use Collab Chain to systematically document every project. Each time a royalty statement arrives, they create a proof, locking in their percentage. Over time, they build a powerful, verifiable portfolio of credits to present for future negotiations, label deals, or publishing audits, turning their hard work into a tangible asset.

A Manager Organizing Roster Royalties

A manager overseeing five artists struggles with the chaos of tracking statements and verifying splits for each collaborator on every track. They onboard their entire roster to Collab Chain, creating a centralized, organized vault of all royalty proofs. When an artist's label requests audit documentation or a songwriter needs proof of their share, the manager can instantly retrieve and share the precise, professional record, saving countless hours and mitigating legal risk.

A Songwriter Auditing Their Publishing Income

A songwriter receives complex statements from multiple publishers and PROs across different territories. To ensure they are being paid correctly for their catalog, they use Collab Chain to upload every statement. The platform's clear breakdown allows them to verify their share on each composition against their splits. This organized, verifiable body of proof becomes their essential toolkit for conducting a thorough and confident self-audit.

Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of files can I upload to Collab Chain?

Collab Chain is designed for official, verifiable documentation. We primarily accept PDF or CSV export files directly from your music distributor, publisher, or Performance Rights Organization (PRO). These are the foundation of a strong proof. For supplemental context, we also allow PNG/JPG screenshots (up to 10MB) from dashboards when official exports are blocked, but these are always clearly labeled as supporting evidence only.

Does Collab Chain access my streaming accounts or handle payments?

No, absolutely not. Collab Chain does not connect to or scrape your streaming service accounts (like Spotify or Apple Music). We do not pull live data, guess your earnings, or handle any payments. Our role is purely to verify and document the information contained within the official statements you provide. Your financial accounts remain entirely separate and secure.

What happens after I finalize and "lock" a proof?

Finalizing a proof triggers a server-side validation check to ensure all splits are 100% complete and the data is consistent. Once locked, the core proof record becomes immutable—it cannot be altered. This creates a tamper-evident, point-in-time snapshot you can always refer back to. You can still add supporting evidence screenshots later if needed, but they are marked as such and do not change the original locked calculation.

Who can see the proofs I create in Collab Chain?

Your proofs are private to you by default. You have full control over sharing. You can generate a secure, read-only link for any proof, which you can send to collaborators, your manager, or a lawyer. The recipient can view the proof summary and details without needing a Collab Chain account and without gaining any access to your account or other proofs.