The artist's guide to getting on JPAY, GTL & the federal prison network.
There's a paying audience of 1.6 million+ listeners that almost no independent artist is reaching. This free preview shows you the market, the money, and the rules. The full playbook shows you exactly how to get in.
A Done Deal Digital Field Guide
Free Preview
Incarcerated people buy music — on tablets and kiosks inside facilities — and they pay iTunes-level prices for it. It's a real, paying audience with almost zero independent competition.
The catch: getting your music accepted onto the prison kiosks is a maze of strict content filters, secret rules, and shifting distributor pipelines. One wrong word in a track title and your whole release is silently blocked.
This free preview gives you the three things that decide whether it's worth your time:
What JPAY, GTL & TRULINCS are, and how big the audience really is.
Exactly what you earn per album and per track — and who pays the fees.
The 6 compliance rules that decide if your release gets in or gets blocked.
The full step-by-step submission walkthroughs, the verified distributor pipeline map, artwork specs, and the FAQ — that's the paid guide. This preview is the part that tells you whether to bother. (Spoiler: most artists should.)
Preview · Part 1
Across the U.S., correctional facilities sell music through three closed networks. Your release has to clear each one's content filter before a single copy can sell inside.
À-la-carte downloads on prison tablets/kiosks. Owned by Securus/Aventiv. Catalog tops 10 million tracks, updated nightly.
Subscription streaming curated for corrections (GTL rebranded to ViaPath in 2022).
The Federal Bureau of Prisons system — reached through its own pipeline.
JPay alone serves 1.6 million+ incarcerated people across 30+ states. Add GTL/ViaPath and you're looking at the large majority of U.S. facilities.
Your actual audio can contain profanity. Only the visible metadata — titles, artist name, artwork — has to be clean. That distinction is the whole game (Part 3).
✔ Independently verified: per TuneCore's own store docs, the back-end that powers JPay & GTL also powers CD Universe — which is how you can confirm placement from the outside. The full guide shows you that trick.
Preview · Part 2
The economics are simple and artist-friendly — iTunes-equivalent rates, and you keep your full royalty.
| What sells | What you earn |
|---|---|
| Full album | $7.00 per album sold |
| Individual track | $0.70 per track sold |
| Your royalty share | 100% — you keep all of it |
The facility adds its own fees on top, paid by the buyer at purchase — those don't come out of your royalty. Your $7 / $0.70 is your $7 / $0.70.
Same per-sale as iTunes, no cut taken, and you're selling into an audience with limited entertainment options and almost no competition from other independents. One placed album can quietly earn for years.
Rates shown are the published kiosk-program rate; exact payout varies by distributor. The full guide breaks down each route's actual terms.
Preview · Part 3 · The part that gets releases blocked
Get one of these wrong and your release is silently rejected — no warning, no refund of your time. This is the single most valuable page in the preview. Use it.
Songs may contain profanity. But no curse words in track titles, the artist name, or the artwork.
Keep titles clear of violence, gang, and weapon references. Words that commonly get a release blocked:
GunKnifeBombGangKillMurderDeathMafia
No duplicates, no "Track 1/2," no track numbers or durations. Multi-part songs use "pt."; alternate versions use (parentheses).
Same primary artist name on every release. No "aka," no nicknames. Rejected: Eminem aka Slim Shady. Correct: Eminem.
Including beats. Unlicensed material gets your account blocked and pending sales lost.
No porn/violence/gang/weapon imagery — and no Parental Advisory logo. Artist name + title only, 1600px+ square.
When your distributor asks if the release has explicit lyrics / explicit artwork, the answer is always NO. Mark it explicit and the kiosk blocks it — even if the audio is clean.
The free preview ends here
The full Sell Your Music in Prisons playbook is the complete, step-by-step system — verified June 2026 and kept current for life.
Instant download · PDF · works on any device
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Drop your email and we'll send occasional tips on getting your music in prisons — plus a heads-up when the distribution routes change.
Let Done Deal Digital handle it for you. The distributor pipelines shift constantly — store names change, brands get bought, routes open and close. Most artists don't want to babysit that. We'll prep your metadata to spec, route your release to the right kiosk pipeline, and keep it compliant — so you just make music and collect. See the done-for-you service →