Found money
The Royalty Audit
Every stream you release generates several separate royalties — and each one flows through a different door. Published estimates suggest artists registered with all three major collectors earn roughly 30–40% more per stream than those relying on a distributor alone, and most independent artists currently collect $0 from SoundExchange. This audit finds your leaks in 2 minutes, for free, and nothing leaves your browser.
Scope note: the organizations in this audit (ASCAP/BMI, The MLC, SoundExchange) are the United States collection system. If you’re based elsewhere, the same doors exist with different names — see the international table below the audit. US streams of your music still flow through these US doors regardless of where you live.
1 / 7
Is your music distributed to streaming platforms?
Not in the US? Same doors, different names.
Every major market splits royalties the same way — composition performance, mechanicals, and recording performance — it just uses different organizations. Register with your local equivalents, and remember that your US streams still pay through the US system above (your PRO and a publishing admin handle the cross-border collection).
| Country | Songwriter performance + mechanicals | Recording performance |
|---|---|---|
| UK | PRS for Music | PPL |
| Canada | SOCAN | RE:SOUND |
| Australia/NZ | APRA AMCOS | PPCA |
| Germany | GEMA | GVL |
| France | SACEM | SPPF / ADAMI |
| Elsewhere | Search “[your country] performing rights organization” and “[your country] neighbouring rights” — nearly every market has both. | |
Why so much money goes uncollected
The streaming royalty system doesn't pay you through one channel — it splits a single play into at least two distinct royalty types. The sound recording (your master) earns performance royalties collected by SoundExchange for non-interactive streams and by your distributor for on-demand streams. Separately, the composition (the song itself) earns performance royalties through your PRO and mechanical royalties through The MLC. Different organisations, different registration processes, different payout timelines.
Nobody registers you automatically. Your distributor gets your music onto platforms and collects the master-side streaming royalty — that's it. They don't sign you up with ASCAP or BMI, they don't register your compositions with The MLC, and they don't claim your featured-artist share with SoundExchange. Every door you haven't opened is royalties sitting in a queue, waiting, with a finite holding period before they're redistributed.
Distributors cover only part of the picture because they are contracted as sound-recording intermediaries, not as publishing administrators or performing-rights representatives. Many artists don't realise that the performance and mechanical royalty systems exist in parallel to distribution — until they start registering and see back-payments appear. The fix is straightforward once you know which doors are open and which are still locked.