Most Independent Artists Are Losing Royalties They Will Never Get Back

Music royalties flow through several separate systems, and each one requires its own registration — which is exactly where most independent artists lose money.

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC), which collects U.S. streaming mechanical royalties, has reported holding roughly $374 million in mechanical royalties that were either unmatched to a song or matched but not yet claimed by a rights holder — a balance built up over the MLC's first few years of operation. Separately, SoundExchange — which collects an entirely different royalty (digital performance royalties for sound recordings, from services like SiriusXM and Pandora) distributed $1.05 billion in 2024 alone. These are two unrelated pools of money, run by two different organizations, and a lot of artists assume one of them is "handled" when neither is.

• Joining a PRO (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC) does not register your songs — each one earns $0 in mechanical or performance royalties until it's individually entered into the relevant system.
• SoundExchange and The MLC are completely separate from your distributor (DistroKid, TuneCore, etc.) — most distributors don't register you with either, and many independent artists have never registered with either on their own.
• International neighboring rights — royalties paid to performers when recordings are broadcast abroad — exist in something like 80–90+ countries. Very few independent artists ever register for them, leaving international airplay money uncollected.