Unstarving Musician | 340 How to Conduct a Personal Royalty Audit and Recover Missing Money

What if thousands of dollars from your music are sitting unclaimed right now—not in some future revenue stream, but from songs you’ve already released?

For most independent artists, this isn’t hypothetical. It’s reality.

A couple of weeks ago, music business educator Amani Roberts shared insights about the money musicians consistently leave on the table. Not because they don’t work hard. Not because their music isn’t good enough. But because they don’t know about the four separate royalty collection systems that require four separate registrations.

Hands signing a document on a desk — Photo by Jakub Zerdzicki on Unsplash

THREE KEY INSIGHTS FROM EPISODE 340:

YOUR PRO IS ONLY 25% OF THE PICTURE ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC registration covers public performance royalties. That’s one of four systems. The other three? SoundExchange (digital performance royalties from Pandora, iHeartRadio, SiriusXM), publishing administration (worldwide mechanical collection and YouTube revenue), and the Mechanical Licensing Collective (U.S. streaming mechanical royalties). Most artists miss at least two of these.
THE FOUR-YEAR WINDOW IS CLOSING Most organizations allow royalty recovery approximately four years back. Beyond that window, unclaimed money gets redistributed to major labels based on market share. Your money. Going to them. December is the perfect time for year-end financial cleanup before older releases fall outside the recovery window.
SPLIT SHEETS ARE YOUR FOUNDATION Without documentation showing songwriter percentages and signatures, you cannot properly collect publishing royalties. Don’t have split sheets for existing releases? Create them now. Reach out to co-writers, document the splits, and get signatures. Better late than never.

🎧 Listen to Episode 340

WANT THE COMPLETE IMPLEMENTATION TOOLKIT?

This episode includes a five-step audit process with specific time estimates, but I’ve also created free resources to make implementation easier:

• Registration checklist with direct links to all four portals • Step-by-step priority sequence • Metadata management spreadsheet template • Split sheet template with proper formatting

Get the free toolkit at: unstarvingmusician.com/royalty-audit

Liner Notes is my free newsletter that covers highlights from this episode and hundreds of conversations about building a sustainable music career.

Liner Notes Insider subscribers also get the Royalty Recovery Calculator (exclusive) to estimate unclaimed dollars based on your streaming data and release history.

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Peace, love and more cowbell,
Robonzo

P.S. - The MLC (Mechanical Licensing Collective) is free to register and takes about an hour. SoundExchange is also free. Even if you only tackle those two systems this week, you’ll be collecting royalties you’re missing right now. Four registrations stand between you and the money you’ve already earned.

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