Most independent artists believe their distributor collects their money. It collects one kind of money. The rest sits in accounts you have to open yourself, at organisations most artists have never registered with, and nobody writes to tell you it is there.
The 60-second answer
Your distributor pays streaming royalties on the recording. It does not pay your songwriter mechanicals in the US, your digital performance royalties on the master, your performance royalties as a writer, your neighbouring rights outside the US, or your YouTube Content ID claims. Those come from five separate places, four of which are free to join, and each one only pays people who have registered. Do the MLC and SoundExchange first: both are free, both back-pay, and between them they cover the two gaps that catch almost everyone.
Why this happens at all
A single song generates money through two distinct copyrights. There is the recording, the actual audio file you uploaded, and there is the composition, the underlying song as written. They are owned separately, they are licensed separately, and they are paid by different organisations.
Your distributor handles one slice of one of them. Everything else has its own collector, and every collector works the same way: it holds money until the rightful owner identifies themselves. No one is hiding anything from you. You are simply not in the file.
The five places the money sits
1. The MLC, for US mechanical royalties
When someone streams your song in the United States, a mechanical royalty is generated on the composition, separately from the recording royalty your distributor pays you. The Mechanical Licensing Collective collects it. If you have not registered your songs with them, that money accrues unmatched.
The scale is public. The MLC received an initial transfer of roughly $427 million in historical unmatched royalties, later revised to about $397 million after the Copyright Royalty Board finalised the applicable rates and the streaming services delivered adjustments in February 2024. As of June 2026, around $160 million of pre-2021 US mechanicals remained unmatched, with the 2018 to 2020 portion roughly 60% distributed.
A number worth correcting, because it circulates constantly: the widely quoted "$424 million black box" is the size of the ORIGINAL transfer, not the amount still sitting unclaimed. Most of it has been distributed. The remaining pool is real and worth claiming, but it is smaller than the headline, and any article quoting the big number as current is not reading the source.
2. SoundExchange, for digital performance on the master
This is the one almost nobody knows about. When your recording plays on non-interactive digital radio, satellite radio, internet radio, and similar services, a performance royalty is owed on the master to whoever owns and performs on it. That is you, twice over, if you are independent.
SoundExchange collects it and nothing else does. It is free to join, and it back-pays accrued royalties, so registering late is worth doing rather than a lost cause. Note that featured performers can register even if they do not own the recording, which catches out session and featured artists constantly.
3. Your PRO, for performance royalties as a writer
ASCAP, BMI, PRS, GEMA, MESAM and their equivalents collect when your composition is performed publicly: radio, television, venues, and some digital uses. This is the writer and publisher side, entirely separate from anything above.
Most artists do register with a PRO and then never register their individual works, which is the actual failure. A PRO membership with no songs registered in it pays nothing.
4. Neighbouring rights, outside the US
Many countries pay a performance royalty on the recording as well as on the composition. The United States largely does not, which is why this one is invisible to American artists in particular. If your music gets radio play or public performance abroad, that money accrues in overseas collecting societies.
It generally needs an agent or a society membership to repatriate, and unlike the first two this one is usually not free. Whether it is worth it depends entirely on whether you actually have foreign broadcast activity, which your distributor's country data can tell you before you sign anything.
5. YouTube Content ID
If other people use your music on YouTube, whether in videos, uploads or reuploads, Content ID can monetise it on your behalf. If your recordings were never delivered into Content ID, those views earn nothing for you. Most distributors offer this as an option that is off by default.
The order to do this in
| Order | Where | Cost | Why here |
|---|
| 1 | SoundExchange | Free | Back-pays, and covers a royalty nothing else collects |
| 2 | The MLC | Free | Back-pays US mechanicals, the most commonly missed |
| 3 | Register works at your PRO | Free with membership | Membership alone pays nothing without registered songs |
| 4 | YouTube Content ID | Usually via distributor | One toggle, then it runs on its own |
| 5 | Neighbouring rights agent | Commission | Only once foreign activity justifies it |
The first three cost nothing but an afternoon. Do them before you spend a single hour evaluating a paid service, because a paid service cannot collect anything you would not have collected free.
How much is realistically there
This is where most articles on this subject start inventing. You will see confident percentages: recover 5 to 25 percent of your annual income, thousands sitting in back-claims. None of those figures carry a source you can check, and they are usually published by someone selling a royalty audit.
The honest answer is that it depends almost entirely on two things: how long your catalogue has been earning, and whether it gets any radio or broadcast play. An artist with two years of streams and no radio may find very little. An artist with a decade of catalogue and any sync or broadcast history often finds a real sum.
What is certain is the direction. These accounts pay nothing to people who are not registered, registration is free for the ones that matter most, and the money does not accrue to you while you wait.
What to be careful of
- Services charging a fee to "find" money you can claim yourself at the MLC and SoundExchange for nothing.
- Signing a neighbouring rights deal before checking whether you have any foreign broadcast activity at all.
- Publishing administration agreements that quietly take a percentage of everything, including the royalties you were already collecting.
- Anyone quoting a recovery percentage without saying whose data it is.
Where a dashboard fits, and where it does not
Stage does not collect royalties and cannot register you anywhere. No link-in-bio or analytics product can, and any that implies otherwise is describing something it does not do.
What it can tell you is the thing that decides two of the five decisions above: which countries your listeners are actually in, and whether you have enough foreign activity to make neighbouring rights worth pursuing. That is a real input into the question. It is not the answer to it.
Frequently asked
Does my distributor collect all my royalties?
No. Distributors pay recording royalties from streaming and download services. They do not pay US mechanical royalties on the composition, digital performance royalties on the master, writer performance royalties, or foreign neighbouring rights. Those come from separate organisations you register with yourself.
Is SoundExchange free and does it back-pay?
Registration is free, and it pays accrued royalties, so registering after the fact is still worth doing. It collects the digital performance royalty on the recording from non-interactive services, which nothing else collects.
What is the MLC and do I need it if I use DistroKid?
The Mechanical Licensing Collective pays US mechanical royalties on the composition. You need it regardless of your distributor, because that royalty is on the song rather than the recording and your distributor does not collect it.
How much unclaimed money is at the MLC?
The MLC received an initial transfer of roughly $427 million in historical unmatched royalties, later revised to about $397 million. As of June 2026, around $160 million of pre-2021 US mechanicals remained unmatched. The often-quoted $424 million figure describes the original transfer, not the current unclaimed pool.
Are neighbouring rights worth chasing as a small artist?
Only if you have foreign radio or broadcast play. Unlike the MLC and SoundExchange it usually costs a commission, so check your listener and airplay geography before signing anything.
Should I pay a service to audit my royalties?
Not before registering free at SoundExchange, the MLC and your PRO, and registering your individual works. A paid service cannot collect anything you could not have collected yourself for nothing.