The money that doesn't come through us

Royalties

The money that never reaches your distributor

When someone streams your song, the payment splits in two before it reaches anybody. One half comes through us. The other half doesn’t — and if nobody has claimed it, it just sits there.

What it pays for	Who it belongs to	How it reaches them
Recording royalties from streamingthrough us	Whoever owns the master	Through your distributor — this is the money on your Music MCN statement
Publishing — the song and the words	The composer and the lyricist	Through their society. It never touches your distributor.
Public performance of the recording	The recording owner	Through the recording rights society in that country
Performer royalties	The singer and the musicians on it	Through the performers' society

Only the first row is us. The other three are collected by organisations called collection societies, and you have to be a member for them to pay you.

If you write songs and you’re not registered with a society, nobody is paying you that share. Not your distributor — anyone. It sits unclaimed. Most songwriters we meet have never been told this, which is why the page exists.

Three copyrights, not one

This is the part that causes almost every payment argument we see. One song contains three separate copyrights, owned by three different people, collected by three different bodies.

The recording

The actual master. In India it belongs to whoever took the initiative and responsibility for making it — in practice, whoever paid for the session. This is the one we distribute.

The composition

The tune. Belongs to the composer. Composing a song does not make you the owner of somebody else’s recording of it — a real right, and a different one.

The lyrics

The words. Belongs to the lyricist, separately again. On a film song the lyric is frequently owned by someone who has never met the person uploading it.

Who collects it where you are

Every country handles this differently. Find yours, then check whether the people credited on your releases are actually registered.

India

IPRS The Indian Performing Right Society	The song itself — melody and words · Mechanical — copies of the song	Composers, lyricists and publishers. If you wrote the tune or the words, this is the one that matters to you.
PPL India Phonographic Performance Limited	The recording, when broadcast or played in public	Owners of sound recordings — labels, and producers who own their masters. Covers the recording being played in public or broadcast, not streaming.
ISRA Indian Singers' Rights Association	The performance on the recording	Singers and performers, for performances on recordings that get broadcast or played in public.

The recording, the composition and the lyrics are three separate copyrights in Indian law, with three separate owners and three separate societies. Almost every payment problem we see comes from treating them as one thing.

United States

ASCAP / BMI / SESAC / GMR	The song itself — melody and words	Songwriters and publishers pick ONE of these for performance royalties. You cannot be in two at once.
The MLC The Mechanical Licensing Collective	Mechanical — copies of the song	Songwriters and publishers, for mechanical royalties from US streaming. Free to join, and a large amount of money sits there unmatched.
SoundExchange	The recording, when broadcast or played in public · The performance on the recording	Recording owners and featured performers, for non-interactive digital radio. Distinct from everything above — a different right entirely.

The US splits this further than most countries. A songwriter needs a performance society AND The MLC; they do not cover each other.

United Kingdom

PRS for Music	The song itself — melody and words	Composers, lyricists and publishers.
MCPS	Mechanical — copies of the song	Usually joined alongside PRS, for mechanical royalties.
PPL UK	The recording, when broadcast or played in public · The performance on the recording	Recording owners and performers — both register with the same body here.

United Arab Emirates

The Gulf does not have a domestic collection society of the kind India or the UK has. Writers based here usually join a society in another territory they have a connection to, and collect globally through it. Worth taking advice on before choosing, because the choice is hard to reverse.

Canada

SOCAN	The song itself — melody and words	Composers, lyricists and publishers.
Re:Sound	The recording, when broadcast or played in public · The performance on the recording	Recording owners and performers.

Australia & New Zealand

APRA AMCOS	The song itself — melody and words · Mechanical — copies of the song	Composers, lyricists and publishers — one body covers both rights.
PPCA	The recording, when broadcast or played in public · The performance on the recording	Recording owners and performers (Australia).

Germany

GEMA	The song itself — melody and words · Mechanical — copies of the song	Composers, lyricists and publishers.
GVL	The recording, when broadcast or played in public · The performance on the recording	Recording owners and performers.

France

SACEM	The song itself — melody and words · Mechanical — copies of the song	Composers, lyricists and publishers.
ADAMI / SPEDIDAM	The performance on the recording	Performers — which one depends on whether you are a featured or session artist.
SCPP / SPPF	The recording, when broadcast or played in public	Recording owners — SCPP for larger catalogues, SPPF for independents.

Singapore

COMPASS	The song itself — melody and words	Composers, lyricists and publishers.
RIPS	The recording, when broadcast or played in public	Recording owners.

Malaysia

MACP	The song itself — melody and words	Composers, lyricists and publishers.
PRISM	The recording, when broadcast or played in public	Recording owners.
RPM	The performance on the recording	Performers.

Your country not here? Write to us and we’ll find out rather than guess — sending somebody to the wrong organisation costs them weeks.

What we do about it, and what we don’t

We do

Tell you which societies apply where you live, and what each one collects
Keep your composer and lyricist credits accurate on every release, because that is what the societies match against
Give you the ISRC, release dates and catalogue records a society will ask you for
Put your composer and lyricist on the revenue splits, so the recording share reaches them monthly without chasing

We don’t

Register you with any society — you join in your own name, and it should stay that way
Collect publishing money on your behalf, or take a cut of it
Act as your publisher
Give legal advice on which society to join when you have a choice

A society membership is yours and follows you for life, including after you leave us. Signing you up through an intermediary makes it harder to move and gives somebody a claim on money we did nothing to earn. We would rather tell you where it is.