How to Conduct a Personal Royalty Audit and Recover Missing Money

Photo by Jakub Zerdzicki on Unsplash

Most independent artists have thousands of dollars in unclaimed royalties sitting in four separate collection systems—and a four-year window to recover this money before it’s redistributed to major labels.

In this episode, I break down the systematic framework for conducting a personal royalty audit. You’ll discover why being registered with ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC isn’t enough, and learn about the three additional systems most artists don’t know exist: SoundExchange for digital performance royalties, publishing administration services for worldwide mechanical collection, and the Mechanical Licensing Collective for streaming platform royalties.

I’ll walk you through the five-step implementation process: auditing your current registrations, gathering documentation, registering with missing systems, claiming historical royalties, and creating an ongoing management system to prevent future losses.

This framework builds on insights from music business educator Amani Roberts in Episode 339, where he reveals how artists consistently leave money on the table through incomplete registrations and missing split sheet documentation.

Topics Covered:

• The four registration systems required to collect all your royalties
• How unclaimed royalties are redistributed to major labels after four years
• How to verify you’re registered correctly with your PRO (writer AND publisher sides)
• SoundExchange registration for Pandora, iHeartRadio, and SiriusXM royalties
• Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) free registration process
• When publishing administration services are worth the cost
• Split sheet documentation as the foundation for royalty collection
• Metadata management across all four systems
• Common mistakes that cause royalties to go unclaimed
• Step-by-step audit process with time estimates
• Creating an ongoing system to prevent future unclaimed royalties

December is the perfect time for this year-end financial cleanup—start recovering money you’ve already earned.

Free Implementation Toolkit

Get the complete royalty audit toolkit at unstarvingmusician.com/royalty-audit, including:

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