Music Artists: Does Sound Exchange Have Money for You?



Music Artists: Does Sound Exchange Have Money for You?
by Susan Basko, esq.

Sound Exchange collects and divvies out the royalties for non-interactive streaming play, such as satellite radio providers, webcasters, and digital cable music providers.  Sound Exchange pays money to featured artists and SRCO - sound recording copyright owners.   This is different from the PROs - performing rights organizations, such as ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, which deal with performing rights royalties for broadcast radio and pay songwriters through their publishers.  Sound Exchange does not deal in any royalties from Youtube or other video sites or services.

A lot of featured artists and sound recording copyright owners fail to register themselves and their works with Sound Exchange, possibly because they don't know what Sound Exchange does.  Every year, there is a big glut of money that goes unclaimed.  You have to register to get the money! 

Does Sound Exchange have money waiting for you?  


If you are a sound recording copyright owner, such as a record label, you can search here to find out if there is money waiting for you:  https://www.soundexchange.com/artist-copyright-owner/does-soundexchange-have-royalties-for-you/search-for-rights-owner/

Among the 37,614 music artists or rights owners that currently have unclaimed money waiting for them are some fairly big names, including Dan Gibson, Josh Vietti, James Cordon, Molly Ringwald, The Bornagen Beatles, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, Portland Cello Project, Blue Chicago, Chicago Sessions, Marky Mark, Kevin Costner, New York Philharmonic, Flosstradamus, 4 Alarm, and thousands more.

There are 2,657 sound recording copyright owners with "Records" in their names who have not claimed their money, including Los Feliz Records, Lost Cat Records, Capstone Records, Datapunk Recordings, and so many others.

If you search and see that you are owed money, you have to register, which you can do using one of the many forms at this link: https://www.soundexchange.com/artist-copyright-owner/registration-membership/

The layout for music royalties is quite complex, with different types of royalties coming from lots of different sources and going to different types of people or entities.  Sound Exchange is the only (or one of the few?) organizations that is authorized to make payments to featured performers and sound recording copyright owners.  

If you have learned something new from this post, feel free to drop me a note at suebaskomusic@gmail.com   Have a great day!