Free money! You've already earned it! Just fill out the paperwork!

It’s always a little astonishing when musicians tell us they haven’t even heard of SoundExchange, the non-profit organization set up to disseminate streaming royalties from satellite radio, cable, and other streaming services like Pandora. SoundExchange collects royalties for everyone who receives airplay, and to receive these royalties, artists and labels simply need to register through SoundExchange’s website. Yet many artists have never registered despite SoundExchange’s valiant efforts to track them down; that means tens of millions of dollars that should be in artists’ pockets are sitting in a bank account waiting to be collected.
Recently, Soundexchange publicly released an up-to-date database of all the unregistered artists and labels that are owed royalties. They’re hoping that making this information public will encourage people to spread the word. This is even more urgent because if artists don’t register by October 15, they could see royalties that are more than three years old disappear. As SoundExchange says:
SoundExchange is authorized by law to release older unclaimed royalties to offset our costs and distribute proportionally to those we already pay. We have repeatedly held off on doing this, but we need your help to spread the word and get recording artists and record labels to register.
Yikes! To find out if SoundExchange has money for you, check out their database.
Just out of curiosity, I put my iPod on shuffle play to see whether a random sampling of my favorite artists where on Soundexchange’s list. The first artist to come up was New Jersey punk band Titus Andronicus, who have yet to register! Also unregistered: Seattle rapper Macklemore, Baltimore electro-auteur Dan Deacon, and Portland art-rockers Parenthetical Girls.
Soon I started to see patterns. Artists who aren’t based in the US are particularly well-represented on the list: Australian indie-pop band Cannanes, New Zealand legends The Bats, and German industrial goofballs Rammstein all need to register.
Another key group: artists who are no longer actively performing and recording. My favorite 90s hip hop group, the sadly defunct Evil Tambourines, has money waiting for them. So does Mika Miko, the awesome LA punk band which broke up in 2009.
Artists who’ve performed under several project names also need to take care to register for all their projects. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy seems to have signed up, but he’s neglected to register his previous projects Palace, Palace Brothers, and Palace Songs. Similarly, indie vets Yo La Tengo have registered, but they forgot to register their jokey side project Condo F*cks. Jonathan Richman has apparently registered, but his old group The Modern Lovers has not!
I could have kept going, but I started to notice many of my friends’ bands included on the list, so I abandoned the experiment, and spent the next two hours emailing a couple dozen friends to let them know that they had unpaid royalties waiting for them. Some of them were completely surprised and needed to be convinced that it wasn’t a Nigerian scam. Others said that they’d been meaning to register for a while but had kept putting it off; all of them appreciated the reminder. Maybe it’d be worth it to check and see if your friends are in the database as well, and let them know!
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(Image via shutterstock)
Comments
5 comments postedCurious if anyone would be
Submitted by Come Here a Minute (not verified) on August 23, 2012 - 10:22pm.Curious if anyone would be willing to share the dollar amounts involved?
It depends on how much
Submitted by kevin on August 24, 2012 - 2:01am.It depends on how much airplay is received and on what platform. The list includes anyone who is owed at least $10 as of 3 years ago. But many artists are owed hundreds of dollars, possibly more.
unfortunately, up until this
Submitted by sbl (not verified) on August 24, 2012 - 9:39am.unfortunately, up until this point, the site has been almost useless. we registered early last year, received a confirmation number via email, and never heard another word. tried to log in and couldn't... a phone call to SE and they told us they had no record of us.... even though we had a confirmation number. so we re-registered and now they show that they have several of our songs already in the system and credited to us, but the download form to fill out to submit all of your songs doesn't seem to work... at least for us it didn't after attempts with 2 different computers.
Just looking at the
Submitted by Frances Gibson (not verified) on August 29, 2012 - 2:17am.Just looking at the documentation required looks tricky for a non US artist like Federal Tax numbers.And voided cheques! Blimey
Hi Frances! I love your
Submitted by kevin on August 29, 2012 - 1:11pm.Hi Frances! I love your music. I'd suggest writing Soundexchange Customer Support. They'll help you figure out alternate means of documentation.
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