Neighbouring rights: the money you have to go and claim

50 · 2026-09-18 · 21 min read · Español

Neighbouring rights are the money a recording earns when it is broadcast or played in public, split between the people who performed on it and whoever owns it. In the United States that money is collected by SoundExchange, from webcasters, satellite radio and cable music channels and from nothing else; in Canada by Re:Sound, from radio, satellite, businesses, venues and non-interactive webcasters. Neither pays through a distributor, and each pays only the performers and owners registered with it. A self-released artist is both halves — which means two registrations per country — and nobody files either one for you.

• Neighbouring rights are the performer’s and the recording owner’s right to be paid when a published recording is broadcast or performed in public. The song’s writers are paid for the same play by a different right, through a PRO.
• In the United States the right covers noninteractive digital transmissions only — webcasters, satellite radio, cable music channels — collected by SoundExchange under a statutory licence. AM/FM radio is exempt, and interactive streams are paid through the distributor.
• In Canada, section 19 of the Copyright Act pays performers and makers for public performance and communication to the public, collected by Re:Sound under tariffs for radio, satellite, pay audio, background music, venues and non-interactive webcasts. On-demand streaming is excluded.
• Neither collector pays through a distributor. Each pays the performers and owners registered with it, registration is free, and a self-released artist registers twice per country: once as the performer, once as the owner.
• A recording made in the United States has qualified for every Re:Sound tariff since 1 July 2020, and SoundExchange registers creators outside the United States. SoundExchange holds an unclaimed payment for three years, and after that no claim to it is valid.

What are neighbouring rights, exactly?

Neighbouring rights are the performer’s and the recording owner’s right to be paid when a published recording is broadcast or played in public.

The word is the giveaway. A song has an author, and the author’s copyright is the one everybody has heard of. A recording of that song has two more parties in it — the people who performed it and the person or company that made the record — and the rights that protect their work sit beside the author’s. Neighbouring. In Canada’s statute the phrase is equitable remuneration; in the United States, which has a narrower version, the money is called digital performance royalties. Same right, three names, and you will meet all three on the forms.

Hold on to the structure, because everything on this page follows from it. The right has two halves: one for the performers, one for the maker or owner of the recording. A label and its signed artist are two parties collecting two halves. You, self-released, are both. And the same radio play also pays the song’s writers, by a different right, through a different door — the PRO row on the map of every stream, which this page never spends. A performer who wrote the song is owed two things from one play. A performer who did not is owed one, and it is this one.

Which plays pay in the United States, and which pay nothing?

Noninteractive digital services pay, through SoundExchange; AM/FM radio pays the recording nothing; interactive streams pay the owner through the distributor.

The American version of this right is a digital-transmission right and nothing wider, and the statute that draws the line is 17 U.S.C. § 114. Section 114(d)(1)(A) exempts a “nonsubscription broadcast transmission,” and section 114(j)(3) says what that is: a transmission by “a terrestrial broadcast station licensed as such by the Federal Communications Commission.” Ordinary radio is exempt by name. What pays is section 114(j)(6)’s “eligible nonsubscription transmission” — “a noninteractive nonsubscription digital audio transmission” that is not the exempt kind — plus subscription services like satellite radio and cable music channels, all under a statutory licence at rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board. Why that licence exists and what the owner’s rights are is its own piece; this one needs only the line.

The exemption is why an AM/FM play pays the song’s writers through their PRO and pays the people who made the record nothing at all. American radio has paid the performers of its most-played record this year, for performing it, exactly what it has paid the Moon.

Everything on the paying side of the line goes through one door. SoundExchange describes itself, in its own FAQ, as “the sole organization that collects digital performance royalties for sound recordings in the United States,” and says who pays it: “More than 3,600 services pay SoundExchange. These services include satellite radio providers, webcasters and digital cable music providers.” On radio, the same page is one sentence long — “Currently, there is no performance right for over-the-air broadcasts.”

Two more lines, then the door is fully described. Section 114(g)(2) divides every statutory payment among the recording’s copyright owner, the featured recording artists, and the nonfeatured musicians and vocalists — three classes, and the featured-artist piece carries the shares, so none appears here. And an interactive stream — you chose the track — is not under the statutory licence at all: the owner licenses it, the service pays under that licence, and the money arrives through your distributor. That is the one stream on the distributor’s statement. Everything else on this page never touches it.

Why doesn’t this money come through your distributor?

Because the services pay SoundExchange and Re:Sound directly, and each pays only the performers and owners registered with it.

Follow the money and the distributor is not on the path. A webcaster pays SoundExchange under the statutory licence. A Canadian station pays Re:Sound under a tariff. Each collector then pays the performers and owners it has on file, and nobody else. Your distributor statement carries what the stores pay for the recording. This is money the stores never paid.

SoundExchange states the condition in two nouns rather than one, on its page for artists and labels. Recording artists and sound recording owners, it says, “must be registered … in order to receive digital performance royalties for the use of their sound recordings on non-interactive platforms like SiriusXM, Pandora, and iHeart Radio.” Registering is free — “It is free to register with SoundExchange” — and the two nouns in that sentence are the whole point. Its glossary defines a Sound Recording Owner as “a record label or an individual who owns sound recordings,” and a Performer as someone who, once registered, “can claim a percentage of royalties owed to them on a recording-by-recording basis.” Owner and performer are two registrations. If you made the record and you own the record, you are both, and one form does not do the other’s job.

SoundExchange’s own lists show what happens when it is done by halves. It keeps four, by its own headings — Unregistered Artists, Partially Unregistered Artists, Unregistered Performers, Unregistered Sound Recording Owners — and its example for the second is exact: it may be paying four members of a five-performer act while “the fifth Performer is not registered with us and is not receiving his/her share of the Artist’s royalties.” An owner who never registered as a performer is on one list. A performer who never registered as an owner is on another. The featured share is paid to the performer directly, never through anyone — the credits piece owns that word — and the one paper that moves part of it elsewhere is a letter of direction, which a producer may have asked you for.

Canada has the same shape with a membership layer in front of it. Re:Sound’s FAQ answers the question in full: “If you’re a recording artist (lead or background performer) you can sign up with one of Re:Sound’s member organisations – ACTRA RACS or Artisti. If you’re a record company, or own your masters, you can sign up with Panorama. In both cases, you may also register with Re:Sound directly.” Performer through a performer collective, maker through the maker collective, or either directly — and then, in Re:Sound’s words, “you must submit your repertoire information in order to claim your royalties.” ACTRA RACS is free to join and takes “a small administrative fee on any payments issued.”

Repertoire is the word for the other half of the job. Both collectors pay recording by recording, and a recording is identified by its ISRC, its title, its artist and its label. If you never wrote the codes down, they can be recovered from what is already published; if one shipped wrong, that is a separate repair, and every log carrying the wrong code is money filed under a recording that does not exist. Two registrations and a list of codes. That is the entire price of admission.

Which plays pay in Canada, and whose recordings qualify?

Radio, satellite, pay audio, background music, venues and non-interactive webcasts pay, through Re:Sound; a recording qualifies by its maker’s country or where it was recorded.

The Canadian right is wider than the American one and it is written as a right to be paid rather than a right to refuse. Section 19(1) of the Copyright Act:

If a sound recording has been published, the performer and maker are entitled, subject to subsection 20(1), to be paid equitable remuneration for its performance in public or its communication to the public by telecommunication…

The entitlement runs to both parties at once, and it is owed for a public performance or a communication to the public. Subsection 19(2)(a) says who the user pays: “the collective society authorized under Part VII.1 to collect them,” which is Re:Sound, and the division between the performer side and the maker side is the split the featured-artist piece carries. What actually pays is a list of tariffs certified by the Copyright Board, and Re:Sound names them: Commercial Radio (1.A), the CBC (1.C), Pay Audio (2), Background Music (3), Satellite Radio (4), Live Events (5), Dance and Fitness (6), and Music Streaming (8). Tariff 8 draws its own border, in Re:Sound’s words — it covers “non-interactive and semi-interactive webcasts” and “does not apply to podcasts, fully interactive services such as downloads or on-demand streaming.” The service where you pick the track is outside this right on both sides of the border.

Then the condition 19(1) is subject to, which is where the border comes in. Section 20 makes the right depend on the recording’s origin, and gives two routes in. Under 20(1) the Canadian right applies only if “(a) the maker was, at the date of the first fixation, a Canadian citizen or permanent resident…or, if a corporation, had its headquarters in Canada; or (b) all the fixations done for the sound recording occurred in Canada.” Subsections 20(1.1) and 20(1.2) say the same for a maker from a Rome Convention country or a WPPT country, or a recording fixed entirely in one. Who the maker was on the day of recording, or where the recording was made. Re:Sound adds the term: a recording qualifies if it was first published less than 75 years ago or first recorded less than 100, whichever is shorter.

Two treaties, then, and the United States is in one of them. The Rome Convention of 1961 is the treaty behind 20(1.1); WIPO lists 100 contracting parties, Canada among them since 1998, and the United States is not on the list. Sixty-five years is a long time to leave an invitation on the fridge. The WPPT of 1996 is the treaty behind 20(1.2), and the United States has been in it since 2002; Canada joined in 2014. So an American recording enters Canada’s right through the WPPT door — subject to one more thing.

Subsections 20(2) and 20(2.1) let the Minister, where a treaty country “does not grant a right to remuneration, similar in scope and duration” to Canadians, limit the right for that country’s recordings “by a statement published in the Canada Gazette.” The United States has no terrestrial radio right, so in 2014 the Minister did exactly that. The Statement as first made put the United States under a heading with Japan and Singapore: remuneration “applies only to the communication to the public by telecommunication” — no public-performance money at all — and even then not for “a broadcast that is lawful under the Broadcasting Act, by a terrestrial radio station, of a signal…for reception that is free and does not require a subscription”, nor for a recording sent “to a business for performance as background music on its premises.” Free radio and shop speakers, closed to American records, with a separate exclusion for anything first fixed before 15 February 1972. A US artist who asked in 2019 was told, correctly, that Canadian radio owed them nothing.

It is not 2019. SOR/2020-82, published in April 2020, repealed the American limitations in two stages, the second on the day CUSMA came into force, and its impact statement says why in plain government prose: the 2014 statement “included the United States, given its membership in the WPPT, and limited Canada’s application of this right to U.S. rights holders,” and the amendment “would repeal the limitations…regarding a sound recording whose maker, at the date of the sound recording’s first fixation, was a national of the United States.” The Statement as it stands today still limits a dozen countries and does not name the United States, and its header reads “last amended on 2020-07-01.” Re:Sound’s Distribution Rules say the same thing from the paying end: “effective July 1, 2020, U.S. recordings are eligible for equitable remuneration.” Every tariff. Radio included.

What if you are on one side of the border and played on the other?

Both countries pay foreign performers and makers; a US recording has qualified for every Re:Sound tariff since 1 July 2020, and SoundExchange registers non-US creators.

Four cases cover almost everyone reading this, and none of them is a footnote to the other.

Take the first row. SoundExchange’s FAQ answers “Can I still register if I’m not from the US?” with a tax form: “We require a W-8BEN tax form from all non-U.S. registrants. 30% withholding is applied to all non-U.S. payees unless they submit a completed W-8BEN form.” The other route is your own collective: Re:Sound’s list of international agreements names SoundExchange as its United States partner, bilateral, for performers and makers, and ACTRA RACS collects “in over 40 territories around the world.” Pick one route per country. The play is paid once whichever door it comes through, and a second claim on the same recording is a knot to untie, not a second payment.

The second row is the one that changed. Re:Sound’s FAQ: “Yes. Re:Sound collects and distributes royalties for both Canadian and international artists and record companies.” Its rules: “Eligible Canadian and non-Canadian performers and makers are treated equally in determining the allocation of royalties.” ACTRA RACS “represents performers and recording artists from all over the world.” From the American side, SoundExchange’s international page claims “more than 100 agreements with 75+ CMOs” covering “93% of the global neighboring rights market” — with the condition in its own words: “You must be a SoundExchange member and complete an International Mandate to take advantage of this international collection service.” A mandate you sign, not a default you have. The US artist with radio play in Canada has had a claim since July 2020 and has had to make it.

The third row is uneven and the page will not pretend otherwise. Panorama states the Canadian side: “By way of reciprocity, sound recordings eligible for equitable remuneration in Canada are also eligible in countries that are signatories to the Rome Convention” and the WPPT. The American side is rougher, and SoundExchange’s own advocacy page names the mechanism, whose figures this page does not borrow: “individual countries discriminate against foreign nationals by withholding royalty payments to artists whose countries of origin have different royalty and copyright laws.” A country that pays its own performers for radio can decide to pay an American one only if America would return the favour, and America has nothing to return it with. Which countries do what is a list that moves; your home collective publishes its agreements, and that is the list to read.

What happens to the money nobody claims?

SoundExchange holds unclaimed royalties for three years and may then apply them to its costs; Re:Sound publishes a searchable list of logged recordings.

The American rule is a federal regulation, 37 CFR § 380.4(b), and it is short enough to read whole:

If the Collective is unable to identify or locate a Copyright Owner or Performer who is entitled to receive a royalty distribution under this part, the Collective must retain the required payment in a segregated trust account for a period of three years from the date of the first distribution of royalties from the relevant payment by a Licensee. No claim to distribution shall be valid after the expiration of the three-year period. After expiration of this period, the Collective may apply the unclaimed funds to offset any costs deductible under 17 U.S.C. 114(g)(3).

SoundExchange’s FAQ says it in one line — “Yes, after 3 years royalties expire and SoundExchange is authorized by regulation to release unclaimed royalties.” Three years from the first distribution of that payment, not from your release date and not from when you found out. The song side has a rule of the same length at The MLC, which the mechanicals piece carries; this is the recording side’s.

Before the clock runs out, the money is findable, and this is the part nobody tells you. SoundExchange defines unclaimed royalties as “payments that haven’t been made because a Performer(s) hasn’t registered to claim them,” and its four lists — the unregistered artists, the partially unregistered artists, the unregistered performers, the unregistered sound recording owners — are open to anyone, no account, with a search box on top.

Re:Sound has the Canadian version. Its database holds “all recordings that appear in broadcast or user logs provided to Re:Sound,” every recording a station or service has reported playing, and its instruction is the same: search it, and if a track you performed on or own appears, contact ACTRA RACS or Artisti, Panorama, or Re:Sound. What Re:Sound does with money nobody claims, and for how long, its published rules do not say, and nothing else on its site says either. That is the one thing on this page nobody could source, so it is stated and not guessed.

What to do this week, in order

Register both halves in each country that pays you, submit every recording’s ISRC, then search both collectors’ lists for money already waiting.

Five steps, in this order because the first is free, takes ten minutes and tells you whether the rest is worth an evening.

1. Search both lists before you fill in anything. SoundExchange’s four lists and Re:Sound’s database, no account needed for either. Your name, your act’s name, one title you know got played. A hit is money already collected and waiting; a miss only means nobody has reported you yet.

2. Register in the country you are in — twice. SoundExchange as the performer and as the sound recording owner. In Canada, ACTRA RACS or Artisti as the performer and Panorama as the maker, or Re:Sound directly for both. Each is free. If a label owns the record, register the half that is yours.

3. Submit your repertoire. ISRC, title, artist, label, for every recording that is out. Codes you never wrote down are on the stores, and the audit checklist has a box for each of these registrations, which is how you find out the recording you forgot is the one with the airplay.

4. Open the other country’s door, once. A direct registration or your home collective’s agreement — not both. Write down which, because in two years you will not remember, and a second claim is a knot, not a bonus.

5. Mind the American clock. Past three years no claim is valid. Nobody robbed you. You got screwed by a deadline that lives in one FAQ answer and one paragraph of federal regulation. The list in step 1 is the same regulation’s other half — it is the money still inside the window — so read it first and register second.

FAQ

Does Spotify pay neighbouring rights?

No. In the United States the statutory right covers noninteractive transmissions only, and an interactive stream is licensed by the recording’s owner and paid through the distributor; in Canada, Re:Sound states that Tariff 8 does not apply to on-demand streaming. The recording money from an interactive stream is the money on your distributor statement, and the map of every stream shows where the rest sits.

I sang or played on someone else’s record. Is any of this mine?

Yes, as a nonfeatured performer. In the United States the nonfeatured share of the statutory royalty is paid through the AFM & SAG-AFTRA Fund, and the featured-artist piece carries the shares. In Canada session and backup performers are inside the performer half, and Re:Sound’s Distribution Rules state the default split of that half on popular music as 80% to the featured artists and 20% to the session and backup performers. Register with ACTRA RACS or Artisti as a performer, and keep the session paper that says what you played.

Do I need a label to register as a rights owner?

No. SoundExchange’s own definition of a Sound Recording Owner is “a record label or an individual who owns sound recordings”, and Re:Sound’s FAQ says that if you are a record company “or own your masters” you sign up with Panorama or with Re:Sound directly. What owning the master consists of is its own piece.

Can I claim plays from before I registered?

In the United States, for three years from the first distribution of that payment: 37 CFR § 380.4(b) has SoundExchange hold an unclaimed payment in a segregated trust account for that long, and after it no claim to distribution is valid. Re:Sound’s published Distribution Rules state no window, and none was found on its site; ask the member organisation when you register. Whether and when to register with SoundExchange at all is a separate question, and this page does not answer it.

Sources

• US Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 114 — § 114(d)(1)(A), the exemption for a nonsubscription broadcast transmission; § 114(j)(3), a broadcast transmission as one by a terrestrial station licensed by the FCC; § 114(j)(6), the eligible nonsubscription transmission; § 114(g)(2), the allocation among the copyright owner, featured artists and nonfeatured musicians and vocalists, whose numbers are the featured-artist piece’s.
• Code of Federal Regulations, 37 CFR § 380.4(b) — the three-year segregated trust account for a payment whose owner or performer cannot be identified or located, that no claim is valid after it, and that the funds may then offset deductible costs.
• SoundExchange, Frequently Asked Questions — that it is the sole organization collecting digital performance royalties for sound recordings in the United States; that registration is free; the services that pay it; that there is no performance right for over-the-air broadcasts; that it does not collect for songwriters or publishers; the W-8BEN and the 30% withholding for non-US payees, and direct deposit in local currency; and that unclaimed royalties expire after three years under regulation.
• SoundExchange, Artists, Labels & Producers — that recording artists and sound recording owners must be registered to receive digital performance royalties; the four lists of unregistered and partially unregistered creators, the five-performer example, and the search tool.
• SoundExchange, Key Terms — the definitions of Sound Recording Owner, Performer and Unclaimed Royalties.
• SoundExchange, International Royalties — the number of agreements and organisations, the share of the market claimed, and that international collection requires membership and an International Mandate.
• SoundExchange, Advocacy — the reciprocity mechanism by which other countries withhold payment from foreign performers; none of the page’s figures is used here.
• Copyright Act (Canada), section 19 — the performer’s and maker’s entitlement to equitable remuneration, the Rome Convention and WPPT versions of it, and that the user pays the authorised collective society. Current to 2026-06-21.
• Copyright Act (Canada), section 20 — the conditions: the maker’s citizenship, residence or headquarters at first fixation, or every fixation done in Canada, a Rome Convention country or a WPPT country; and the Minister’s power to limit a country’s right by a statement in the Canada Gazette.
• Statement Limiting the Right to Equitable Remuneration of Certain Rome Convention or WPPT Countries, SOR/2014-181 as first made (in force 2014-08-13 to 2020-04-28) — section 2, headed “Japan, Singapore and United States”: the limit to communication to the public by telecommunication, the exclusion of free terrestrial radio and background music, and the pre-1972 exclusion.
• Canada Gazette, Part II, SOR/2020-82 — the amending statement that repealed the United States limitations in two stages, the second on CUSMA’s entry into force, with its Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement.
• Statement Limiting the Right to Equitable Remuneration of Certain Rome Convention or WPPT Countries, SOR/2014-181 as it stands — the countries still limited, none of them the United States; last amended 2020-07-01.
• Re:Sound, FAQs — how a performer and a maker are paid, through ACTRA RACS, Artisti or Panorama or directly; that repertoire must be submitted; the eligibility conditions in Re:Sound’s own words; that it collects for Canadian and international artists and record companies; and what Tariff 8 covers.
• Re:Sound, Tariffs — the tariffs by name and number, and that Tariff 8 covers non-interactive and semi-interactive webcasts and does not apply to podcasts, downloads or on-demand streaming.
• Re:Sound, Database — that it lists every recording appearing in the broadcast and user logs Re:Sound receives, and whom to contact when a track appears.
• Re:Sound, Distribution Rules (PDF, February 2025) — that US recordings are eligible for equitable remuneration effective 1 July 2020; that eligible Canadian and non-Canadian performers and makers are treated equally; the 75-year and 100-year term; the 80/20 default between featured and session performers on popular music; quarterly distributions; and, by its silence, no stated expiry for unclaimed royalties.
• Re:Sound, International agreements — SoundExchange as the United States partner, bilateral, for performers and makers.
• ACTRA RACS, FAQ — that it represents performers from all over the world, that registration is free with a small administrative fee on payments, and that it collects in over 40 territories.
• Panorama, Equitable remuneration — that recordings eligible in Canada are, by reciprocity, eligible in Rome Convention and WPPT countries. Panorama is the maker collective Re:Sound names; SOPROQ took the name on 2025-09-15.
• WIPO, Rome Convention — contracting parties — 100 parties; Canada since 1998; the United States absent.
• WIPO, WPPT — contracting parties — 115 parties; in force for the United States 2002-05-20 and for Canada 2014-08-13.

This is not legal advice. Every page cited here was read on the date at the top of this piece; statutes are quoted from the consolidations current that day, and a collector’s rules change without notice. Rates are set by the Copyright Royalty Board and certified by the Copyright Board of Canada, and none is quoted here. What a given country pays a foreign performer is decided by that country, and this page states the mechanism and no country’s current position. Confirm anything operational against the collector before you act on it.

Keeping the register

Two registrations per country and a repertoire behind each, and the repertoire is the part that rots: a submission asks, per recording, for the ISRC, the title, the artist, the label and who performed on it, and most catalogues have that spread across a dashboard, a folder of session notes and somebody’s memory. CatalogTracker keeps it on the track — ISRC, version, the P-line — and on the people, as roles per track and per release, searchable by the code a collector will ask for. It files nothing with anyone. It means the form gets answered from one screen. In development for iPhone.