When to register with SoundExchange

52 · 2026-09-20 · 16 min read · Español

Register with SoundExchange before your first recording is released, or now if it already has been — as the featured artist, as the owner of the sound recording, or as both, which is what self-releasing means. Registration is free, SoundExchange is the one organisation collecting these royalties in the United States, and nothing else you have joined registers you with it. The money accrues whether or not you are registered; the regulation holds it for three years, and after that a claim to it is no longer valid.

• SoundExchange collects US digital performance royalties for the featured artist and the sound recording copyright owner, and pays each directly. A self-releasing artist is both and registers in both capacities.
• Register before the first release or as soon after as possible. SoundExchange asks for ISRCs before release so it can match plays, and it collects as far back as three years.
• Nothing else registers the featured-artist share: SoundExchange’s stated policy is to pay performer royalties only to the performer, a company the performer wholly owns, an heir, a performer society it has an agreement with, or a producer holding a signed letter of direction.
• Unclaimed royalties are held in trust for three years from the first distribution of each payment, and no claim is valid after. Registering late reaches back as far as the same three years.
• Registration is open wherever you live, with a W-8BEN form, and it claims United States plays only. Membership is a separate free step that lets SoundExchange claim your royalties abroad.

Who has to register with SoundExchange?

Featured artists and sound recording owners; a self-releasing artist is both and registers in both capacities, and non-featured performers are paid through a separate fund.

Start with the two words, because the registration form is built out of them. SoundExchange’s own FAQ defines both: “A sound recording copyright owner is a person or company, typically the label, who owns a specific sound recording,” and “A featured artist is an artist that is prominently featured on a track or album. Featured artists are receiving direct payments from SoundExchange.” Then it answers the question every self-releasing artist is actually asking, under the heading I wrote the material, sang it, and produced it, in one sentence: “If you own the full sound recording, then you are the sound recording copyright owner.”

So you are the label. The statute that pays these royalties, 17 U.S.C. §114(g)(2), cuts each dollar four ways — 50 percent to the copyright owner of the recording, 2½ percent into escrow for nonfeatured musicians, 2½ percent into escrow for nonfeatured vocalists, and “45 percent of the receipts shall be paid, on a per sound recording basis, to the recording artist or artists featured on such sound recording.” Two of those four shares have your name on them, and they are claimed by two different registrations. Which credit puts you in which class is its own page; what the owner’s half actually entitles you to is another. Register in both capacities. Otherwise half of you is unclaimed.

One more layer under the form. SoundExchange’s key-terms page separates the Artist — “the group, band, or individual name as it appears on the release of a recording” — from the Performers who make it up, and once the Artist is registered, “the Performer(s) can claim a percentage of royalties owed to them on a recording-by-recording basis.” Maroon 5 is one Artist of several Performers; Post Malone is one Artist of one. A band registers as the name on the sleeve, and each member claims a share of the featured 45 underneath it.

Two groups this page is not for. Session players and backing singers are the other 5 percent — non-featured, in the statute’s word — and SoundExchange says where their money goes: “Royalties for non-featured artists are covered by organizations such as the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) and the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA).” And writers: “SoundExchange does not currently collect or distribute royalties for songwriters or publishers.” The song has its own doors — a PRO, and The MLC for US mechanicals — and this one is for the recording alone.

When should you register: before the first release, or after?

Before the first release, or now: SoundExchange asks for ISRCs before release or soon after, and collects as far back as three years.

The organisation says when in its own guidance on codes. Its ISRC page: “it’s important to submit your ISRCs to SoundExchange before the recordings are released or soon after so we have the good ISRC and metadata in our system to match with usage from the streaming services who report to us.” The services report plays by ISRC. If the code is in the database before the first play, the first play matches; if it arrives a year later, a year of plays waited for it. The FAQ says the same about the account: “it’s important to get your account set up in advance so that when you do have royalties available, everything is already in place for you to get paid.”

That is the timing for a record that has not come out. For the one that came out two years ago, the number is three: “We collect as far back as 3 years.” A late registration is not a registration from today. It reaches back — exactly as far as the clock two sections below allows, which is why the two sentences are the same length.

Before you register, look yourself up. SoundExchange keeps public lists of the artists, performers and sound recording owners it has collected unclaimed royalties for and cannot pay, with a search box on top and no account needed. If your name is on one, the rest of this page is not a precaution. It is a collection.

You will need the codes for the claiming step. If your ISRCs are not written down anywhere, they are findable from what is already published — and the public database that lookup ends in is SoundExchange’s own.

Does your PRO, your distributor or your label register you?

No one does it for you: SoundExchange pays performer royalties only to the performer or someone the performer designates, and the song is another register’s.

The PRO first, because it is the membership most people already hold and the one most often mistaken for this. The FAQ has a heading for it — I’m already a member of ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, or Songtrust. Do I need SoundExchange? — and separates the two by what each collects: “The royalties that SoundExchange collects and distributes are for the featured artist and the sound recording copyright owner. ASCAP, BMI and SESAC collect and distribute royalties for the songwriter, composer and publisher.” Two copyrights, two registers, and the fact that you hold both copyrights does not merge the registers. The MLC says the same from its side — its registration does not replace a SoundExchange registration, in its own words.

Now the harder one: the company that pays you already. Here SoundExchange does not describe what distributors do. It describes what it will do, and the list is short and closed:

It is our strict policy that we cannot pay third parties. A third party is considered anyone that is not the featured performer (artist) or the owner of the Sound Recording Copyright.

We have a standard practice to ONLY pay performer money to the following: The actual featured performers on the track; Companies wholly owned by the performers (i.e., “holding” or “furnishing” companies); Legitimate heirs, trusts, and estates of deceased featured performers; or Performer collecting societies with whom we have an agreement. Producers/mixers/engineers that have a properly executed Letter of Direction signed by the featured artist.

Read the list for who is not on it. Your manager is not — the FAQ’s heading is I manage a recording artist – can their royalties be paid to me directly? and the list is the whole answer. Your distributor is not. Your label is not, on the performer side: a label registers as the owner of the recordings it owns, and the statute says the featured share “shall be paid … to the recording artist”, not to whoever delivered the file. Every party on that list is you, something you own, someone who inherits from you, a society of performers, or somebody you signed a letter for. Whether anyone has registered your recordings as their owner has a separate answer: whoever owns them. If that is you, it is you. If a distributor or a label holds a share, ask them what they filed, because nothing on SoundExchange’s page names them and nothing here will guess.

Three registrations, one name, and three databases that never tell each other anything — and the one that pays the artist directly is the one everyone assumes somebody else did. It is also free. Damn right it is free; the alternative is your money in a trust account with a clock on it.

How long can you wait before the money is gone?

Three years from the first distribution of each payment: the regulation holds unclaimed royalties in trust that long, and no claim is valid after.

The rule is a federal regulation, 37 CFR §380.4(b), and the part that sets the clock is one sentence. Where the collective cannot identify or locate the performer or owner a payment belongs to, it “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,” and then: “No claim to distribution shall be valid after the expiration of the three-year period.” After that the funds may be applied to the collective’s own deductible costs. The collective is SoundExchange, designated by name in paragraph (d)(1) of the same section, which is why its FAQ can answer Do unclaimed royalties expire? in one line: yes, after three years, “authorized by regulation.” Three years, and then it is a pumpkin.

Read the clock as a window, because that is what it is for you. It starts at the first distribution of each payment, not at your release date, and it runs payment by payment: each payment a service makes has its own clock. Registering today reaches the payments still inside their three years — SoundExchange’s own answer is that it collects “as far back as 3 years” — and every month you stay unregistered, the oldest payments reach the end of their clocks and drop off the far end. Late is not lost. Late is a window closing one month at a time, and the month it is closing on is the one with your first release in it.

What does SoundExchange not pay you for?

Interactive streams, AM/FM radio, video and the song: Spotify and Apple Music pay through your distributor, AM/FM pays performers nothing, and songs are the PRO’s.

The boundary is the statute’s word interactive. §114(d)(2) puts noninteractive transmissions under statutory licensing on the condition that “the transmission is not part of an interactive service,” and §114(j)(7) defines the thing excluded: “An interactive service is one that enables a member of the public to receive a transmission of a program specially created for the recipient, or on request, a transmission of a particular sound recording, whether or not as part of a program, which is selected by or on behalf of the recipient.” You chose the track: interactive, licensed by agreement, paid to the recording’s owner through the distributor statement. You did not choose it — Pandora, SiriusXM, a webcaster’s station: statutory, and SoundExchange. One recording, one afternoon, two doors.

Over-the-air radio pays performers nothing in the United States — the asymmetry with Canada has its own page — and SoundExchange’s FAQ says it in one line: there is “no performance right for over-the-air broadcasts.” Video is out too, in the FAQ’s own words: SoundExchange “does not collect royalties for videos or other visual media (including YouTube and VEVO).” And the inverse of that sentence is worth having, because it is wider than music: SoundExchange “collects royalties for ALL sound recordings played on non-interactive digital radio,” including “recordings and soundtracks made by actors, comedians, and spoken word artists.” If it is audio and a webcaster played it under the licence, it is in.

And every play outside the United States. This register collects one country. The same recording broadcast in Canada or anywhere else earns the same kind of right under that country’s law, collected by that country’s society and claimed by a registration of its own — the map names the collectors, and each one is its own errand.

One more sentence from the FAQ, and it belongs to the owner: “it is completely within your rights to negotiate directly with webcasters should you decide that is best.” The statutory licence is the default, not a cage. Almost nobody at this scale will use that sentence. It is still yours.

What to have ready, and what to check after

Your ISRCs, each recording’s share between featured performers, any letter of direction, a bank account, and a W-8BEN if you are outside the US.

• The ISRC of every recording. The code is what the services report and what SoundExchange matches on. Who assigned yours decides where it is written down; a published one is findable either way.
• The split between featured performers, recording by recording. The default is stated once in the FAQ — “SoundExchange would treat that as a 50/50 collaboration unless directed otherwise by the two collaborators” — and the claiming tool is built to take something other than the default: claims are performer-based, with the shares supplied per performer and grouped into lineups wherever the percentages differ. Decide the numbers before you open it.
• A letter of direction, if a producer is owed points on this money. It is the only route by which SoundExchange pays a producer, mixer or engineer, and the FAQ adds the clause that catches people: “LODs are not retroactive unless that is specifically indicated on the LOD.” Whose share it moves is settled elsewhere and not here.
• A bank account, and the thresholds in mind. Monthly by direct deposit once at least $100 has accrued; quarterly otherwise, at the ends of March, June, September and December, for at least $10 by direct deposit or $100 by cheque. Below that, held until it is not.
• A W-8BEN, if you are outside the United States. Registration is open wherever you live: the FAQ answers Can I still register if I’m not from the US? with “Yes,” and a form. Without it, 30 percent is withheld.
• Membership, separately, if you are played abroad. The two words are not the same thing here: “Registering with SoundExchange is required to claim and receive your domestic U.S. statutory royalties. Becoming a ‘member’ enables you to grant SoundExchange a mandate to claim your royalties internationally.” Membership is free, the mandate is a form you sign, and which door to use in which country is a question about that country’s collector, not about this one.

Then, after the first statement, the check that closes the loop: does every recording you delivered appear in your SoundExchange catalogue, with every performer under it? That is a catalogue question before it is a royalty one, and the audit checklist’s registrations layer is where it is asked of everything at once.

FAQ

Do you need to pay anyone to register or to collect from SoundExchange?

No. SoundExchange states that registering is free and that membership is free, and that it does not work with the brokers who charge a monthly fee to estimate what an artist is owed; the example it gives is $19.99 a month. Registration is done by the artist or owner at SoundExchange’s own site, and a manager can be given access to the account but cannot be paid in the artist’s place.

How often does SoundExchange pay, and is there a minimum?

Monthly by direct deposit for accounts that have accrued at least $100; otherwise quarterly, at the ends of March, June, September and December, for at least $10 by direct deposit or $100 by cheque. Below the threshold the royalties are held until it is met. SoundExchange states its administrative rate as between 4 and 6 percent.

What if two featured artists are on one recording?

SoundExchange treats a collaboration between two featured artists as 50/50 unless the two collaborators direct otherwise, and each performer registers and claims their own share. A band with one unregistered member appears on SoundExchange’s Partially Unregistered Artists list, with that member’s share of the artist’s royalties unpaid until they register.

Sources

• SoundExchange, Frequently Asked Questions — one page, twenty-eight questions; the ones this piece quotes are What does SoundExchange do?, Why should I register, How much does is cost to register?, Can I still register if I’m not from the US?, What’s the difference between registering … and being a member, I’m already a member of ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, or Songtrust, How often do I get paid?, How far back do you collect royalties?, Do unclaimed royalties expire?, Do I need a digital royalty broker to be paid?, What is a sound recording copyright owner?, What is a featured artist?, I wrote the material, sang it, and produced it, I am a producer, mixer, or engineer, I am a songwriter or a publisher, I manage a recording artist, What if there is more than one artist, Does SoundExchange collect royalties for actors and comedians too?, If I join SoundExchange can I still negotiate a license with a webcaster, and Do you distribute royalties for traditional radio broadcasts too?
• SoundExchange, Artists, Labels & Producers — that recording artists and sound recording owners must be registered to receive digital performance royalties for non-interactive platforms; that registering is free; the public lists of creators with unclaimed royalties and the search over them.
• SoundExchange, Key Terms — Artist and Performer defined, with Maroon 5 and Post Malone as the examples; Sound Recording Owner as distinct from the owner of a musical work; Unclaimed Royalties defined.
• SoundExchange, All About ISRCs — that ISRCs should be submitted before the recordings are released or soon after, so that usage reported by the services can be matched.
• SoundExchange, Artists and Sound Recording Owners: Here’s Why You Should Register with SoundExchange — that membership is free, and that international collection is a benefit of membership rather than of registration; it also carries one of the three counts of international agreements this piece declines to print.
• SoundExchange, International — that international collection requires membership and a completed International Mandate; a second count of agreements; Re:Sound listed as the Canadian partner.
• SoundExchange, My Catalog Update: Search & Claim Artist Royalties — performer-based claiming in SoundExchange Direct: shares supplied per performer per recording, grouped into lineups where the percentages differ.
• 17 U.S.C. §114 — (g)(2), the four shares of a statutory-licence receipt and the featured artists’ share paid to them; (d)(2), statutory licensing of transmissions that are not part of an interactive service; (j)(7), the definition of an interactive service.
• 37 CFR §380.4 — (b), unclaimed funds retained in a segregated trust account for three years from the first distribution, no claim valid after, and the funds applicable to the collective’s deductible costs; (d)(1), SoundExchange designated as the Collective.

Every page cited here was read on the date at the top of this piece. SoundExchange’s FAQ renders all of its answers on one page, so it is linked once and the questions are named above. SoundExchange’s pages give three different counts of its international agreements, so none is printed here. The AFM & SAG-AFTRA Intellectual Property Rights Distribution Fund’s site could not be read without a browser, so non-featured performers are routed there in SoundExchange’s words and nothing is stated about the Fund’s process. Which distributors register recordings as their owner is not something any page read here says, so this piece does not say it either. Thresholds, withholding and the three-year rule are the organisation’s and the regulation’s at the date read; confirm them on the pages before you act on them.

Keeping the register

Everything SoundExchange asks for at the claiming step is something a catalogue already holds if it was kept properly: the ISRC of each recording, and the people on it with the role each one played. CatalogTracker keeps the ISRC on the track and keeps people as parties with artist and contributor roles, per track and per release, so the list you register from is the list you delivered rather than a reconstruction of it. It registers nothing with anybody. It means the featured performers on a recording are a fact you look up, not one you argue about at the form. In development for iPhone.