How to Collect Music Royalties When You’re an Indie Composer

The streams

A work you create collects royalties from up to ten streams. For an indie composer, the meaningful ones are:

1. Performance royalties — paid when your work is performed publicly (broadcast radio, streaming, live performance).
2. Mechanical royalties — paid when your work is reproduced (cover songs, sampled, reproduced on streaming services).
3. Sync fees — paid when your work is synchronised with moving images (film, TV, ads).
4. Master licence fees — paid when your specific recording is licensed for use in a project.
5. Neighbouring rights — paid to performers and master owners when their work is performed publicly outside the US (mostly).
6. Print royalties — paid on the sheet-music publication of a composition. Rare for indie composers in the modern era.

Each stream has its own collection society, its own contract, and its own payment schedule.

Performance royalties

Collected by PROs (Performance Rights Organisations). The biggest:

• ASCAP, BMI, SESAC (US)
• PRS for Music (UK)
• GEMA (Germany)
• SACEM (France)
• SOCAN (Canada)

Each PRO has reciprocal agreements with the others — register your work with your home PRO, and the rest will pick up performances worldwide.

Mechanical royalties

Historically collected by publishers; in the modern streaming era, mostly handled by streaming services under statutory mechanical licences. Harry Fox Agency (US) and similar organisations process mechanical licences for non-streaming uses (cover songs on albums).

In the streaming era, mechanical royalties are paid by the streaming service to the publisher or to the songwriter directly (depending on jurisdiction). The MLC (Mechanical Licensing Collective) handles US mechanicals post-MMA.

Sync fees

Sync fees are negotiated directly with the licensee — film studios, advertising agencies, video game publishers. There is no centralised sync marketplace. The composer typically submits their catalog to a sync agency or self-represents.

LicenseTrack is a self-representational platform — the composer lists tracks, sets prices, and handles the transaction directly.

Master licence fees

Master licence fees are paid for the use of a specific recording (as opposed to a composition). Often bundled with sync fees. A composer who records + releases their own work has master rights as well as publishing rights.

Neighbouring rights

Neighbouring rights are paid outside the US to performers and master owners. Recorded Music Group in the US, and dozens of national collecting societies abroad. Less commonly relevant for indie composers, but real money if your tracks get significant broadcast radio play outside the US.

How to actually collect

1. Register with your home PRO. Free or low cost. Critical for performance royalties.
2. Register with the MLC (US) or your local mechanical collection organisation.
3. Submit catalog to a sync aggregator — Taximail, Syncr, SourceAudio, or directly to agencies.
4. List tracks on licensing marketplaces — LicenseTrack, Musicbed, Artlist, etc.
5. Track usage with a monitor — LicenseTrack watches YouTube and its other code-backed integrations, surfacing uses you might be missing.

The role of LicenseTrack

LicenseTrack watches for usage that escapes the registered streams. A track that wasn’t synced via a known marketplace, a track that gets uploaded to YouTube via a third party — these are the ones that slip through. LicenseTrack catches them.

Internal links

• See how LicenseTrack monitors Spotify.
• Read about neighbouring rights.
• Catch every match on YouTube.