If you're an independent artist releasing your own music, there's a category of royalties you might be missing entirely — and it has nothing to do with how many streams you're getting or whether you're registered with ASCAP or BMI. Neighboring rights are a separate layer of compensation that exists specifically for performers and master recording rights holders, and they're collected through a completely different set of organizations than your PRO.
Most independent artists don't know they're eligible. Even the ones who've heard the term "neighboring rights" often assume it's a label thing — something major labels deal with that doesn't apply to them. That assumption is costing people real money, and the longer it goes on, the more permanently lost those royalties become.
Neighboring Rights vs. Composition Royalties — What's the Difference?
To understand neighboring rights, you have to understand that every song that gets played involves two completely separate rights.
The first is the composition — the underlying lyrics and melody, owned by the songwriter and their publisher. When a song is performed on the radio, in a venue, or on a streaming service, the PRO (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, or GMR in the US) collects performance royalties and distributes them to registered songwriters and publishers. This is the royalty stream most artists know about.
The second is the master recording — the actual audio file. Whoever owns the master recording (typically the label, or the artist if they're independent) has rights to a separate stream of royalties every time that recording is broadcast or performed publicly.
Those master recording performance royalties are what neighboring rights refers to. The term "neighboring" comes from the fact that these rights sit alongside — but are legally distinct from — copyright in the composition. For independent artists who own their own masters, neighboring rights royalties belong directly to them. Nobody automatically knows to send them to you, though. You have to register — and most artists never do.
Who Qualifies for Neighboring Rights?
In most countries, neighboring rights royalties are split between two groups:
Featured artists. If you're the main performer on a recording — the artist whose name is on the track — you qualify for neighboring rights as a performer. This applies whether you wrote the song or not. If you're a vocalist, a rapper, a guitarist who leads a band, you're a performer entitled to a share.
Rights holders (the "label" share). Whoever funded the recording and owns the master gets a separate cut. For major label artists, that's the label. For independent artists who recorded and released their own music, that's you. You're both the performer and the rights holder — which means you can collect both shares if you register correctly.
This double registration is something a lot of independent artists miss. They sign up as an artist but forget to also register as a rights holder, and they walk away collecting half of what they're actually owed.
Session musicians have varying rights depending on the territory. In some European countries, performers who played on a recording — even without a songwriting credit — can register with neighboring rights societies and receive a portion of the royalties. In the US, SoundExchange maintains a separate fund for non-featured musicians, but only if they're registered.
Which Organizations Collect Neighboring Rights?
In the United States, neighboring rights for digital audio transmissions are handled by SoundExchange. This covers services like Pandora, SiriusXM, and digital cable music channels — not Spotify or Apple Music, which operate under a different licensing structure. If you're an independent artist who hasn't registered with SoundExchange as both an artist and a rights holder, you're leaving money sitting in their system right now. They hold funds waiting for you to claim them, but only for a limited time before redistribution.
Outside the US, neighboring rights are collected by country-specific societies. Your music being played on UK radio, in a restaurant in Germany, on a TV show in Australia, or at a club in the Netherlands generates neighboring rights royalties — but those royalties only reach you if you're registered with the relevant society or have appointed an administrator to collect on your behalf. Some of the major international bodies:
- PPL (UK) — covers radio, TV, and public performance plays of master recordings across the United Kingdom
- GVL (Germany) — handles German broadcasts, public performances, and digital use
- SENA (Netherlands)
- PPCA (Australia)
- RAAP (Ireland)
- SCPP / SPPF (France) — separate organizations for major and independent label catalogs respectively
These societies have reciprocal agreements with each other, which means — in theory — that if you're registered with PPL in the UK, PPL will attempt to collect royalties generated in countries with reciprocal agreements with them. In practice, these agreements are imperfect. Metadata has to match, ISRCs have to be properly reported, and the system doesn't catch everything. Active registration in key markets is still the most reliable approach.
Why Independent Artists Miss This Money
The neighboring rights system was built around a world where labels managed everything. The assumption was that whoever owned the master recording — a label with dedicated rights management staff — would handle registration. When independent artists started owning their own masters, the system didn't automatically adapt to route that money to them.
Here's where the gaps typically show up:
No SoundExchange registration. More common than you'd think. If you've never signed up, SoundExchange is holding any US digital neighboring rights royalties your music has generated. They maintain a public database of artists with unclaimed funds.
Registered as artist only, not as rights holder. Independent artists qualify for both the performer share and the rights holder share. Many sign up for one and never claim the other.
No international registrations. SoundExchange only covers US digital transmissions. If your music has any international reach — even just plays on radio stations or streaming services operating in other countries — there may be international neighboring rights sitting uncollected.
ISRC mismatches. Neighboring rights societies match royalty payments to specific recordings using ISRCs — the unique codes assigned to each track. If your ISRCs weren't correctly embedded in your audio files, weren't properly reported by your distributor, or got lost during a distributor switch, royalties generated by your music may sit in an unmatched pool indefinitely. This is one of the most common causes of missing royalties because the plays happened, the money was allocated, but nobody could match it back to you.
Distribution gaps after switching distributors. When artists move from one distributor to another, historical ISRC data doesn't always transfer cleanly. Royalties from the period before the switch can fall into a reporting gap that neither society can close without active follow-up.
How to Start Collecting Your Neighboring Rights
If you're just getting started, the path forward is fairly clear:
Register with SoundExchange. Go to soundexchange.com and create both an artist account and a rights holder account. Connect your releases to both. Before you do, search their unclaimed royalties database to see if anything's already being held in your name.
Register with PPL if you have UK plays. PPL registration for non-UK artists is possible and worth doing if your music has any meaningful UK presence — radio plays, sync usage, streams on platforms operating in the UK market.
Look into a neighboring rights administrator. Several companies specialize in international neighboring rights collection for independent artists. They register you with relevant societies worldwide, pursue unmatched royalties on your behalf, and take a percentage of what they recover. If your music has international reach across multiple markets, this approach is usually worth the commission.
Audit your ISRC registrations. If you're not confident that your ISRCs are properly embedded and reported across your catalog, start there. A metadata problem compounds over time — every month your releases are out with bad ISRC data is another month of royalties that can't find their way to you.
Don't Wait — Uncollected Neighboring Rights Don't Keep Forever
Neighboring rights societies don't hold uncollected royalties indefinitely. The specific holding period varies by country and society, but most organizations redistribute unclaimed funds after three to seven years. Royalties your music generated several years ago — royalties that are genuinely yours — may already be gone if you never registered to claim them.
Registrations also take time to process. If you register today, you won't immediately see backdated payments for everything. You'll start collecting from the registration date forward, with limited ability to file retroactive claims depending on the society and how long ago the royalties were generated.
This is why neighboring rights is one of the first things a thorough catalogue audit looks at. The sooner you know where you're not registered, the more you can still recover.
If you're not sure what your catalogue is registered for — which societies have you, which ones don't, and whether your ISRCs are reporting correctly — a professional audit maps out the full picture. Our catalogue audits cover PRO registrations, master recording rights, neighboring rights gaps, metadata integrity, and distribution reporting — so you can see exactly what you're owed and what it will take to collect it. Audits start at $497.