COLLECT YOUR DIGITAL PERFORMANCE ROYALTIES

CD Baby is working with SoundExchange to make sure you get all your digital performance royalties.

SoundExchange is an organization that collects royalties on behalf of sound recording copyright owners and artists for any non-interactive transmissions of their music via satellite radio (such as Sirius XM), Internet radio (such as Pandora), as well as cable TV music channels.

As listeners continue to shift to digital music platforms, non-interactive royalties have become an increasingly important revenue stream for both labels and artists.

To collect your digital performance royalties, sign up with SoundExchange today.

The following portion of the site is only available in English.

Go to SoundExchange.com

How does SoundExchange work?

SoundExchange was created to collect and distribute digital performance royalties. They keep a 4.5% cut for administrative costs and pay the remainder as follows:

45% to the featured artist
5% to the non-Featured artists (backing musicians)
50% to copyright owner (typically the record label)

If you are both an artist AND a label, you’ll need to register with SoundExchange twice: once as the sound recording copyright owner, and once as the featured artist.

It’s important to note, SoundExchange royalties are NOT the same as the royalties you get from performing rights organizations such as ASCAP and BMI. SoundExchange pays artists and sound recording owners; ASCAP and BMI pay songwriters/composers and publishers. Non-interactive royalties are also NOT the same as publishing royalties (which traditionally get paid to songwriters and publishers); they’re related to the usage of a particular sound recording and the performers and label that helped to create that track.

What happens if my digital performance royalties go unclaimed?

Over the years SoundExchange has collected a significant amount of royalties on behalf of artists and labels that have yet to register and collect money. After three years, those royalties get distributed to major labels and popular artists based on market share. Yes, that means if you don’t collect your royalties from SoundExchange within three years, they get paid to major labels and music megastars.

How can CD Baby help?

We’ve been doing ongoing matches with SoundExchange to identify artists that’ve been missing out on royalties. Many CD Baby members still have unclaimed royalties just sitting there. To make sure those royalties don’t vanish we’re going to collect the label share of digital performance royalties and distribute them accordingly to our members before it’s too late. All new CD Baby submissions (Standard and Pro) will be included in this program, though remember: we’ll only collect UNCLAIMED royalties — so if you’re already registered directly with SoundExchange, you’ll continue to be paid by them.

Important details:

We will only collect UNCLAIMED royalties. If you’ve already registered with SoundExchange, you will continue to collect your digital performance royalties directly.

If we identify unclaimed royalties on a member’s behalf, we will remit 91% of the Sound Recording royalty (commonly referred to as the “label” share) into their member account.

The Featured and Non-Featured Artist share of the royalty (the other 50%) will not be collected by CD Baby. You can claim that directly by registering with SoundExchange as an artist.

Sign up with SoundExchange today.