SoundExchange: What is it, and how does it benefit you?

When it comes to getting paid, SoundExchange it a great resource for making sure you get the royalties you’re rightfully owed as an artist.

Guest post by Randi Zimmerman of the Symphonic Blog

Did you know that registering with SoundExchange ensures that you don’t miss out on rightfully earned royalties? Learn about this and more below…

What is SoundExchange and How Does it Benefit You?

About SoundExchange

SoundExchange has paid out more than $7 BILLION in royalties to date. They are the sole organization designated by the U.S. Congress to collect and distribute digital performance royalties for sound recordings.

They’re the ones who collect these digital performance rights from non-interactive music streaming on internet sources like SiriusXM and Pandora.

How does this affect you?

If you don’t want to miss out on this money, Symphonic can collect SoundExchange royalties on behalf of sound recording owners and/or rightsholders. (Neighboring rights play a huge part in this. — Learn more about that, here.)

Can Symphonic collect the artist/featured artist portion of SoundExchange?

No. — Only the artists/players themselves can handle artist collection. SoundExchange doesn’t allow any third parties (labels, distros, aggregators) to claim any portion of that revenue. To start an account and collect your artist portion, you’ll need to contact SoundExchange here.

I’m already a member of ASCAP, BMI or SESAC. Don’t they do this for me?

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. — The difference is both satellite radio providers and webcasters pay SoundExchange when they stream music. That means the only way to get that money is with SoundExchange.

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Ready to get started?

• To deliver your catalog to SoundExchange with Symphonic, please create a request to opt-in.