Neighbouring Rights: The International Royalty US Artists Never Claim

If you have read up on SoundExchange, you already know half of a story that keeps paying out all over the world. SoundExchange collects a performance royalty on your recordings for US digital radio. The same kind of royalty exists in almost every other country on earth, collected by a different organization in each one, and most independent artists never sign up to claim a cent of it. This is neighbouring rights money, also spelled neighboring rights, and it is some of the most consistently unclaimed income in the business.

The reason is simple. If your track gets played on the radio, in a shop, at a bar, in a gym, or on TV anywhere outside the US, someone is collecting a royalty in your name right now. Whether it ever reaches you comes down to one thing: whether you registered.

What neighbouring rights actually are

Neighbouring rights pay you when your sound recording is broadcast or played in public. That is the recording itself, the master, not the song underneath it. When a station spins your track or a cafe plays it over the speakers, two parties are owed money: the featured performer and whoever owns the master.

This is a different pot from the two you probably already track. It is not on-demand streaming, which flows through your distributor. It is not the songwriter performance royalty your PRO collects for the composition. Neighbouring rights sit on the recording side, triggered by broadcast and public performance instead of on-demand plays.

Every time your recording is broadcast overseas, two people are owed: the performer and whoever owns the master. If that is both you, you get paid twice.

Who collects it around the world

There is no single global body. Each country runs its own collection society, and each one needs you on file before it can pay you. A few of the big ones:

PPL in the UK is the one most indie artists deal with first, since British radio plays a lot of international music and PPL has reciprocal deals with dozens of other societies.

How the split works

In most territories the money splits roughly in half between the performer side and the master owner side. The featured artist takes the bulk of the performer half, with session players and backing vocalists sharing a smaller slice. The other half goes to whoever owns the recording.

Here is the DIY win. If you own your master and you are the featured artist, both halves are yours. You collect the performer share and the owner share on the same play, the same way you scoop up both sides of a SoundExchange payment.

Why the money piles up unclaimed

Two things keep this royalty from reaching artists. First, there is no central registry, so you have to be on file with each society, either directly or through an agent. Second, reciprocity rules get messy. Because the US grants performers no terrestrial radio right, some countries apply the same treatment back and reduce or withhold the performer share for US-based artists. Even then, the master owner side often still pays, and plenty of territories pay regardless. The amount varies, but there is almost always something collectible, and none of it moves until you claim it.

How to actually collect it

You have two routes. Register directly with each society, which is free but slow and requires you to prove eligibility country by country. Or use a neighbouring rights administrator that registers you across every territory at once and files on your behalf, taking a commission that usually runs 10 to 20 percent.

For most independent artists the administrator route is worth it. They already know which countries you qualify in and they handle paperwork that would otherwise eat a week of your life. Whichever way you go, the matching rules are the same as everywhere else: keep your ISRC codes clean and spell your artist and performer name identically across your distributor, your PRO, and every society. Inconsistent metadata is the single biggest reason plays never match to a payment.

What it can add up to

A song with steady radio and public play across the UK and Europe might generate anywhere from a couple hundred to a few thousand dollars a year in neighbouring rights. That number never shows up on your DistroKid or Spotify statement, because it comes from a completely separate pipeline. Curious how your on-demand side stacks up next to it? Run your numbers through the Spotify calculator, then treat neighbouring rights as income sitting on top of whatever that shows.

Where it fits with your other royalties

The cleanest way to keep this straight is to see the recording-side royalties side by side. Miss any row and you leave money behind.

SoundExchange handles the US digital slice. Neighbouring rights societies handle the same idea everywhere else, plus the terrestrial and public performance plays the US does not even recognize. Register for both and you close the gap on the entire recording-performance side of your income.

Ready to line up your next release across every platform and territory that feeds these royalties? You can get 7% off DistroKid here.