Where a musician's unclaimed royalties actually sit
Four organisations hold money for musicians who never collected it. Here is what each one holds, and the free public search for each, so a family can look without paying anyone.
When a working musician dies, the money they earned does not stop arriving. It carries on being generated by streams, radio play and licensing, and it collects in organisations that have no way of knowing the person has died or who to send it to now.
There is no single place to look. The money sits in at least four separate systems, none of which talk to each other. That fragmentation is the main reason it goes unclaimed — not secrecy, and not anyone acting in bad faith.
This guide covers what each one holds and how to search it. Every search below is free and public.
The two halves of a song
Before the list, one distinction that explains most of the confusion.
Every recording is really two pieces of property. There is the song — the melody and lyrics, owned by whoever wrote it. And there is the recording — a specific performance of that song, owned by whoever paid for the session, usually a label.
These earn money separately, are tracked by different organisations, and are claimed through different processes. A musician who both wrote and recorded their own material has money sitting on both sides. Families often find one and assume they are finished.
1. The MLC — the songwriting side of streaming
The Mechanical Licensing Collective collects mechanical royalties from US streaming and downloads, and pays them to whoever wrote or publishes the song.
The MLC was handed a large pool of money that digital services had collected but could not attribute to anyone. It reports receiving roughly $397 million in historical royalties covering 2007–2020, of which it has matched about 80% and distributed about 58% (The MLC).
The reason so much went unmatched is mundane. Independent songwriters frequently never registered their works, so when a stream generated a royalty there was no record connecting the song to a person.
Search it: The MLC public database. You can search by song title or writer name without an account.
2. SoundExchange — the recording side of radio
SoundExchange collects digital performance royalties from non-interactive radio: satellite, internet and cable radio. This is the recording side, and it is entirely separate from The MLC.
The split is set by statute rather than negotiated: the featured artist receives 45% paid directly to them, the owner of the recording receives 50%, and 5% goes to a fund for session and backing musicians administered through the musicians' unions (SoundExchange).
That 45% is worth understanding. It is paid to the artist directly, not through the label, which means it can be sitting there even where the artist's relationship with their label ended badly or the label no longer exists.
SoundExchange maintains lists of artists whose royalties it holds but cannot pay because nobody registered — including an "Unregistered Artists" list and a "Partially Unregistered Artists" list for acts where some performers registered and others did not.
Search it: SoundExchange for artists and rights owners.
3. ASCAP, BMI or SESAC — public performance
Performing rights organisations collect when a song is played on radio or television, performed live, or used in a venue.
A writer belongs to exactly one of these societies, so the first task is working out which. Both ASCAP and BMI let anyone search their repertory for free, which means you can establish where a catalogue lives before contacting anybody.
When a writer dies, their account does not simply pay out to the next of kin. The society needs to be told, and needs evidence of who now has authority. Until that happens the account typically holds.
Search it: BMI repertoire, and the ASCAP repertory at ascap.com/repertory.
4. State unclaimed property — the uncashed cheques
This is the one families most often miss, and it is the easiest to check.
When a label, publisher or distributor sends a cheque and nobody deposits it, that money does not return to the sender. After a dormancy period it is surrendered to the state treasury, which holds it indefinitely on behalf of the owner.
Two things make this different from the others. There is no deadline — states hold this money without a time limit. And it is keyed to a legal name and an address, not a stage name, so search the name on the death certificate and every state the musician lived or recorded in.
Search it: the official NAUPA directory, which links to each state's own programme. Use the official state sites; you never need to pay a finder to search.
What you will be asked for
Searching requires nothing. Claiming requires proof that you can act for the estate. Across all four, the recurring requests are:
| Document | Why |
|---|---|
| Death certificate | Establishes the death |
| Letters of administration, letters testamentary, or a small-estate affidavit | Establishes that you specifically may act |
| Song titles, co-writers, labels, release years | Helps match a catalogue to a person |
| Former addresses and the legal name | Needed for state unclaimed property, which is address-keyed |
Many states offer a small-estate affidavit — a short sworn form that avoids full probate when the estate is under a threshold. Thresholds and waiting periods vary by state, so check your own state's probate rules before assuming you need a lawyer and a court date.
A realistic word about amounts
Anyone who tells you what a specific catalogue is owed before searching it is guessing. The range across working musicians is enormous, and nothing about a name, a decade or a genre narrows it.
What is knowable is where to look. Start with state unclaimed property, because it is free, fast and has no deadline. Then work through the registries above.
If the searches turn up nothing, that is a real answer too, and it costs you an afternoon rather than a percentage.