Description

Nobody sends you money you never registered to receive.

Collection is opt-in almost everywhere. If you never opened the account, your share
doesn’t get held aside with your name on it and a polite letter in the post — it sits
in a pool, and eventually it may be distributed to somebody else.

This is not a story about anyone stealing from you. Almost all unclaimed royalty
money is an administrative failure: an account never opened, a role never registered,
a name spelled two ways in two databases. That’s good news, because administrative
failures can be fixed retroactively, usually by you, usually for free.

The gap most independent artists have

There are two separate copyrights in every released song — the composition and the
sound recording — and each earns in two different ways. That’s four income streams,
collected by four different kinds of organization, and registering for one
registers you for none of the others.

If you wrote and performed your song, you are owed on both sides. Registering as a
songwriter does not register you as a performer. That single gap is the most common
unclaimed royalty in independent music.

What’s inside

• Your collection map, Canada — the four organizations, what each pays, and the
  structure that catches people out: you don’t register with Re:Sound directly, you
  register with a performer organization for your performer share and separately as
  the maker if you own your masters. A self-releasing artist needs both.
• Your collection map, United States — and the gap that surprises people:
  American AM/FM radio pays the songwriter and nothing at all to the performer or
  master owner.
• SoundExchange — register twice. The statutory split is 45% featured artist,
  50% recording owner, 5% non-featured performers. If you self-released and
  registered only as the artist, you’re collecting 45% and leaving the owner half
  unclaimed. This one correction is worth more than the price of this kit to a large
  share of the people reading it.
• Mechanical royalties on both sides of the border, and the one question to put
  to your society in writing.
• The unclaimed pools — what exists, how to search them, which name variants to
  search under, and why time limits mean you file the day you find something.
• Splits, and why they break — conflicted works often pay nobody at all. Includes
  a fillable split sheet with everything collection societies need.
• Cue sheet follow-up for every sync placement you’ve ever had, however long ago.
• A 30-day recovery sprint, then a quarterly routine so this never builds up again.
• Red flags and who not to pay. Everything in this kit can be done by you, free
  or close to it. The page tells you how to spot a recovery service that isn’t worth
  its commission — and what a legitimate one looks like.

Worksheets you fill in

Registration audit · works registration record · unclaimed search log · split sheet ·
distributor & platform audit · cue sheet follow-up · claim tracker · quarterly check
log · money recovered, with a running total. 563 interactive fields.

File details

• 33-page fillable PDF · 563 form fields · instant download
• Covers SOCAN, Re:Sound and its member organizations, CMRRA, SoundExchange, The MLC,
  ASCAP/BMI, distributors, and content matching
• Canada + United States, every page marked
• All facts verified August 2026 and date-stamped in the file

An honest note on outcomes

This kit cannot tell you whether you are owed money. It tells you where to look and
what to ask. How much you recover depends entirely on how much your music has
actually been used. Some people work through it and find nothing outstanding — and
that’s a legitimate result worth knowing for certain instead of assuming.

MegaCityVip is not a collection society, publisher, or royalty administrator, and
does not collect on your behalf.

Educational information only. Not legal, financial, tax, or accounting advice.

Digital download — please read before purchasing. Because this is an instant
download delivered immediately at checkout, all sales are final and we do not offer
refunds once the file has been downloaded. Every product page lists the exact page
count, field count, and contents so you know precisely what you are buying. If your
download link fails, contact us and we will resend it.