There's good news for songwriters in 2026: your streaming royalties just went up. Under the Copyright Royalty Board's Phonorecords IV schedule, songwriters and publishers now earn 15.3% of US streaming revenue (up from 15.25%), and the statutory mechanical royalty rate rose to 13.1¢ per song — with another bump coming in 2027. After 15 years frozen at 9.1¢, that's a real raise. Here's the catch that makes it almost meaningless for most artists: you can't get a raise on money you were never collecting. More than 60% of independent artists have never registered with the MLC, so their mechanical royalties — old rate and new — pile up unclaimed in a $424 million pool. This is a guide to the raise, the missing royalties it exposes, and how to find out what you're owed with a free scan.
The 2026 raise: what actually changed
The 2026 mechanical rate increase is the penultimate step of the CRB's Phonorecords IV settlement:
- Streaming: songwriters and publishers now receive 15.3% of US streaming service revenue, up from 15.25% — and rising to 15.35% in 2027.
- Downloads & physical: the statutory mechanical royalty is now 13.1¢ per song (up from 12.7¢), with longer songs paid per minute.
- Why it matters: the rate sat frozen at 9.1¢ from 2006–2022 while inflation ate ~40% of its value. Phonorecords IV finally tied it to annual cost-of-living increases.
Translation: every stream of your songs is now worth a little more to you as a songwriter — if you're set up to collect it.
The catch: a raise you can't collect
Here's what nobody tells new songwriters. Mechanical royalties don't reach you automatically. In the US they're collected by The MLC (the Mechanical Licensing Collective), and the MLC can only pay you if you've registered as a member and matched your works. No registration, no payment — the higher rate included.
And most independent songwriters simply haven't done it: more than 60% of indie artists running active streaming promotion have never created an MLC member account. So their mechanical royalties — every stream, retroactive for years — sit uncollected. The 2026 raise doesn't fix that. It just means the money you're not collecting is now bigger.
That's the definition of a registration gap — and it's the single most common reason songwriter royalties go missing.
The $424M "black box" of unclaimed royalties
All that unmatched money goes somewhere: the MLC's "black box" — a pool of unclaimed mechanical royalties that started at $424 million when the MLC launched in 2021, with payouts retroactive to January 2021 for anyone who registers and claims. Independent, self-published songwriters are the single largest group missing money from it, and independent creator groups have even taken the issue to Congress.
Two things make this urgent: the pool is your money sitting unclaimed, and unclaimed royalties that go unmatched long enough can be redistributed to others. Registering with the MLC is free and takes about 30 minutes — but first you need to know what's actually waiting for you.
How to find the mechanical royalties you're owed
This is where a music royalty finder does the heavy lifting. A free SongBounty scan runs the kind of royalty audit a publishing admin would charge a percentage for: it checks your catalog against the MLC and surfaces the unclaimed and unidentified mechanical royalties held under your name — priced in dollars — so you can see what you're owed before you register, sorted into a ranked list of claimable royalties. It even keeps monitoring your royalties, rescanning monthly for new unclaimed money. And the MLC is only one pot: the same scan finds the rest of your missing royalties in one place.
| Where your money hides | What SongBounty finds |
|---|---|
| The MLC / black box | Your unclaimed mechanical royalties from streaming, priced in dollars |
| PROs (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, GMR) | Performance royalties you're not registered to collect |
| SoundExchange | Your neighboring-rights / radio royalties |
| Foreign societies | International royalties from streams and airplay abroad |
| Registration gaps | The missing MLC/PRO signups and metadata errors causing the leak |
Every finding is an estimate — read it as "at least this much" — sorted into a ranked to-do list of what to claim and where. And unlike a publishing admin, we don't take a percentage: you keep 100% of everything you recover. It's the news-hook companion to our full guide to finding unclaimed royalties.
Don't let your raise sit in the black box
A higher rate is only a raise if the money reaches you. If you've never registered with the MLC, some of it — old rate and new — is already sitting unclaimed with your name on it. The fix: find out what you're owed, complete your registrations with the MLC (and a PRO, and SoundExchange), and claim it before it's redistributed — so you finally collect more of the royalties the 2026 raise now owes you. Start with a free scan, then see how it works.
FAQ
Yes. Under the CRB's Phonorecords IV schedule, songwriters and publishers now earn 15.3% of US streaming revenue (up from 15.25%, rising to 15.35% in 2027), and the statutory mechanical royalty rate rose to 13.1¢ per song (from 12.7¢).
Because mechanical royalties only reach you if you've registered with The MLC and matched your works. More than 60% of independent artists never have — so their money, at the old rate and the new one, sits uncollected in the MLC's black box.
It's the pool of unclaimed mechanical royalties the MLC collected but couldn't match to a rights holder — about $424 million at launch, with payouts retroactive to January 2021. Unmatched money that sits long enough can be redistributed, which is why claiming your share is time-sensitive.
Search the MLC for money held under your name, or run a music royalty finder like SongBounty — a free scan checks your whole catalog against the MLC (and PROs, SoundExchange, and foreign societies), prices your missing royalties in dollars, and shows you exactly what to claim.
No. We find what you're owed and show you how to claim it — you register and file the claim — and we never take a percentage. You keep 100% of everything you recover.