Sony Music Publishing just closed a roughly $4 billion deal for a catalog of 45,000+ songs — one of several record-breaking music-publishing acquisitions in 2026, alongside the BMG–Concord merger and Primary Wave's tie-up with Kobalt. Investors pay billions for song catalogs for one simple reason: royalties are a valuable, recurring asset. Which raises an awkward question for everyone who isn't a billion-dollar fund: if your songs are worth money, are you actually collecting the royalties they earn? For most independent artists the answer is no — their mechanical, performance, and neighboring rights royalties sit unclaimed. Here's what makes a catalog valuable, and how to find out what you're owed.
Why catalogs sell for billions
You don't need to follow every deal to get the point. Funds like Sony, Primary Wave, and BMG pay record sums because song royalties are predictable, long-term income — money that keeps coming from streaming, radio, and public performance for decades. It's exactly why catalog sales have surged even in a shaky market.
But there's a detail that matters far more to you than to Sony:
A catalog is only worth what it actually collects — and collecting every fraction of a cent is precisely where independent artists leave money on the table.
A fund has a team chasing every stream, spin, and territory. Most independent artists have no one — so a big share of their money is never collected at all.
Where your music's money comes from
Every song pays into several different pots, and only one of them reaches you automatically:
Your streaming payout flows through your distributor without you lifting a finger. The other three — the composition royalties (mechanical and performance) and your recording's neighboring rights — only pay out if you're registered with the right collector: the MLC, a PRO, or SoundExchange. Miss that step and the money doesn't stop; it just piles up unclaimed.
The four royalties hiding in your catalog
These are the pots a fund audits before it buys — and the ones most artists never check:
Mechanical royalties — The MLC
Collected by The MLC on your US streams. Register late, or not at all, and your share sits unclaimed in the MLC's "black box."
Performance royalties — ASCAP · BMI
Owed by a PRO whenever your songs are streamed, played on radio, or performed. No PRO affiliation, no payment — and if you're only registered as a writer, you forfeit the publisher's half.
Neighboring rights — SoundExchange
Your recording's radio royalties, collected by SoundExchange and its overseas equivalents. Own your masters and you're owed two shares, not one.
International royalties — foreign societies
Performance money owed by PRS, GEMA, SACEM and other societies wherever your music is streamed or aired abroad.
Find out what your catalog is really owed
Before you think about what your catalog is worth, find out what it's already owed. That's what a music royalty finder does. A free SongBounty scan runs the kind of royalty audit a fund would run on a catalog it's buying — but on yours, for free. It checks your whole catalog against the MLC, the PROs, SoundExchange, and foreign societies, surfaces your unclaimed royalties priced in dollars, and sorts them into a ranked list of claimable royalties with exactly what to do next. It even keeps monitoring your royalties, rescanning for new missing royalties over time.
And unlike a publishing admin, we take no percentage: you keep 100% of everything you recover. It's the fast version of our full guide to finding unclaimed royalties.
FAQ
A catalog's value is driven by the royalties it earns — which is why funds pay billions for them. But a catalog is only worth what it actually collects, so the first step to knowing (or growing) your value is finding the unclaimed royalties your songs already generate.
Check every collector your music earns from — The MLC (mechanical), your PRO (performance), SoundExchange (neighboring rights), and foreign societies — for money held under your name. A music royalty finder like SongBounty does that search across your whole catalog at once and prices your missing royalties in dollars.
Yes. SongBounty's free scan shows your unclaimed and uncollected royalties before you pay anything, and we never take a percentage — you keep 100% of what you recover.
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.