Common questions
about music royalties.

No. Being on streaming handles one thing: the streaming income for your recording, paid through your distributor. It doesn't register your song with PRS or MCPS, or your recording with PPL — so radio play, public play and the song's own royalties stay uncollected. More on the gap.

Your distributor (DistroKid, TuneCore and the like) puts your recording into shops and collects its streaming income. It does not register your composition with a collection society. Some sell publishing admin as a paid add-on, but the basic service doesn't.

A released track is two separate copyrights. The composition is the song you wrote — collected by PRS and MCPS. The recording is the master you released — collected by PPL. If you wrote and recorded your own music you own both, so money is owed to you from both. See who collects what.

It depends on what you did on the track. Wrote it — join PRS (and MCPS for the mechanical side). Performed on it or own the recording — join PPL. Wrote and recorded it yourself, the usual independent case — all three apply.

PPL is free to join. PRS charges a one-off joining fee, and MCPS is a separate membership with its own one-off fee — even though you apply through the same PRS for Music account. Exact current fees are on each society's own site, so check there before you join.

An ISRC is the ID for one specific recording — your distributor usually issues it automatically at release. An ISWC is the permanent ID for the composition — you don't supply it; the society assigns it when you register the song. A song should end up with exactly one ISWC. Full glossary.

Generally no. You usually can't backdate collection to before you were a member, so plays that happen while you're unregistered are typically gone for good. The cheapest time to register is now, before the plays happen.

They sit in a holding account as unmatched money — collected, but with no registered owner to pay. After around three years they're redistributed to the artists who did register, so an unclaimed share isn't saved for you; it's given away.

Yes. Agree your writer splits in writing before you register, as percentages that total 100%. If co-writers register different figures, the claims conflict and the royalties freeze in a holding account until it's sorted out.

They deduct a small admin commission, often around 10–15%. The alternative isn't keeping 100% — it's collecting nothing and watching the full amount go to someone else. Keeping most of something beats all of nothing.

Yes — it still applies. Every stream generates two royalties for the song: a performance royalty, collected by PRS, and a mechanical royalty, collected by MCPS whenever the song is reproduced — streams and downloads included. MCPS is a separate organisation from PRS with its own one-off joining fee, so joining one doesn't cover the other.

They pay different people for different things, so it isn't either/or. PRS pays the songwriter when the song is performed, broadcast or streamed. PPL pays the performers and the recording's owner when that recording is broadcast or played in public. If you write and record your own music, you're on both sides — so most self-released artists have a claim with both.

Not for the writer's share. Join PRS as a writer and your writer's share is collected for you automatically — no publisher needed. The publisher's share is separate: it can only be paid to a registered publisher, and direct publisher membership of PRS is gated behind a catalogue threshold most solo artists can't meet independently. For most self-released writers, the writer's share is the part to claim yourself.