The industry
A play is not a payment. One person pressing play touches two separate copyrights owned by two different people, and the money splits into three streams that are collected by three different organisations and do not arrive together.
Which of those streams ever reaches a person, and how long it takes, was decided by paperwork signed years before anyone listened.
This is the reference for how that works in the US. Every claim on these pages cites a source; where a figure moves on a schedule we name the mechanism instead of freezing a number that goes stale.
One play
The recording
Master copyright — this performance, this take
The song
Composition copyright — the notes and the words, whoever is playing them
master
The recording itself. The right used is reproduction and making available.
- Collected by
- SNR licenses this directly: a grant from the rightsholder or the recording does not play. A distributor or a label sits in the chain only where the artist uses one.
- Arrives
- SNR’s own payout cycle — the accepted recording split is paid by name
mechanical
The song. The right to reproduce it (streaming, downloads, physical).
- Collected by
- On SNR, directly from the writer or publisher who controls it — SNR takes no blanket. Elsewhere, the MLC under the statutory blanket.
- Arrives
- The same cycle as the recording on SNR. Where a collective pays instead, its own cycle — months
performance
The song. The right to perform it publicly.
- Collected by
- On SNR, directly from the writer and the publisher — a society member accepts the direct-licence waiver, because their membership is non-exclusive. Elsewhere, a PRO: ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, GMR.
- Arrives
- The same cycle as the recording on SNR. Where a society pays instead, its own cycle — months, typically
Order and grouping are exact. Widths carry no quantity — the relative size of the three streams depends on the type of use, which is the next page.
Source: ToS/licensing-policy.md §1, §2 · Arrival times: ToS/licensing-policy.md §2 (accepting the recording split is the master licence) + Appendix A (“Direct licences pay the writer by name, in SNR’s own payout cycle”) · ToS/licensing-policy.md §2 (a publisher accepts its own cut per right) + Appendix A (“A society pays on its own cycle, typically months later”) · ToS/licensing-policy.md §3 (a society member licenses SNR directly) + Appendix A (“A society pays on its own cycle, typically months later”)
5 things worth knowing
None of these are opinions. Every one is in the statute, the society rules, or a disclosed figure.
01
US radio pays the songwriter and pays the recording artist nothing.
A song played ten million times on US FM radio earns for the writer and the publisher, and $0.00 for the featured performer and the owner of the recording. In the US the sound-recording performance right covers digital transmissions only, and broadcast radio is exempt. Most other countries pay a neighbouring-rights royalty here.
Source: The sound-recording performance right is digital-only in the US — 17 U.S.C. §106(6), §114(d)(1)
02
The writer share is paid to the writer, even inside a bad deal.
PROs distribute the writer share of a performance royalty to the songwriter directly. A publisher or a label cannot take it to pay down an unrecouped advance. For a writer carrying a large recoupment balance it is often the only money that actually arrives.
Source: PRO distribution rules — the writer share is distributed to the writer — ASCAP and BMI published distribution rules (society rules, not statute); per ToS/licensing-policy.md Appendix A
03
One co-writer can block a whole recording.
ASCAP and BMI are bound by consent decrees to license any service on non-discriminatory terms. SESAC and GMR are not, and there is no compulsory licence behind them. A single co-writer affiliated there, at any share, has to license directly or the recording does not play — on the collective system it puts the whole recording outside the blanket until someone negotiates.
Source: ASCAP and BMI operate under antitrust consent decrees; SESAC and GMR do not — United States v. ASCAP and United States v. BMI, amended final judgments (S.D.N.Y.); per ToS/licensing-policy.md Appendix A
04
The blanket licence fails small independent works about a third of the time.
The MLC’s disclosed match rate for works with under $100 of cumulative royalties — the entire independent segment — is 63%. The other 37% is money that was earned, reported, and collected, and that simply has nobody attached to it yet. Registering the work is what attaches you. SNR’s answer to this is not to fix the matching: it is to license the work directly, from people it can name, before release.
Source: The MLC’s disclosed match rate for works under $100 of cumulative royalties — The MLC, disclosed June 2026 — 63%; via ToS/licensing-policy.md Appendix A
05
Money nobody can match has not been paid out at all yet.
When a work is unregistered the mechanical royalty it earns has no one to pay, and the statute says accrued royalties are eventually distributed to copyright owners in proportion to market share — which would send unclaimed independent money largely to the biggest catalogues. In practice the MLC has never made that distribution: roughly $243.9M was still held for 2021–2024 usage, with monthly distributions planned from 2027.
Source: Unmatched accrued royalties are to be distributed by relative market share — 17 U.S.C. §115(d)(3)(J); the held balance — ToS/licensing-policy.md Appendix A
Where we sit in it
Direct licences only, in the US only.
The master is the binding constraint — no master grant, no stream, no fallback. That is the one place we have no fallback and no statutory route: if the rightsholder has not granted it to us, the recording does not play here.
The song side is licensed the same way, one right at a time: direct licensing is live and blanket licensing through the MLC or the PROs is not at launch. Which route applies is derived per writer, per right, per territory — never chosen. Blanket and society routing is not wrong, and nobody here is calling it that. It is how it works elsewhere — it is simply not what SNR does at launch.
Not all of the model is built. Direct resolution and direct payment are live; publishing that still waits for every writer, the US-only participant checks and licence withdrawal are on the policy’s own list of what is not done yet.
The reference
The three royalty streams →
Master, mechanical, performance — what each one pays for, who collects it, who is paid.
Type of use →
A stream is not a radio play. Which rights each way of listening actually triggers.
Who’s in the chain →
How the three streams re-route when a label, a publisher or an administrator is in the deal.
Licensing: blanket, direct, waiver →
The three routes to the right to play a song, and the one co-writer who can block all of them.
What SNR does →
Direct licensing is live and no blanket licence is held at launch — blanket is not at launch. Where each dollar lands, and when.
Glossary →
Every acronym in the section — MLC, PRO, ISRC, ISWC, IPI — in one sentence each.