Neighboring rights are the most under-collected royalty stream in the global music industry. Recent industry reporting has put the annual global pool at well over $2 billion. A meaningful percentage of that is sitting in collecting society accounts, uncollected, because the performers and master owners entitled to it never registered. If you've made records that have been played anywhere in public — radio, television, streaming simulcasts, a hotel lobby, a bar's sound system — some of it is yours.
What they are
In most of the world (not the United States, more on that in a minute), when a recorded song is played in public, two separate pools of money get generated. The first is songwriter/publishing royalties, which go to the writers and their publishers via the PRO system. The second is neighboring rights royalties, which go to:
- The featured performer on the recording
- Non-featured performers (session players, background vocalists)
- The owner of the master recording
That's a separate check from a separate pool. The PRO collects the publishing side; a different kind of organization — called a "neighboring rights society," a "performance rights organization" (confusingly, a different PRO), or a "collective management organization" (CMO) — collects the neighboring rights side.
Each country has its own society. IFPI maintains a directory. The important ones for English-language artists include PPL (UK), SoundExchange (US, with caveats), GVL (Germany), and SENA (Netherlands).
The US exception
The United States is the notable outlier. US federal law has never recognized a terrestrial radio broadcast right for sound recordings — meaning when a traditional AM/FM station plays your record, you are not entitled to a neighboring rights payment in the US. This is an accident of mid-century broadcasting lobbying, and most of the rest of the world considers it absurd.
The US does collect neighboring rights on digital broadcast — satellite radio, most internet radio, non-interactive streaming. That collection is handled by SoundExchange, which you should register with if you haven't. Everyone with a master recording played in digital radio or simulcast is entitled to SoundExchange money.
Why you're probably not collecting what you're owed internationally
The core problem is simple: neighboring rights societies are national. If your records get played on Dutch radio, Dutch commercials, or in a Dutch hotel chain's background system, that revenue is collected by the Dutch CMO — and they don't know who you are unless you've registered with them.
For most artists, the practical answer is to work with a neighboring rights administrator — a specialist that handles global collection on your behalf. They register you with every relevant society, maintain the metadata, file claims, and funnel the money back to you for a commission (typically 15-25% of what they collect). The major general-purpose distributors — DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby — do not meaningfully do this for you. They collect master royalties from streaming and stores; they do not chase neighboring rights internationally. Which means if you're using a general distributor and nothing else, you are almost certainly leaving money on the table.
What to gather before you register
Neighboring rights societies are paperwork-heavy. Before you start registering, get together:
- Every ISRC code for every recording you've released
- A complete performer credit list for each track — featured artists, session players, background vocalists, everyone who physically played or sang on the record
- Master ownership information — who owns the master recording and what percentage (label, artist, or split)
- Your label name and any relevant label codes
- Release dates, country of first release, and territory of first release
If your paperwork is incomplete — which it will be, for older releases — do the best you can. Societies will ask for updates. What you cannot do is retroactively collect on years of plays that happened before you registered, so the incentive to move is strong.
How it ties into your other royalties
Neighboring rights are separate from mechanical royalties, separate from sync, separate from streaming master royalties, and separate from PRO performance royalties. They are their own line item, in their own pool, collected by their own organizations. If any of your records get used in TV or film — and streaming simulcasts count in most territories — you have neighboring rights income potentially waiting for you.
Register. Claim. Collect.