$500 idea · Pattern break · Edition 015
Statute hands $243,856,456.84 of unclaimed royalties to whoever already has market share.
Every other unclaimed-money regime in America holds the cash indefinitely. This one has a timer. 17 U.S.C. 115(d)(3)(J)(i) directs the Mechanical Licensing Collective, after the holding period in (H)(i) of “not less than 3 years,” to distribute unclaimed accrued royalties “based on the relative market shares of such copyright owners.” In the Copyright Office’s periodic review published 3 June 2026, the MLC stated that “starting in early 2027, the MLC plans to start making market share distributions of unmatched and unclaimed royalties on a monthly, per-song and pro rata basis.” The money does not wait. It is re-allocated, month by month, to the owners who are already large.
The consensus picture of unclaimed music royalties is a lost-and-found: a pile sitting in Nashville, indexed and patient, waiting for the songwriter who never registered. That picture is imported from state unclaimed-property law, where a treasury will still pay out a bank balance abandoned in 1962. The Music Modernization Act wrote the opposite rule, and it wrote it in one sentence. After the hold, the collective shall distribute, and the distribution key is market share — which is to say, the money is paid to the parties whose only qualification is that they are big.
The second sentence is the one almost nobody has read. 115(d)(3)(J)(iv) anticipates that a windfall has landed on a publisher’s books and requires that it be shared: copyright owners receiving unclaimed accrued royalties “shall pay or credit a portion to songwriters,” and “in no case shall the payment or credit to an individual songwriter be less than 50 percent of the payment received by the copyright owner attributable to usage of musical works (or shares of works) of that songwriter.” Read it again. The 50 percent floor protects the recipient publisher’s own writers, against usage of that publisher’s own catalogue. The writer whose streams generated the unclaimed dollar is not a party to the sentence at all, because by then the statute no longer treats the dollar as his.
Now the part that turns a statute into a trade. The Copyright Office’s review reports the MLC’s overall match rate at 91.6%, which sounds like a solved problem, and then breaks it out by the royalty value of the usage: “over 99%” in the top tier, “approximately 83%” in the mid-range, and 63% in the lowest. The failure is not distributed evenly across the catalogue. It is concentrated, precisely and predictably, on the songs that earn the least — which is to say on self-released writers with no publisher, no administrator and no reason to know the Portal exists. Thirty-seven cents of every dollar in that tier goes unmatched, and from early 2027 it is conveyed to the parties with the most market share.
The door into this is not guarded. The MLC’s own membership page says “It’s free and easy to join” and lists, as one of three member categories, “Music Publishers and Publishing Administrators — companies that manage song catalogs on behalf of creators.” There is no exam, no bond, no approved-vendor list. The collective’s own operating costs are not charged to you either: under 37 CFR 390.2 the Annual Assessment that funds the MLC was $32,900,000 for 2023 and $39,050,000 for 2024, and 390.3 makes the digital services pay it, with per-licensee minimums from $2,500 to $60,000. A matching engine over 53 million works, built and staffed at the streaming platforms’ expense, is available to a publishing administrator for nothing.
And the parties who owe the money have said out loud what they want. In the same review, the Digital Licensee Coordinator and DIMA argued that “it is highly inefficient for MLC[] to expend substantial resources to match these works, with what can’t even be described as marginal benefits to creators.” That is the counterparty position stated plainly: call off the search. Between a licensee body that wants less matching and a distribution key that rewards scale, the only party with an economic reason to find a $40-a-year songwriter is somebody who gets paid a percentage for finding him.
The evidence
8 findings$243,856,456.84 unclaimed, and a date on it
The Copyright Office completed its first statutory review of the MLC’s designation and continued it. The numbers it published are the ones that matter here. Of “$568,945,432.36 in royalties held related to 2021-2024 usage, $243,856,456.84 is related to unclaimed royalties.” On the older transfer, “$195,779,461.26 remain unmatched and $74,473,413.08 remain unclaimed.” And the timing, in the MLC’s own words: “Starting in early 2027, the MLC plans to start making market share distributions of unmatched and unclaimed royalties on a monthly, per-song and pro rata basis,” with the January 2021 tranche — the first one eligible — described as “less than $7 million.” Contact of record on the notice: Rhea Efthimiadis, Assistant to the General Counsel.
The sentence that gives your money to market share
(H)(i) sets the hold: accrued royalties are held “not less than 3 years after the date on which the funds were received by the mechanical licensing collective, or ... 3 years after the date on which the funds were accrued, whichever is later.” (J)(i) then disposes of them: after that period “the mechanical licensing collective shall distribute such accrued royalties,” and the key is that “payment shares for unclaimed accrued royalties for particular reporting periods shall be determined in a transparent and equitable manner based on data indicating the relative market shares of such copyright owners.” Then (J)(iv), which reads like a protection and is not one: recipients “shall pay or credit a portion to songwriters,” and “in no case shall the payment or credit to an individual songwriter be less than 50 percent of the payment received by the copyright owner attributable to usage of musical works (or shares of works) of that songwriter.” Of that songwriter — the recipient’s own. The writer who earned the unclaimed dollar appears nowhere in the clause.
The regulator says it in plain English
No statutory parsing required. The Office’s own FAQ: “In cases where the MLC is not able to match musical works to copyright owners, it is authorized to distribute the unclaimed royalties to copyright owners identified in the MLC records, based on the relative market shares of such copyright owners as reflected in reports of usage provided by digital music providers.” The same page describes the funding arrangement that makes the collective free to its members: the Copyright Royalty Judges determine “the administrative assessment that digital music providers and any significant nonblanket licensees must pay to fund the operations of the MLC.”
Match rate 99% at the top, 63% at the bottom
The headline number is good: “overall match rate across all usage periods stands at 91.6%,” across a database of “more than 53 million works” and “over 80,000 copyright owners.” Broken out by the royalty value of the usage it is a different disclosure: “over 99%” in the top tier, “approximately 83%” in the mid-range, and “63%” in the lowest. The failure is a function of how little the song earns. And the licensee side told the Office it would rather the search stopped: the DLC and DIMA submitted that “it is highly inefficient for MLC[] to expend substantial resources to match these works, with what can’t even be described as marginal benefits to creators.” They are the parties who paid the money in.
“Free and easy to join” — including as an administrator
The collective run by chief executive Kris Ahrend charges nothing at the door: “It’s free and easy to join.” It lists three member categories, and the second is not a songwriter category at all: “Music Publishers and Publishing Administrators — companies that manage song catalogs on behalf of creators,” alongside “Independent Songwriters (Self-Administered)” and collective management organisations. The tooling is published too: members “use The MLC’s Claiming Tool to search for their shares among those works that have been registered but not fully claimed” and the Matching Tool “to search for unmatched sound recording uses.” On the legacy pool, the MLC states the “initial value of the royalties transferred to The MLC was approximately $427 million, but that value subsequently decreased to approximately $397 million” — $397,286,418.71 in its DSP transfer table.
Someone else pays the $39,050,000 bill for your supplier
390.2(a): “The Annual Assessment for the calendar year 2023 shall be in the amount of $32,900,000.” 390.2(b): 2024 “shall be in the amount of $39,050,000,” with later years adjusted annually by the lesser of 3% or the change in the Employment Cost Index. 390.3(a) sets who pays and how much at minimum: blanket licensees and significant nonblanket licensees, on a tier from “$2,500” for 10,000 or fewer unique sound recordings to “$60,000” above 100,000. A publishing administrator’s cost of collection in the United States is therefore not a percentage and not a subscription. It is zero, because the regulation assigns it to the streaming services.
The incumbent card: $100 plus 20% of mechanicals
Songtrust publishes the price of exactly this service: “a flat, one-time fee per songwriter” of “$100,” then “15%” of performance royalties and “20%” of non-performance royalties, which is the mechanical line the MLC pays. Rights are not assigned — “Songtrust leaves copyright ownership and creative control where it belongs — with you” — so the administrator is selling registration and collection, not equity in the song. On the identity you need to be named on a registration, ASCAP’s own join page prices membership at a “one time, $50 processing fee” for writer and publisher applications alike, with no annual dues stated.
0.49% of the annual unclaimed flow, or 250 writers
The plotted figure first. Bars run at 4.0 px per percentage point from x=170, so 100% lands at x=570 and ticks at 0/25/50/75/100% sit at x = 170, 270, 370, 470, 570. Matched widths: 99.0% → 396.0 px, 83.0% → 332.0 px, 63.0% → 252.0 px. Unmatched residuals: 1.0% → 4.0 px from x=566, 17.0% → 68.0 px from x=502, 37.0% → 148.0 px from x=422. The top tier is disclosed as “over 99%” and is plotted at the stated floor of 99.0. Now the pool. $243,856,456.84 ÷ $568,945,432.36 = 0.42861 → 42.9% of everything the MLC holds against 2021–2024 usage is unclaimed. Spread over four usage years that is $243,856,456.84 ÷ 4 = $60,964,114.21 a year of mechanical royalties going unclaimed. The ladder: $5,000 a month is $60,000 a year; at Songtrust’s published 20% mechanical rate you need $60,000 ÷ 0.20 = $300,000 a year of client mechanicals passing through, and $300,000 ÷ $60,964,114.21 = 0.49% of the annual unclaimed flow. Undercut to 15% and it is $60,000 ÷ 0.15 = $400,000, or 0.66% of the flow. Per client: 250 writers averaging $1,200 a year each is 250 × $1,200 × 0.20 = $60,000. On the registration fee alone at Songtrust’s $100 card, $60,000 ÷ $100 = 600 songwriters a year, 50 a month. The $500: MLC membership $0, ASCAP publisher account $50 — $50 spent, and the remaining $450 is not a fee at all but float, because the MLC distributes monthly in arrears and a historical claim settles over months. Two figures are soft. The MLC’s historical-royalties page reports “approximately $223.42 million” distributed while the Copyright Office review reports $195,779,461.26 unmatched plus $74,473,413.08 unclaimed against a $397,286,418.71 transfer; the two disclosures are measured at different dates and are not reconciled here, so no arithmetic on this page crosses them. And the $60,964,114.21 annual figure assumes the unclaimed balance is spread evenly across the four usage years, which the review does not state.
The ladder
From $500 to $5,000 a monthSeven rungs. The only date that matters is ahead of you: early 2027, when the conveyor starts and the January 2021 vintage leaves the building.
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Read the clock, not the pot
The pile is not the asset; the expiry is. 115(d)(3)(H)(i) holds unclaimed royalties “not less than 3 years,” (J)(i) then pays them out by relative market share, and the MLC told the Copyright Office it begins “early 2027” on a monthly, per-song, pro rata basis. The first tranche is under $7 million and each following month releases another vintage. Every month you are not working is a month of somebody’s catalogue leaving.
3-year hold · early 2027 · monthly vintages -
Walk through the unguarded category
The MLC says “It’s free and easy to join” and names “Music Publishers and Publishing Administrators” as a member category in its own words: companies that manage song catalogs on behalf of creators. No exam, no bond, no registry, no revocation authority. Register as the administrator, not as a songwriter, because the administrator category is the one that can hold other people’s shares.
$0 membership · administrator category -
Buy the only identity anyone charges for
A registration names a publisher, and a publisher needs an IPI, which comes from a performing rights organisation. ASCAP’s published price is a “one time, $50 processing fee” with no annual dues listed. That is the single priced item on the entry ladder and it is 10% of the $500. Everything else you are about to use was built by somebody else and is free at the point of use.
$50 one-time · 10% of the stake -
Work the collective’s own tools against the collective’s own failure
The MLC publishes the Claiming Tool, for “shares among those works that have been registered but not fully claimed,” and the Matching Tool, for “unmatched sound recording uses.” That is a free, searchable index of money with a known expiry date, maintained by the party holding it. Prospecting cost in this business is not zero because you are clever. It is zero because the statute made someone publish the list.
Claiming Tool · Matching Tool · $0 -
Fish in the 63% tier, never the 99% tier
Matching is over 99% effective on the highest-value usage, so there is nothing there for you and the writers already have publishers. It is 63% on the lowest-value tier. Thirty-seven cents in the dollar, on songs nobody is administering, held by an organisation that has told the regulator it will start giving that money away in early 2027. Target catalogue by how little it earns, which is the opposite of every other acquisition strategy in music.
99% → nothing · 63% → 37¢ in the dollar -
Undercut the card, because your infrastructure is free
Songtrust charges $100 per songwriter plus 20% of mechanicals. You can go under it on the registration fee and still hold the margin, because 37 CFR 390 assigns the MLC’s $39,050,000 annual operating cost to the digital services, not to you. The incumbent’s price reflects a sales organisation and a global performance network. On a US mechanical-only claim, the only real cost is the hour you spend matching.
$100 + 20% · your cost of collection $0 -
Hold the rest as float, not as budget
$50 of the $500 is spent. The other $450 is not equipment, software or a licence — it is the gap between doing the claiming work and the monthly distribution that pays you for it, and on a historical claim that gap runs months. Treat the surplus as working capital and do not spend it on anything with a logo, because there is nothing in this trade you are required to buy.
$50 spent · $450 float · monthly in arrears
Sources
8 primary documents- U.S. Copyright Office, Periodic Review of the Designations of the Mechanical Licensing Collective and Digital Licensee Coordinator, 91 FR 33208 — 3 June 2026
- 17 U.S.C. 115(d)(3)(H)(i), (J)(i), (J)(iv) — current
- U.S. Copyright Office, FAQs on the Designation of the Mechanical Licensing Collective and the Digital Licensee Coordinator — current
- 37 CFR Part 390, Amounts of and Terms for Administrative Assessments to Fund the Mechanical Licensing Collective — eCFR, current
- The MLC, membership categories — current
- The MLC, historical royalties — current
- Songtrust, published pricing — 2026
- ASCAP, join — 2026
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