How to Collect International Music Royalties

Suppose your music airs on German radio, gets streamed in Brazil, and plays inside a Japanese shop. Each use earns money, yet none of those countries recognizes your PRO. Understanding how to collect international music royalties starts there.

This corner of publishing costs independent writers more than they realize because its failures stay quiet. You won't see an error or rejection. The royalties just never show up, with no signal that they were generated at all.

A society at home reaches foreign earnings through reciprocal agreements with overseas societies. Every transfer takes a cut and adds delay, while weak registration data is the usual reason an international society can't connect the money to you.

First rule: a PRO works inside its own territory

ASCAP grants licenses in the United States. PRS for Music does so in the United Kingdom, and SACEM covers France. One country's society has no power to license broadcasters or venues across another country's border.

Instead, these organizations maintain reciprocal agreements, coordinated through CISAC's network of author societies. In France, SACEM collects royalties for both local and international writers, then sends each foreign writer's portion to the appropriate home society. In your territory, your PRO performs the reverse service when French music is used.

For usage in France, the path is:

1. The broadcaster in France sends payment to SACEM.
2. SACEM determines which work played and identifies its writers.
3. SACEM connects your record with your home society.
4. The funds move to that home society.
5. You receive payment according to your society's distribution timetable.

The money can get stuck at any point across those five stages.

Second rule: the US separates rights that most countries combine

American performance and mechanical rights are managed by entirely different bodies: the PRO receives performance money, while The MLC covers mechanicals from streaming. Elsewhere, that division is uncommon.

Across most countries, one combined structure covers both:

• In France, SACEM collects mechanicals and public performance.
• Germany's GEMA handles mechanicals and public performance.
• In the UK, PRS for Music operates alongside MCPS, so one membership provides access to both.
• For Australia and New Zealand, APRA AMCOS runs two bodies together, with APRA covering performance and AMCOS covering mechanical.
• The Netherlands uses the same arrangement through Buma/Stemra: Buma for performance and Stemra for mechanical.

Why does that difference matter? A songwriter accustomed to the US may go looking for a separate overseas mechanical society, even though one usually isn't necessary. Treating the American setup as a worldwide standard sends people after registrations they never needed.

Third rule: most songwriters aren't entitled to the other pool

Neighboring rights belong to the recording, not to the underlying song. Payments go to its featured performers and master owner. The US organization is SoundExchange, its UK counterpart is PPL, and the umbrella body coordinating the international network is SCAPR.

Writing the song alone doesn't entitle you to that money. Performing on the recording does, and any claim still sits fully apart from your PRO. Before searching for royalties that weren't owed, make sure you know which category includes you.

The real points of royalty loss

From what I've seen, reciprocal arrangements generally perform better than people claim. Nearly every breakdown begins before the network comes into play.

The work lacks sufficient identifying information. When a society abroad gets a usage record, it must tie the writer and song title to an actual person. Give it a common title without an ISWC or your IPI number, and the match quietly breaks. Those royalties then enter an unmatched pool.

The registered shares don't reach 100%. If ownership entries add up incorrectly, the society holds the composition instead of distributing it. I see this data issue more than any other.

No one entered your work in foreign systems. Reciprocal deals transfer royalties between organizations, but the receiving society still needs a record of the song and its owners. A home registration by itself offers less coverage than many writers expect.

Collaborators use different societies. When three writers are represented by three societies across three countries, all three databases need matching information. One collaborator's wrong percentage may freeze payments for the entire song.

Delay. Even a clean international payment moves slowly, passing through the foreign distribution cycle and then your domestic cycle. Waiting a year between use and payment is perfectly ordinary, so a blank statement this quarter proves nothing.

How sub-publishing works

Under the long-standing sub-publishing model, publishers in individual territories collect and register work locally in exchange for a portion. You receive meaningful local coverage, but you pay for it and usually make a rights commitment within that market.

The newer option is administration, where a single administrator places your catalog with the societies that compensate writers and collects through its connections, while you keep ownership of the copyright. Davincii uses this approach, which the guide to publishing administration explains further.

There is no universal winner between them. A songwriter whose strongest activity is concentrated in a specific territory may benefit from sub-publishing. When small stream counts are spread through dozens of countries, administration is generally the better fit, and nearly every independent songwriter now falls into that pattern.

Practical next steps

1. Become a member of your home society and obtain an IPI. The rest depends on it.
2. Submit all works using ISWCs and shares that reach 100%. No other single task has a larger effect on international revenue.
3. Verify that every co-writer has registered as well. Missing data on their side can block your royalties.
4. Determine whether the recording side owes you money in addition to the composition side.
5. Wait long enough before deciding the system failed. One year is ordinary.

Our worldwide society directory covers every organization that distributes songwriter royalties, including registration instructions, membership cost, and payment frequency. It contains 29 societies in 19 countries and identifies which ones Davincii manages on your behalf.

Davincii's role

We submit your compositions to societies worldwide that compensate songwriters, then collect the resulting royalties. You pay no upfront fee and retain your copyright. Davincii earns only when it recovers money, taking 15% from performance royalties and 20% from mechanicals.

It isn't exciting work. It means giving every composition accurate identifiers, ensuring that all shares add up, and allowing a society with your royalties to recognize who owns them.