SoundExchange is a nonprofit organization tasked with collecting royalties for musical performers and sound recording copyright holders (I'll get back to who the majority of those copyright holders are later on) when the performer's music is played online. Unlike ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and other societies that collect royalties for songwriters who register with them, SoundExchange collects royalties for all musicians with Internet airplay in the US, not just the ones who have registered with the service. Yes, that is *all* performers, whether or not those performers have provided information on how to be sent their royalties.

The problem with collecting royalties for ALL performers is that SoundExchange has no mandate to locate and pay the musicians who have royalties due to them. This leads to the musical question - who has SoundExchange actively worked to register? Obiously, major label artists are easy to find. What makes that even easier is that SoundExchange was originally an offshoot of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and that the RIAA's lobbying efforts in creating this nonprofit organization slanted heavily toward the major label interests, not performer's interests. 50% of royalties owed for a song performance are paid to the copyright holder (for major label recording artists, that would be the label), 45% goes to the featured performer, and 5% goes to non-featured performers on the recording.

Now, let me be up front here, IndieHeart does not pay royalties to SoundExchange or other collections societies. We obtain royalty-free permission for every song on IndieHeart.com directly from the musician or legal representative, and we will also use some Creative Commons licensed music in the future. We'd like to pay royalties (we passionately believe that musicians should be able to make an income from their music), but as a non-commercial site, we don't have any income that would allow us to do that. We are also pretty sure that the majority of the largely unknown and unsigned musicians receiving airplay from our site would never see a royalty payment from SoundExchange, even if we played the heck out of them. There are a few reasons for this belief, but the primary one is this: SoundExchange doesn't know how to Google.

Last year, as I became more educated about the history of SoundExchange, I got pretty het up about this and headed over to the SoundExchange site to peruse the (partial) list of performers they were unable to find. It included musicians it had collected royalties for from 1996 to March 2001 but who were not registered with SoundExchange. If those musicians did not register by December of 2007 then...so sorry...we no longer owe you your royalties, but if you register now, we'll be happy to give you a piece of 30% of what we collected for all y'all on a first come, first served basis. Last one in is a rotten egg and all that. (Unfortunately, it is impossible to link directly to this list, but you can find it at the SoundExchange Web site. Click the link for "Unregistered List" on the right side menu. However, I'm warning you right now, the SoundExchange site is a nightmare to navigate and you may just end up lost.)

I didn't recognize most of the names on the list, but there were some there that I was surprised to see, having been a child of the '70s. Daddy Dewdrop? Moby Grape? These were well-known names with hits and/or ongoing interest. Whuh...you can't find these folks? How is that possible?

As a result, I did a little online research. About ten minutes worth. I found contact information for Daddy Dewdrop and one of the members of Moby Grape easily within that time. Daddy Dewdrop particularly piqued my interest, because his "Chick-A-Boom (Don't Ya Jes' Love It)" was one of the first 45s I ever bought with my carefully allocated allowance money as just a wee lass. I took the time to e-mail Richard Monda, who was (and will always be) Daddy Dewdrop, from the contact form at his web site, mrrichardmonda.com, to let him know he was on the unregistered list and to thank him for "Chick-A-Boom". That 45 still gets use on my carefully preserved 60's console record player. I also poked around on his site and found that he continues to write and record music with that oh-so-sexy deep voice of his. Nice. I'm sure I didn't recognize the sexiness when I was twelve, but I certainly recognize it now...

...but to move on quickly from that embarrassing fan-girl moment, I got a nice e-mail back from Mr. Monda in short order: I'm not really much of a pesterer, so I don't know if my heads-up to the ever-so-nice Richard Monda did him any good financially. What bothers me in this is if he could not be found for his royalties collected from 1996 to 2001, he also could not be found for his royalties from 2001 to forever. See how that works? SoundExchange gets to keep royalties it does not pay out. Pay attention. SoundExchange gets to keep royalties it does not pay out. Pay attention. SoundExchange gets to keep royalties it does not pay out.

What do they do with the money they collect without making any effort at all to locate the people they owe it to? Golly, I sure don't know. The SoundExchange Web site certainly holds no clues to what happens to those royalties collected in the name of those (please read with heavy sarcasm) very difficult to find performers.

SoundExchange has recently spent a goodly amount of money to mediate royalties with Internet broadcasters who can't afford to pay the rates originally set for them without going under financially. The organization is also currently spending a great deal of money to lobby for collection from Broadcast Radio. I'm all for that - if Internet Radio should pay a royalty then Broadcast Radio should, too. Then again, the money being spent on the lobbying effort primarily goes to protect the interests of the major labels. It's an interesting circle - the royalties that should be paid out to non-major label artists who can not be found may be what is funding the financial burdens of lobbying congress to obtain royalties from broadcast radio, a situation which primarily benefits the major label interest. Of course, I have no proof of this. Don't take it as an allegation. It's what you might call a musing, a passing thought, a wondering. If anyone from SoundExchange would like to set me straight on where the money goes, I certainly would be willing to listen.

For me, the question remains: what does this extra, unallocated-to-performers money go for? SoundExchange is a non-profit, but that doesn't mean that the employees can't profit from the lack of interest in finding performers by getting higher wages than might be sustainable if that little bonus wasn't available, or that the major labels can't benefit from SoundExchange doing their lobbying for them.

Do you know what I think that money should be spent for? Hiring someone who knows how to use a search engine. Any search engine. I'm not picky.

Author: Jill Nojack, Editor, IndieHeart.com

Why Can't Sound Exchange Google? by Jill Nojack is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.