Washington and New York - Nov 3, 2010 - SoundExchange and licensing and royalty service provider RightsFlow announced a new joint initiative to identify hundreds of recording artists collectively owed more than $1 million in royalties.

Starting in October 2010, RightsFlow began reaching out to artists for whom SoundExchange has collected royalties from digital services that have streamed their recordings online. RightsFlow matched SoundExchange's list of yet-unregistered artists and labels to its enterprise database as well as via users of Limelight, the company's online mechanical licensing utility. The match identified 1,675 artists and 63 labels with unclaimed funds at SoundExchange. RightsFlow subsequently has begun the notification process through e-mail and direct outreach, encouraging those artists and labels to register to get paid.

When sound recordings are played on satellite radio, Internet radio or digital cable services, SoundExchange collects a royalty on behalf of the recording artists and the copyright holder, as directed under U.S. Copyright Law. Since 2001, SoundExchange has collected and processed billions of spins and paid out more than $412 million in digital royalties. Unfortunately, thousands of music professionals are not yet registered and millions of dollars in royalties are currently unclaimed.

The SoundExchange/RightsFlow partnership will continue to regularly match and notify those artists and labels with unclaimed money on an ongoing basis. Recording artists may register with SoundExchange free of charge to receive these royalties. New registrants can claim any back royalties collected in their names and then continue to be paid quarterly, every time they're owed.