Two collecting societies, one in South Africa and one in Germany, give unregistered income a three-year life before it goes to other rights holders. A third cost sits at the other end of the chain: SoundCloud’s 0% distribution fee still comes with payout fees that can swallow a small balance.
Two societies, the same three-year limit
CAPASSO collected R269 million in a year, and the money moves on a fixed rhythm. Streaming services pay it quarterly, it deducts a 12.5% fee, and mechanical royalties for streams that cannot be matched to a registered work go into a suspense account. After three years, unregistered streams pay other writers. A distributor does not collect these South African mechanical royalties, so a release that is live on every store can still have writer income sitting unclaimed.
GVL works the same way on the recording side. It pays record labels for German radio and TV plays by the broadcast minute, but only for tracks registered in label.gvl. Plays left unclaimed after three years go to other rights holders. The two systems pay different people for different uses, yet both penalise the same habit: releasing first and registering later.
What each society needs before it can pay
CAPASSO needs the work registered by the songwriter or publisher, and the registration has to be in place before its December distribution if the writer wants earlier streams included. The distributor’s delivery to stores does not do this job. Delivery tells a DSP, or digital service provider, what the recording is. Registration tells the society who wrote the underlying song and who is owed the mechanical share.
GVL starts with a label code, which is free. It then needs ISRC data to match a play. The ISRC, or International Standard Recording Code, is the identifier that lets a broadcast log line be tied to a specific recording and a specific payee. A track delivered with one ISRC and registered at GVL under another, or not registered at all, produces a play that nobody can pay.
The practical split looks like this:
- Writer or publisher: register each work with CAPASSO so quarterly streaming payments have a named recipient.
- Label or recording owner: get a label code, register tracks in label.gvl, and enter the same ISRCs used at delivery.
- Distributor: keep a delivery record of ISRCs and release dates so both registrations can be checked against it.
A zero distribution fee still has a payout cost
The third leak is arithmetic rather than registration. SoundCloud has charged a 0% distribution fee since November 2025, so artists keep 100 percent of the royalty. The same programme carries payout fees of $0.50 to $25, and an international wire costs $10 per payout. On a small balance that matters: the fee can take 29% of a small payout sent by international wire. At $10, that share corresponds to a payout of about $34.
The fee is flat, so the share it takes falls as the balance grows. A $10 wire on a $100 payout takes 10%. On $50 it takes 20%. On $200 it takes 5%. An artist who withdraws every time a few dollars accrue turns a headline 0% fee into a double-digit one.
Fan-powered royalties make the timing more visible, because each fan’s money is split among the artists that fan streams, and a small catalogue can build balances slowly. Payout method matters as much as payout size. Because the stated range runs from $0.50 to $25, the cheapest withdrawal route and the most expensive one differ by a wide margin on the same balance.
Build the calendar
Each of these three items has a trigger that you can put on a calendar, and none depends on the distributor doing it for you.
- At release: register the work with CAPASSO if any writer is South African or the song streams there, and register the recording in label.gvl with its ISRC. Do both in the release week instead of waiting for the first statement.
- Before each December: check CAPASSO registrations for all songs released in the year, since that is the distribution that decides whether they are paid or left in suspense.
- At the two-year mark: audit older releases for unregistered works and tracks. A track released three years ago and still unregistered is at the edge of the window, and its backlog goes to other writers or labels once the window closes.
- At each payout: divide the payout fee by the balance. If the answer exceeds the share you will accept, say 5%, hold the balance until it clears that line, or switch to a cheaper payout method.
The audit takes one spreadsheet: a row per track with ISRC, release date, writers, CAPASSO status, label.gvl status and the date three years after release. Sort by that last column and the work that is running out of time comes to the top.
The decision for a small catalogue
The money a distributor reports is only part of the picture. Society income arrives through separate registrations, and the three-year limits mean that a missing registration is not a delay but a transfer to other claimants. Do the registrations at release, check them each year ahead of CAPASSO’s December payout, and set a minimum balance before you pull money out of SoundCloud. Those three habits cost little, and each one stops a specific loss.
