Every time a song is streamed, its writer earns a royalty — but only if the song has been registered, matched and claimed. Ortpur is a UK music publisher that finds the royalties your songs earned but were never paid, and collects them.
Money travels from a play to your pocket through usage reports, registrations, matching and claims. A break at any hand-off and it stops moving. These are the six breaks we find most.
The play is reported, but titles or identifiers don’t connect the recording to the song — so nobody is paid for it.
The song is known, but nobody has claimed your share of it. The money is held, waiting for an owner.
The song was never registered with the society in that territory, so there is no route for the money to follow.
The money is paid — to the wrong party, the wrong share or the wrong territory.
The money is identified but parked while ownership or a conflicting claim is resolved.
A distribution should have included the song or the share, and passed it by.
In the United States, streaming services pay songwriters’ mechanical royalties to The MLC. The MLC passes each song’s share only to whoever has registered and claimed it. If nobody has, the money is held.
Not forever. From early 2027, The MLC plans to begin paying unclaimed royalties out to other rights-holders by market share, starting with January 2021 usage and moving forward month by month. Once a month has been distributed, it can no longer be claimed from The MLC.
And it isn’t only unsigned writers. Songs slip through with a publisher elsewhere too: a new album, a feature, a change of deal.
Needle drops early 2027 · January 2021 first
in older US streaming mechanicals, from 2007 to 2020, was still unmatched at The MLC in May 2026.
Source: The MLC, Historical Unmatched Royalties report, May 2026.
Recovery is methodical, not speculative. Every claim rests on evidence of ownership and use, and goes to the organisation that actually holds the money.
We check your songs against society records — registrations, matches, claims and statements — and find the shares nobody is collecting.
Ownership is documented: writers, splits, recordings and identifiers, lined up so a claim stands up.
Registrations are filed or corrected, and claims go to the society holding the money. Then we follow them through to resolution.
Recovered money is paid through with a clear record of what was found, claimed and collected — and the registrations stay right, so it keeps flowing.
Every engagement runs under a written agreement that sets the songs, territories, term and basis before any work begins. Nothing is pursued outside it.
You keep your copyrights. We register your songs, claim what they are owed and collect it across UK, US and international societies — for a commission set out in the agreement.
Best forWriters without a publisher, or songs outside an existing deal.
A defined job under a written mandate: one territory swept thoroughly, or a named list of songs ring-fenced for recovery.
Best forA known problem, a specific project or a focused first engagement.
Sell songs, or a share of them, to Ortpur. We take on the registration and collection work that makes them pay properly.
Best forWriters and rights-holders who would rather realise the value now.
You may not need to leave. If a song sits inside an existing deal, the fix may be for that company to register it — we will show you exactly what is missing. Songs outside any deal, we can register, claim and collect directly.
Make the songs clear.Find where the money stopped.Claim it from whoever holds it.Keep the records right.
Ortpur Limited is a music publishing company, registered in England & Wales in 2022. We work across UK, US and international collection societies for songwriters, artists and rights-holders whose songs are earning more than they are being paid.
Alongside recovery, we do the everyday publishing work that stops money going missing again: registering works, keeping splits and identifiers consistent, handling society queries and corrections, and checking statements against real activity.
Royalty recovery is the process of finding music royalties that were earned but never paid to the rights-holder, then claiming them from the society or organisation holding the money. It covers income held in suspense accounts, unmatched royalties and revenue skipped from distributions.
A suspense account is where a collection society holds royalties it has collected but cannot yet pay out, usually because the work or the rights-holder has not been identified. The money waits until a valid claim matches it to its owner; after a set period it may be released back into general distributions.
The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) is the US organisation that administers the blanket mechanical licence for streaming and download services in the United States. It collects the mechanical royalties those services owe and pays each song’s share to whoever has registered and claimed it. The MLC plans to begin distributing unclaimed royalties to other rights-holders by market share in early 2027.
Not necessarily. If a song is covered by an existing publishing or administration deal, the fix may be for that company to register it, and we will show you exactly what is missing. Songs outside any deal, we can register, claim and collect directly.
Yes. A recovery mandate can be geographic — covering a single territory such as the United States — or run track-by-track against a defined list of works or recordings. Scope, term and commission basis are all set out in the agreement.
Send us the songs. We will tell you plainly whether there is money to find, and what it would take to collect it.
info@ortpur.com