What happens to music royalties when an artist dies?

The short answer - royalties do not stop at death

What happens to music royalties when an artist dies is simpler than many families expect - the royalties do not stop. Songs and recordings keep earning money long after the person who made them has gone, and that income legally passes to their estate and then to their heirs. In the UK, a song keeps earning for the writer's lifetime plus 70 years, and a recording earns for 70 years from its release. The catch is that none of this money is paid out automatically. Someone has to actively claim it, prove who is entitled to it, and keep it flowing - and that is where most families get stuck.

How long music royalties last after death

Music royalties are generated by copyright, and copyright outlives the artist by decades. Under UK law, as set out by the UK Intellectual Property Office, copyright in a song - the melody and lyrics - lasts for the life of the writer plus 70 years. Copyright in a sound recording - the actual recorded track - lasts for 70 years from the year it was released. So if your relative wrote and recorded music, their work can keep generating income for two or three generations. A song written by someone who died this year will still be earning royalties in the 2090s. That makes music rights a genuine long-term asset, not just a sentimental one.

Who inherits the royalties - wills, intestacy and the executor

Music rights are property, so they pass on death like a house or a bank account. If there is a will, the rights go to whoever the will names, and the executor - the person appointed to carry out the will - is responsible for gathering them in. If there is no will, the intestacy rules decide who inherits. GOV.UK sets these rules out in plain language - broadly, a surviving spouse or civil partner comes first, then children, then wider family. In that case a close relative usually applies to become the administrator, which is the same job as an executor. Whoever takes on the role becomes the person that royalty societies and platforms will deal with, so it matters that they know the music rights exist at all.

The song and the recording are two different assets

One piece of music usually contains two separate copyrights, and they earn two separate streams of money. The first is the song itself - the composition and lyrics. Income from the song is called publishing income, and it is earned whenever the song is streamed, broadcast, performed live or covered by someone else. The second is the master recording - the specific recorded version. Income from the recording comes from streams, downloads, physical sales and airplay of that recording. Your relative may have owned both, one, or a share of each, depending on the deals they signed. This is why estates often find money arriving from several different organisations - each one is paying for a different right.

What happens at PRS and PPL when a member dies

PRS for Music is the UK society that collects songwriter royalties when music is streamed, broadcast or performed. PPL collects royalties for performers and recording owners when recordings are played on radio, TV or in public places. When either society learns that a member has died, the account is effectively frozen - payments stop going out, but the royalties do not disappear. Income keeps accruing in the deceased member's account. To release it, the estate must notify the society, provide a death certificate, and then supply the grant of probate or letters of administration proving who is legally entitled to take over. Once the paperwork is accepted, the account is transferred to the estate or the beneficiaries and the accrued money is paid out.

What happens at the distributor

If your relative released music independently, their streaming income from Spotify, Apple Music and other platforms flows through a distributor such as DistroKid, TuneCore or CD Baby. These are ordinary online accounts, and this is where practical problems start. If nobody has the login details, the estate cannot see what the catalogue is earning or change where the money goes. Payments may still be going to a bank account that has been frozen as part of the estate. And some distributors charge an annual fee - if the subscription lapses because the card on file has been cancelled, the music can be removed from streaming services entirely. Securing access to the distributor account, keeping any subscription active, and updating the payment details are among the most urgent jobs after a death.

Unclaimed and black box royalties

There is often money that was already going uncollected before the artist died. Royalties are matched to people through registrations and data, and when a song was never registered with a society, or was registered with errors, the money it earns sits unmatched. In the industry this unclaimed pool is known as black box royalties. Independent artists are especially prone to this - many never registered with PPL at all, never claimed international income, or released music under slightly different name spellings that broke the matching. For an estate, this means the task is not just keeping existing payments flowing. There may be years of historic income sitting with societies in the UK and abroad that nobody has ever claimed.

What heirs should do, in order

If you have inherited a relative's music, work through these steps in order:

• Find the will, confirm who the executor or administrator is, and apply for the grant of probate or letters of administration - GOV.UK explains the process and current fees.
• Gather the paperwork - PRS and PPL membership details, distributor login details, any record or publishing contracts, and bank statements showing where royalty payments were coming from.
• Notify PRS and PPL of the death with the death certificate, then follow up with the grant of probate so the accounts can be transferred.
• Secure the distributor account, keep any annual subscription active so the music stays live, and update the payout details to the estate's account.
• List every release you can find - streaming profiles, old CDs, and anything on YouTube - so you know what the catalogue actually contains.
• Have the catalogue audited for unclaimed income, missing registrations and metadata errors, in the UK and internationally.
• Decide how the catalogue will be administered long term - by the family directly, or by a specialist working on the estate's behalf.

Why inherited catalogues often earn less than they should

A catalogue that has just changed hands is usually underperforming, for unglamorous reasons. Registrations lapse when contact details go stale. Works that were never registered with a society earn nothing from that society, however often they are played. Metadata errors - wrong name spellings, missing identifiers, incorrect ownership splits - quietly send money to the wrong place or into the unclaimed pool. And most artists handled all of this informally in their heads, so the knowledge of what exists and where it is registered dies with them. None of this is irreversible. Registrations can be corrected, historic income can be claimed, and metadata can be fixed - but it takes someone who knows the systems to do it.

Getting help without paying upfront

Most families have no reason to know how PRS, PPL, distributors and international societies work, and there is no need to learn it all while grieving. Specialist administrators do this work for estates on a commission basis - they take a percentage of the royalties they actually collect, so there is no upfront cost and no fee unless money is recovered. Code Group Music works with families, heirs and executors to audit inherited catalogues, transfer PRS and PPL accounts, secure distribution, and claim historic unpaid income. If you have inherited music and want to understand what it is earning and what it could earn, the first step is a catalogue assessment. Begin at codegroupmusic.co.uk/#catalog-assessment.

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