Get your music registrations done for you

Mogul gets you 100% paid from your music.

Home Who it's for Partner Royalty Finder Pricing Login Get started

October 7, 2026

How to Release a Song Without Losing Royalties to Bad Metadata

Every streaming play, radio spin, and download your song generates is supposed to turn into a royalty payment. Whether it actually does depends on whether the data attached to that recording matches across every system tracking it. An ISRC code, for example, is what lets performing rights organizations match a specific play back to a specific recording so the right person gets paid. If that code is missing, wrong, or entered differently at the distributor than it is at the rights organization, the match fails and the money either goes unpaid or sits uncollected.

Releasing a song correctly is not just about getting it onto Spotify and Apple Music; it's about making sure the metadata you submit at every step, from the distributor to the performing rights organization to the Mechanical Licensing Collective, says the same thing everywhere.

What You Need Before You Submit Your Song

Before you upload anything, gather what the distributor and rights organizations will ask for. You'll need a finished master audio file, high-resolution cover art, and a release date. You'll also need the full legal name of every songwriter on the track and the exact percentage split each one holds, along with the publisher name tied to each songwriter, including yourself if you're self-published.

Confirm your PRO membership and MLC registration status before you touch the distributor's upload form. If you already have an account and it's active, the metadata you're about to enter can be matched to a registration that already exists. If you're joining for the first time, do it now rather than after the song is live, so the release date and the registration date are close enough that nothing falls into a gap.

Fill In the Metadata That Determines Royalty Matching

The metadata you enter at the distributor stage is what every downstream system uses to identify the song and pay the right people. Performing rights organizations, the MLC, SoundExchange, and the streaming platforms themselves don't listen to the recording and figure out who wrote it. They read the data fields you submitted and match them against their own records. When a field is missing or entered inconsistently, that piece of the royalty simply can't be routed, not because the money doesn't exist, but because nothing on the receiving end can confirm who it belongs to.

This is why metadata accuracy matters more than most artists expect going in. A typo in a songwriter's name, a split that doesn't add up to 100 percent, or a publisher listed one way at the distributor and another way at the PRO can each block a different category of royalty. The fields below are the ones that carry the most weight.

Enter Correct Songwriter Names and Splits

Every songwriter on the track needs their full legal name entered exactly as it appears in their PRO or MLC registration, not a stage name or a shortened version. Alongside each name, you need the exact percentage split that writer holds in the composition. All splits on a song need to total 100 percent. If they don't, or if a co-writer's name is missing or misspelled, that writer's share can't be matched at the PRO or MLC level, and their portion of the royalty gets stuck or paid to the wrong party entirely.

Add the ISRC and UPC Codes

An ISRC, or International Standard Recording Code, identifies one specific recording. A UPC identifies the release as a whole, the single or album package. Distributors usually assign these automatically, but it's worth confirming they're present and correctly attached before the release goes live, since these codes are what let performing rights organizations match plays back to the recording. Prescription Music PR notes that ISRC codes ensure that when your music is played on the radio, PRS for Music and PPL know about it and can pay accordingly. Without one, airplay and streaming plays for that specific recording may not be matched to payment at all, even if the song is otherwise performing well.

Confirm Publisher Information

Each songwriter needs a publisher name and publisher share percentage entered at the distributor, including self-published writers who should list themselves as their own publisher rather than leaving the field blank. This field only works if it matches what's on file with your PRO or MLC. If the publisher is listed differently in the two systems, say a legal entity name at the distributor and a personal name at the PRO, mechanical and performance payments for that share can't reconcile, and the royalty is held until someone corrects it.

Register With a Performing Rights Organization and the Mechanical Licensing Collective

A distributor gets your song onto streaming platforms, but it doesn't collect performance or mechanical royalties on its own. That requires joining a performing rights organization and registering with the Mechanical Licensing Collective, ideally before your release date rather than after. Performing rights organizations collect royalties generated when your music is played or performed, while the MLC collects mechanical royalties generated by streams of the composition itself. Prescription Music PR puts it simply: Join PRS for Music and register your tracks with them. The underlying idea, joining an organization and registering the specific song, applies whichever PRO or collecting body you work with.

Registration has to happen at two levels. You join the organization once, then you register each individual song separately as it's released. If a song is never registered, the royalties it generates at that organization go uncollected, not because they weren't earned, but because there's no registration for the system to pay out against.

The metadata you submit at registration needs to match what you submitted at the distributor, down to the spelling of names and the exact split percentages. A registration that lists a songwriter's name slightly differently than the distributor's metadata, or that shows a 60/40 split when the distributor shows 50/50, creates a mismatch that can delay or block payment until someone catches it and corrects one side.

Submit Your Release Through a Distributor

Once your prerequisites and metadata are ready, submit the release through your chosen distributor. This is where you upload the final audio files and cover art, set your release date, and enter the song and album level metadata covered above, all at the same time as the assets themselves. The distributor is also the aggregator that pushes your release out to Spotify, Apple Music, and the other platforms you're targeting, so the accuracy of what you submit here determines what appears on every platform downstream.

Pay attention to the release date and any pre-order window the distributor offers, since these determine when the platforms schedule the release to go live. Double check every metadata field one more time before you hit submit. Once the release is live, changing a field usually means filing a correction request rather than simply editing a form, so it's worth getting it right the first time.

Check Your Metadata Against What Each Platform Reports

Once your release goes live, compare what actually appears on each streaming platform against what you submitted at the distributor. Check the songwriter credits and, where visible, the ISRC on the live listing, and compare them to what's on file with your PRO or MLC. These should all say the same thing.

If everything matches, there's nothing to do here beyond noting that this release is set up correctly. If something doesn't match, figure out whether it's a small typo in an existing registration or a sign that the registration was never filed in the first place. Those two problems need different fixes. A typo needs a correction request. A missing registration needs you to actually register the song, which is a bigger gap than a spelling error and should be handled first.

Fix Mismatches Before They Cost You Royalties

When you find a mismatch, file the correction with whichever party holds the wrong data. If the distributor's metadata is wrong, submit a metadata edit request through the distributor's dashboard. If the PRO or MLC registration is wrong, file a correction or claim directly with that organization. Fixing the wrong side doesn't help since the two systems still won't match after the change.

A correction typically shows up in a future royalty statement rather than an immediate one, so don't expect the next payment cycle to reflect a fix submitted that same week. Royalties already generated under the incorrect metadata are a separate problem. A correction going forward doesn't automatically pull in money already misrouted or held, and that portion often needs a separate recovery request filed with the collecting body itself.

This is the exact gap Mogul is built to close. Mogul helps artists and songwriters find royalties that may not have reached them and fix registration gaps with PROs, the MLC, and SoundExchange, so mismatches like these don't quietly sit uncollected. Depending on how long a metadata error has been live, the amount recoverable varies, and Mogul can help estimate what may be affected rather than guaranteeing a specific figure.

Confirm Your Release Is Set Up to Get Paid

Before you consider the release finished, run through a final check. Confirm the release appears correctly on the major streaming platforms you targeted. Confirm your PRO and MLC registrations list the same songwriter names and publisher data as the distributor. Confirm the ISRC shows up correctly in the PRO catalog entry for that song.

Once those all match, the release is set up to route royalties correctly, and there's nothing more to configure. Set a reminder to check your royalty statements after the first reporting cycle passes, since that's when you can actually see whether the registered metadata produced a payment that lines up with what you expected.

Know an artist who should read this?

Take Hold of your

Royalties & Registrations

Make sure you are getting paid 100%

Related Posts

October 19, 2026

How to Release a Song Without Losing Royalties to Bad Metadata

October 16, 2026

How to Get My Music on Spotify Through a Distributor or Direct

October 15, 2026

How to Start a Music Publishing Company or Hire an Admin Instead

October 14, 2026

Can You Upload Music to Spotify Directly and What It Costs You

October 13, 2026

Where Self Music Publishing Costs Songwriters Money

October 12, 2026

What the Mechanical Royalty Rate Is and How It Gets Paid

Home Who's it for?Pricing Partners Log In

Terms of Service Privacy Policy info@usemogul.com Blog Help Center

© 2025 Mogul. All Rights Reserved.