# The Unclaimed Economy

> 4.25 million musical works hold unclaimed US mechanical royalties at The MLC — cross-referenced against 12 data sources. 67.5% are registered for performance rights at ASCAP; 73% stream on Spotify.

*Published by [TrackForge](https://trackforge.studio) -- 7 March 2026 -- Updated 19 July 2026*

*3.2 billion records analysed across 12 cross-referenced data sources*

---

The Music Modernization Act of 2018 established the Mechanical Licensing Collective to resolve the "black box" of unmatched mechanical royalties in the United States. Seven years on, our analysis of the MLC's public data -- cross-referenced against 3.2 billion records from 12 independent sources -- reveals that **4.25 million musical works** still have partially or fully unclaimed royalties.

The central finding is structural, not operational. **67.5% of unclaimed works are registered for performance royalties at ASCAP** -- their writers registered with a PRO, but nobody registered the mechanical share at the MLC. 73% of the associated recordings are actively streaming on Spotify. This is not dormant catalogue. These are works generating revenue today, where a portion of the mechanical royalty has no registered claimant.

The MMA created a system to *collect* mechanical royalties. It did not solve the upstream problem: *who registers them*. The result is a structural gap between performance and mechanical registration that affects all publisher types equally, compounds when creators die, and is invisible to any single dataset in isolation.

---

## Finding 01: The Scale of the Unclaimed Economy

Of 53.4 million works registered with the MLC, 4.25 million have royalties that no one is collecting. The system is overwhelmingly under-claimed, not over-claimed.

The distribution of unclaimed shares is not uniform. Nearly half of all unclaimed works (46.8%) fall in the 50-74% unclaimed band, with the single largest cluster at **exactly 50%** -- comprising 1,546,295 works. This is not random; it is a structural signature explored in Finding 3.

At the extremes: **660,600 works are 100% orphaned** -- no publisher, no writer, no rights holder has registered any claim. Yet 52.2% of these orphans possess an ISWC, meaning they are identifiable compositions that simply have no claimant in the US mechanical system. Every one of these works that is actively streaming (Finding 4) is generating mechanical royalties that will be redistributed to registered publishers -- predominantly the majors -- if no claim is filed within the MMA's statutory window.

### Distribution of Unclaimed Royalty Shares (4.25M works)

| Unclaimed Band | Works     |
|----------------|-----------|
| 1-24%          | 359,327   |
| 25-49%         | 680,592   |
| 50-74%         | 1,990,048 |
| 75-99%         | 559,994   |
| 100%           | 660,600   |

### The mirror image: over-claiming

If 4.25M works are under-claimed, how many are over-claimed? Only **41,444 works** (0.1% of 43M with mechanical rights entries) have publisher shares summing above 100%, and the maximum observed is 134%. The system is overwhelmingly asymmetric: under-registration dwarfs over-registration by a factor of 100:1. This asymmetry itself is a finding -- it suggests the problem is not competing claims but *absent* claims.

### Summary by Unclaimed Category

| Category                    | Works     | Detail                                                              |
|-----------------------------|-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------|
| True Orphans (100%)         | 660,600   | Zero rights holders. 52.2% have an ISWC -- identifiable but unclaimed. |
| Majority Unclaimed (50-99%) | 2,550,042 | One or more parties registered, but the majority of shares remain open. |
| Minority Unclaimed (1-49%)  | 1,039,919 | Most rights registered, but a fractional share is missing.           |
| Over-claimed (>100%)        | 41,444    | 0.1% of works. Max 134%. The system barely over-claims at all.       |

---

## Finding 02: The Registration Gap: Performance vs Mechanical

2.85 million works with unclaimed mechanical royalties are registered for performance royalties at ASCAP. The writers showed up. The mechanical registration didn't follow.

This is the central finding of this analysis. By cross-referencing the MLC's unclaimed works against ASCAP's 13.1 million registered titles, we find that **67.5% of unclaimed MLC works have a title match in ASCAP's performance rights database**.

These 2,854,874 works are not unregistered because the creators are unknown or disengaged. The writers registered with ASCAP for their performance royalties. But the corresponding mechanical share at the MLC was never registered -- typically the publisher's responsibility, or in the case of self-published writers, a step that was simply never taken.

### Unclaimed MLC Works: ASCAP Registration Status

| Status                 | Works     | Percentage |
|------------------------|-----------|------------|
| Registered at ASCAP    | 2,854,874 | 67.6%      |
| Not found in ASCAP     | 1,372,402 | 32.4%      |

*Note: Denominator is 4,227,276 (works with non-empty titles suitable for matching), not the full 4,250,626 unclaimed total. The 23,350-work difference (0.5%) comprises works with blank or null titles that cannot participate in title-based cross-referencing.*

> The Music Modernization Act solved the collection problem. It did not solve the registration problem. Two-thirds of unclaimed works have writers who registered elsewhere -- the mechanical claim simply never followed.

This finding has a direct implication for the MLC's statutory distribution mechanism. Under the MMA, unclaimed royalties are held for a period and then distributed on a **market-share basis** to existing registered publishers. The structural beneficiaries of this redistribution are necessarily the largest registered publishers -- Universal Music Publishing, Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell -- because market-share distribution is proportional to existing registrations. This is not an accusation of wrongdoing; it is a mathematical consequence of the mechanism. The works generating these royalties have identifiable creators (they are registered at ASCAP), but because no mechanical claim exists, the royalties flow to the largest incumbents by default. The MMA created a system that assumes registration will happen and provides no mechanism to ensure it does.

**Methodological caveat:** The ASCAP cross-reference uses normalised title matching, not writer-level verification. Title collisions (different works with identical titles) will produce some false positives. However, at 67.5% match rate across 4.25M works, even significant false-positive noise would not change the directional finding. ASCAP is one of three major US PROs; BMI and SESAC data would likely increase the match rate further.

---

## Finding 03: The 50% Problem

The unclaimed economy is not concentrated in any one publisher segment. It is a structural gap in how the writer/publisher split is registered -- and it affects everyone equally.

A natural hypothesis is that certain publisher types -- DIY platforms, indie labels, or foreign CMOs -- would show higher unclaimed rates than the majors. **The data does not support this.**

We categorised the top 50 publishers by volume into four segments: Major (Warner Chappell, Sony/ATV, Universal, BMG), Indie (Kobalt, Concord, Downtown), DIY (TuneCore, CD Baby, Songtrust, Sentric, BeatStars), and CMO/Administrator (SIAE, GEMA, MCPS, SUISA, NCB). The average unclaimed percentage ranges from 45.7% to 55.6%, with a **median of 50.0% everywhere**.

The structural evidence: of the 1.55 million works at exactly 50% unclaimed, the vast majority have **one publisher registered at a 50% share**. The other half -- typically the writer's share or a co-publisher -- is absent from the MLC. Combined with Finding 2 (the ASCAP cross-reference), this builds a clear causal chain: **the writer registers with their PRO for performance royalties, the publisher registers their 50% mechanical share at the MLC, but nobody registers the writer's 50% mechanical share.**

### The 0% share anomaly

**1,010,772 unclaimed works** have a publisher registered at 0% economic share -- an administrator-only registration claiming no money. (This figure covers all unclaimed works; a narrower scope of majority-unclaimed works yields ~505K, roughly half.) The top entities: BeatStars Publishing (85,598 works), IPRS India (80,584), SGAE Spain (24,758). These are typically foreign CMOs or beat marketplace platforms registering administrative presence in the US system without taking an economic position. The actual ownership remains unregistered.

### Average Unclaimed % by Publisher Segment

| Segment              | Works   | Avg Unclaimed | Median | P25   | P75   |
|----------------------|---------|---------------|--------|-------|-------|
| DIY: Soundreef       | 24,295  | 55.6%         | 50.0%  | 50.0% | 75.0% |
| Indie: Downtown      | 63,905  | 53.7%         | 50.0%  | 50.0% | 66.7% |
| DIY: BeatStars       | 97,009  | 53.4%         | 50.0%  | 50.0% | 50.0% |
| DIY: TuneCore        | 151,006 | 50.4%         | 50.0%  | 50.0% | 50.0% |
| DIY: Songtrust       | 122,212 | 50.3%         | 50.0%  | 50.0% | 50.0% |
| Major: BMG           | 127,359 | 50.2%         | 50.0%  | 42.5% | 60.0% |
| Major: Sony/ATV      | 142,717 | 50.0%         | 50.0%  | 37.5% | 66.7% |
| DIY: Sentric         | 62,067  | 49.8%         | 50.0%  | 50.0% | 50.0% |
| Indie: Concord       | 38,238  | 49.2%         | 50.0%  | 33.3% | 66.7% |
| CMO / Admin          | 462,669 | 48.3%         | 50.0%  | 33.3% | 62.5% |
| Major: Warner Chappell | 211,087 | 48.2%       | 50.0%  | 33.3% | 65.0% |
| Major: Universal     | 225,861 | 47.8%         | 50.0%  | 33.3% | 61.7% |
| DIY: CD Baby         | 169,915 | 47.0%         | 50.0%  | 33.0% | 65.0% |
| Indie: Kobalt        | 95,690  | 45.7%         | 50.0%  | 25.0% | 60.0% |

---

## Finding 04: These Works Are Not Dormant

97% of unclaimed works have a recording. 73.4% of those recordings are on Spotify. This is active catalogue generating revenue with no mechanical claimant.

A reasonable assumption might be that unclaimed works are obscure, inactive, or historical. The data contradicts this.

### Unclaimed Works: From Composition to Active Stream

| Stage          | Value     |
|----------------|-----------|
| Unclaimed works | 4,250,626 |
| With ISRC      | 97.2%     |
| Unique ISRCs   | 7,153,204 |
| On Spotify     | 73.4%     |

**97.2%** of unclaimed works have at least one associated ISRC -- meaning a recording exists and has been distributed. Using the full MLC ISRC-Work mapping (7.15M ISRCs from 3.35M unclaimed works), we matched these against 256 million Spotify tracks and found **5,249,731 ISRCs** (73.4%) present on the platform. A 100,000-ISRC stratified sample returned a higher match rate of 83%, likely because sampling over-represents works with more ISRC variants; the full-join figure is the more conservative and reliable measure.

These works are actively generating streams. Under the MMA's statutory framework, the MLC collects mechanical royalties on these streams. For the unclaimed portion of each work, those royalties accumulate in escrow before eventual market-share distribution to registered publishers -- predominantly the majors. The creators who registered with ASCAP (Finding 2) are receiving their performance royalties via their PRO. The mechanical share sits uncollected.

### What we cannot measure

We have ISRCs on Spotify but not per-track streaming counts. Spotify's public popularity score (0-100) is ordinal, not a play count, and the Spotify Charts dataset covers only the top 200 tracks per market. We therefore make no revenue estimate. The finding is binary: these works are streaming or they are not. 73.4% are.

What *is* measurable is the destination of the royalties: under the MMA's statutory framework, unclaimed mechanical royalties held past the prescribed period are distributed on a market-share basis. For the 5.25 million ISRCs actively streaming on Spotify with no mechanical claimant, the default beneficiary is not the creator.

---

> Findings 1-4 establish the thesis: unclaimed mechanical royalties are structural, universal, and active. Findings 5-6 examine two compounding factors -- missing identifiers and creator death -- that make the gap harder to close.

---

## Finding 05: The ISWC Desert

42.5% of works in the US mechanical licensing system lack the global identifier that enables cross-border royalty collection.

The International Standard Musical Work Code (ISWC) is the only globally accepted identifier for musical compositions. It connects a work registered at the MLC to the same work at PRS (UK), GEMA (Germany), or SACEM (France). Without it, cross-border matching relies on title and writer name fuzzy matching -- a process that fails routinely.

### ISWC Coverage Across MLC Works

| Category     | Works | ISWC Coverage |
|--------------|-------|---------------|
| All MLC Works | 53.4M | --           |
| With ISWC    | 30.7M | 57.5%         |
| Without ISWC | 22.7M | 42.5%         |

The gap is correlated with unclaimed status. Among unclaimed works, only **45.6%** have an ISWC, compared to **58.5%** for claimed works -- a 12.9 percentage-point gap. The causal direction is ambiguous: works without ISWCs may be harder to match, or works that nobody claims may never get assigned one. Either way, missing identifiers and missing claims compound each other.

### ISWC Coverage: Claimed vs Unclaimed Works

| Status          | With ISWC | Without ISWC |
|-----------------|-----------|--------------|
| Claimed Works   | 58.5%     | 41.5%        |
| Unclaimed Works | 45.6%     | 54.4%        |

For context, the open-source MusicBrainz database contains only **343,303 unique ISWCs** -- approximately 1.1% of the MLC's ISWC space. The gap between proprietary and open identifier coverage is vast, and represents a significant barrier to independent verification of rights data.

---

## Finding 06: The Succession Gap

When creators die, their mechanical royalties often die with them. 84% of deceased music creators lack the identifier needed to collect.

Cross-referencing the MLC with Wikidata's structured data on 506,564 deceased individuals with music industry roles reveals a measurable failure in rights succession.

### Deceased Music Creators: Identifier Coverage

| Identifier    | Value   | Coverage |
|---------------|---------|----------|
| Total deceased | 506,564 | --      |
| MusicBrainz ID | --     | 61.2%    |
| Discogs ID    | --      | 55.6%    |
| With IPI      | --      | 16.0%    |
| Spotify ID    | --      | 15.5%    |
| No IDs at all | 173,605 | 34.3%    |

Only **81,069** (16%) of deceased music creators have an IPI number. The remaining 425,495 are invisible to the royalty system, even though 54% have MusicBrainz IDs and 47% have Discogs IDs. They exist in the metadata ecosystem; they aren't connected to the payment infrastructure.

Where we can match -- using those 81,069 IPIs -- we find **19,431 works** with unclaimed royalties linked to a deceased writer. These works average **62% unclaimed**, meaningfully higher than the 57.3% overall average. Death accelerates the unclaimed rate, consistent with the hypothesis that estates fail to maintain registrations.

### Deceased IPI Holders by Decade of Death

| Decade | Deceased IPI Holders |
|--------|---------------------|
| 1950s  | 4,708               |
| 1960s  | 2,427               |
| 1970s  | 4,813               |
| 1980s  | 6,834               |
| 1990s  | 11,868              |
| 2000s  | 14,063              |
| 2010s  | 18,940              |
| 2020s  | 14,197              |

The visible dip in the 1960s is not demographic -- it reflects the founding of the IPI system. CISAC established the IPI (Interested Parties Information) identifier in 1965; creators who died before widespread IPI adoption are less likely to appear in this dataset.

The problem is worsening. The 2010s saw 18,940 IPI-holding creators die -- the highest decade on record -- and the 2020s are on track to match that pace (14,197 through early 2026). Each death creates a window where mechanical registrations may lapse if estates are unaware of their obligations.

> 425,000 deceased music creators have metadata identities across open databases but no connection to the mechanical royalty payment system. The bridge exists; it simply hasn't been built.

---

## Conclusion: The Registration Problem Is Solvable

The data points to a specific, bounded failure -- not a diffuse, intractable one. That distinction matters.

Six findings, one structural thesis: the Music Modernization Act built a collection system and assumed registration would follow. It didn't. Seven years later, 4.25 million works sit in a gap between performance and mechanical rights systems -- registered at one, absent from the other -- while generating active streaming revenue that accrues to the largest incumbents by default.

But the shape of the problem also reveals why it is solvable. These are not unknown works by unknown creators. **67.5% are registered at ASCAP.** The writers are identified. **73% are on Spotify.** The recordings are active. **97% have ISRCs.** The distribution chain is intact. The only thing missing is a mechanical registration -- a form filing, not a discovery problem.

Three interventions follow directly from the data:

### 1. Cross-Reference at Scale

The ASCAP-MLC gap (Finding 2) is addressable by systematic cross-referencing of performance and mechanical registrations. A writer registered at a PRO whose publisher hasn't filed at the MLC is a *known* missing registration, not a mystery. The infrastructure to identify these gaps exists; the institutional incentive to act on them does not.

### 2. Fix the Succession Chain

425,000 deceased creators have metadata identities (MusicBrainz, Discogs) but no IPI -- the key to royalty collection. Bridging open identifiers to the payment system would reconnect estates to revenue streams that currently lapse at death. The data linkage is deterministic, not probabilistic.

### 3. Assign the Missing ISWCs

42.5% of MLC works lack the global identifier that enables cross-border collection. Without ISWCs, a work registered at the MLC is invisible to PRS, GEMA, SACEM, and every other territorial society. Closing this gap is a prerequisite for any international resolution of unclaimed royalties.

None of these interventions require new legislation, new infrastructure, or new technology. They require **someone to do the work** -- to cross-reference the datasets that already exist, to file the registrations that were never made, to connect the identifiers that were never linked. The problem is administrative, not conceptual. The data to solve it is sitting in public and licensed databases. The question is whether the incentive structure of the current system -- which redistributes unclaimed royalties to incumbents on a market-share basis -- will ever produce the motivation to close the gap it profits from.

> The unclaimed economy is not a mystery. It is a filing problem at scale -- and it will persist for exactly as long as the parties who benefit from redistribution are the same parties expected to close the registration gap.

---

## What This Means for Your Catalogue

Every finding in this research has a direct analogue at the individual catalogue level. If 67.5% of unclaimed works are registered at a PRO, the first question any publisher should ask is: *are my works among them?*

### The Lifecycle of an Unclaimed Royalty

What happens when a work generates streaming revenue but has no mechanical registration at the MLC:

1. **Work Streamed** -- Recording plays on Spotify, Apple Music, etc.
2. **Mechanical Royalty Generated** -- DSP owes royalty on the underlying composition.
3. **MLC Collects** -- Statutory body receives the mechanical royalty.
4. **Claimant Search** -- MLC checks: is a publisher or writer registered?
5. **No Claimant Found** -- Writer registered at ASCAP -- but not at the MLC.
6. **Royalty Enters Escrow** -- Held for the statutory period. Clock starts ticking.
7. **Statutory Period Expires** -- No claim filed. Royalty becomes distributable.
8. **Market-Share Redistribution** -- Royalty paid to largest registered publishers by default.

**The outcome:** The creator's work generates the royalty. A major publisher -- who has no connection to the work -- receives it. Not through a claim, but through the MMA's default redistribution mechanism.

**Revenue that is leaking, not lost.** The distinction matters. "Lost" implies the money has disappeared. It hasn't. Mechanical royalties on unclaimed works are being collected by the MLC -- they are sitting in escrow, accruing on a statutory countdown. When the holding period expires, those royalties are redistributed on a market-share basis to the largest registered publishers. The money isn't missing from the system. It is being collected, held, and given to someone else.

**Yield erosion you can measure.** Catalogue owners increasingly think in yield terms -- annual revenue as a proportion of catalogue value. Every unregistered mechanical share is a direct drag on that yield. Unlike streaming market dynamics, which no individual publisher controls, registration gaps are entirely within the owner's power to close. An unclaimed mechanical share on an actively streaming work is not a market risk. It is an administrative failure with a calculable cost -- and it is the single highest-ROI fix available to any catalogue owner, because the revenue already exists. It simply needs to be claimed.

**Asset value compression.** Music catalogue transactions now routinely price at 15-20x net publisher share. Buyers -- Hipgnosis, Round Hill, Primary Wave, Concord, and the institutional capital behind them -- conduct extensive due diligence before acquisition. A catalogue with significant unregistered mechanical shares is, by definition, under-earning relative to its potential. The gap between what a catalogue demonstrably earns and what it *should* earn is exactly where valuation discounts are applied. Incomplete registrations signal an unmanaged asset, and unmanaged assets compress the multiple. For any publisher considering a future sale, liquidity event, or catalogue valuation, unclaimed mechanicals are not just lost income -- they are lost enterprise value at a double-digit multiple.

### The Valuation Gap (Illustrative)

Identical 500-work catalogue. One fully registered, one with typical registration gaps. The same music -- different enterprise value.

| Metric                   | Fully Registered       | 50% Unclaimed              |
|--------------------------|------------------------|----------------------------|
| Annual Revenue           | £120,000              | £84,000                    |
| Performance royalties    | Collecting             | Collecting                 |
| Mechanical royalties     | Collecting             | 50% in escrow              |
| ISWC assigned            | Yes                    | No                         |
| Cross-border collection  | Active                 | Impaired                   |
| **Catalogue Valuation**  | **£2.16M** (at 18x)   | **£1.18-1.34M** (at 14-16x) |

**Enterprise value lost to registration gaps: £820K-£980K**

*Illustrative example using hypothetical figures. Actual multiples vary by catalogue age, genre, streaming trajectory, and buyer. Revenue reduction reflects lost mechanical share only; multiple compression reflects buyer due diligence discount for incomplete registrations. Both effects compound.*

**A fiduciary obligation, not just a commercial one.** Publishers exist, contractually, to administer rights on behalf of their writers. If you hold publishing on a work and have not registered its mechanical share at the MLC, you are not only forgoing your own revenue -- you are failing to collect on behalf of the writers whose royalties you are contracted to administer. For self-published writers, the gap is simpler but no less consequential: you registered with your PRO, your performance royalties flow correctly, but your mechanical share has been accumulating in escrow since January 2021 -- destined for redistribution to the majors unless you file the claim.

**The cost of inaction compounds.** This is not a one-time loss. Every month that a work remains unregistered is another month of mechanical royalties entering the redistribution pipeline. Every statutory distribution cycle that passes converts recoverable royalties into permanently redistributed ones. The problem is not static; it is accumulative. The longer the gap persists, the more value transfers irreversibly from the rightful owner to the default beneficiary.

The audit is straightforward in principle: match your catalogue against the MLC's public unclaimed index, cross-reference your PRO registrations, and identify works where you hold publishing but never filed the mechanical claim. Check your ISWC coverage (Finding 5) -- works without ISWCs are invisible to every collection society outside the US. If you've inherited or acquired catalogue from a deceased creator (Finding 6), verify that mechanical registrations survived the transfer. These are not abstract problems. They are line items on a balance sheet that should be showing revenue and aren't.

Consider a songwriter who registered with ASCAP in 2015 and released through a distributor. Their performance royalties flow correctly through their PRO. But if neither they nor their publisher registered the mechanical share at the MLC, every stream since January 2021 has generated a mechanical royalty that sits in escrow. After the statutory holding period, that royalty is redistributed proportionally to Universal, Sony, and Warner Chappell -- not because they claimed the work, but because the MMA's default mechanism allocates unclaimed funds by market share. The songwriter's ASCAP registration proves they exist. The MLC's unclaimed index proves the money is waiting. The only missing piece is a registration.

This pattern repeats across millions of works. The audit to identify them is deterministic -- the same cross-referencing methodology behind this research.

TrackForge built the cross-referencing infrastructure described in this research -- 3.2 billion records across 12 sources, deterministic matching, no probabilistic guesswork -- because we believe the registration gap is the defining inefficiency in music rights. We use it commercially to recover unclaimed royalties for our clients. We publish this research because the scale of the problem exceeds any single company's client base, and because structural problems require structural transparency to solve.

---

## Appendix: Data Sources & Methodology

All findings derive from deterministic SQL queries against structured datasets. No machine learning models, no probabilistic matching, no revenue estimation.

### Data Sources

| Source              | Records |
|---------------------|---------|
| MLC Unclaimed Index | 4.25M   |
| MLC Work Metadata   | 53.4M   |
| MLC Rights Index    | 45.4M   |
| MLC All Rights      | 145.6M  |
| MLC ISRC-Work       | 37M     |
| ASCAP Works         | 13.1M   |
| Spotify Tracks      | 256M    |
| Wikidata Deceased   | 506K    |
| MusicBrainz ISWCs   | 343K    |

### Analysis Pipeline

1. **Data Acquisition** -- All datasets stored as Parquet on Cloudflare R2. 1,835 files, 3.2 billion+ rows across 12 sources. Queried via DuckDB with httpfs extension.
2. **MLC Internal Joins** -- Unclaimed works joined to rights, metadata, and ISRC tables via MLC work_id. Share analysis uses all_rights with role and rights_type filters.
3. **ASCAP Cross-Reference** -- Normalised title matching (UPPER + TRIM) between MLC unclaimed titles and ASCAP works. Title collisions acknowledged as a source of false positives.
4. **Spotify Match** -- Unclaimed ISRCs matched against 256M Spotify tracks (Hive-partitioned by ISRC prefix). Both sample-based (100K) and full-join (7.15M) rates reported.
5. **Succession Analysis** -- Deceased rights holders matched via exact IPI join. No fuzzy matching. Only deterministic matches reported.
6. **Publisher Classification** -- Top 50 publishers by unclaimed volume manually classified as Major, Indie, DIY, or CMO/Admin by the research team.

### Limitations

This analysis is limited to the US mechanical licensing system. A work "unclaimed" at the MLC may be fully claimed at PRS, GEMA, SACEM, or other territorial societies. We do not estimate revenue impact, as per-work streaming counts are unavailable. The ASCAP cross-reference uses title matching, which introduces false positives from title collisions; BMI and SESAC data are not included, which likely undercounts the performance/mechanical gap. The deceased analysis is bounded by Wikidata's coverage of notable artists. Publisher classifications use entity name matching and may contain minor errors from variant names. The over-claiming analysis counts mechanical publisher shares only; including writer shares may yield different totals depending on how the MLC allocates share types.

**Temporal limitation:** All findings represent a single point-in-time snapshot. The MLC does not publish historical snapshots of its data, so we cannot show whether the unclaimed rate is improving, stable, or worsening since the MLC's launch in January 2021. A longitudinal study would require periodic data captures over multiple years -- a significant gap in the available evidence base.

---

## Disclosure

TrackForge is a catalogue management and rights intelligence platform. We provide rights audit, enrichment, and recovery services to music publishers and rights holders. This research note uses public and licensed data sources to analyse structural patterns in the US mechanical licensing system. The analysis was not commissioned by any third party. TrackForge's commercial services include identifying unclaimed royalties for clients -- readers should consider this when evaluating our findings.

For methodology questions or data access requests, contact **research@trackforge.studio**

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*Source: [The Unclaimed Economy](https://trackforge.studio/research/unclaimed-economy)*