US royalties body SoundExchange has published its financial results for 2009, which have been much anticipated by supporters and critics alike. They reveal incoming royalties of $204.2 million for the year (up 20% on 2008), outgoing distributions to artists and copyright holders of $155.5 million (up 55%), and operating costs of $16.7 million. What’s likely to provoke more debate is the company’s year-end balance of $294 million, so SoundExchange has broken that down, with the key figure being the $111 million of ‘unpayable funds’. Of that, $43 million is unclaimed funds for artists and copyright owners who haven’t registered with SoundExchange; $23 million is related to bad metadata; $23 million is unclaimed money by foreign collecting societies, and $22 million is in limbo due to account issues and paperwork. SoundExchange says it paid out $38.3 million of the $111 million in Q1-Q3 2010.
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