Converge and Mutoid Man drummer Ben Koller and royalty expert and educator Dan Hegarty (Conflict One Zero) have teamed up to launch the Heavy Music Collective, a new division of Word Collections focused on protecting and securing royalties for heavy music artists.
Backed by Metallica's Black Squirrel Partners – who came on board as a lead investor in Word Collections in 2023 – the Heavy Music Collective already boasts an impressive roster of clients, including Metallica, Baroness, Converge, The Offspring, Greta Van Fleet, and Yngwie Malmsteen.
In a newly shared video, Koller explained the collective's mission to help artists claim royalties they might otherwise lose under the current system: "If you have music on the streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify, you probably want to hear about this. In 2018 the Music Modernization Act was passed," said Koller as transcribed by The PRP.
"This law created an agency called the MLC, the Mechanical Licensing Collective. When you put your song on Spotify, it has two royalty halves. One is the sound recording, one is the musical composition.
"The musical composition generates a mechanical royalty. Spotify and Apple Music, and everybody else has to pay that money to the mechanical licensing collective. Once it's there, it's your job to go and find it and fill out all the paperwork and claim the money that's rightfully yours.
"But guess what? If you don't claim that money in three years, they are legally allowed to take it all back and give it to the major music publishers. So, with the Heavy Music Collective, it's our job to find all that money that's rightfully yours and get it before they do.
"But hey guess what? That's only in the United States. If your music streams in England, France, Australia, Japan — you get mechanical royalties there too. But guess what? All those countries have different organizations you have to get your money from, and if you don't get it, it goes to the major music publishers. Noticing a trend here?"
The Heavy Music Collective aims to demystify the often-overlooked publishing side of streaming and ensure artists get fairly compensated for their compositions. More info and applications for services can be found at heavymusiccollective.com.
