Music royalty recovery platform for musicians' families

The Problem

A daughter finds her father’s 80s single still spinning on Spotify, YouTube, and the occasional oldies hour. Ten years after the stroke, the family still cannot say who owns the recording, who owns the publishing, or who cashed the last check. Mom fought once and got a twenty-thousand-dollar royalty payment. She assumed there had to be more. There usually is. It is sitting in five to ten systems nobody in the house has a password for.

That is the heir job, not the songwriter job. The catalog is split across a BMI or ASCAP writer account, SoundExchange, The MLC, one or two publishers, a DistroKid or CD Baby dashboard, and whatever already escheated to a state unclaimed-property office. Heirs do not know those rooms exist. Carson Law’s heir guide is blunt: the hard part is proving what the decedent owned, because publishing deals, recording contracts, and co-writing splits scatter royalties across collectors. Unclaimed money sits in suspended accounts.

The market already built an answer for living writers. It did not build one for the executor with a shoebox. Entertainment lawyers bill around $250/hour and will not run contingency on a small indie estate. The same daughter asked that lawyer to work for a percentage. He said no. r/musicbusiness (24.7K) keeps getting the follow-up: what docs do I need for beneficiary accounts at Artlist, Songtrust, DistroKid, and BMI. r/legaladvice and r/inheritance get the same drip years after the funeral. Top Music Attorney’s royalty walkthrough has 31,900 views — and every video still assumes the artist is alive and can log in.

Clock on the wall: starting in early 2027, The MLC begins market-share redistribution of unmatched blanket royalties, month by month, beginning with January 2021 usage. Public checkers pin the first payout window on January 14, 2027. Once that money leaves the unmatched pool it goes to registered publishers by market share, which means the majors. Heirs of unregistered indie catalogs lose the claim. That is not a branding problem. That is a deadline.

The Solution

Legato is an estate-only royalty recovery shop. It does not sign living songwriters. It does not sell catalog administration to touring acts. The buyer is the child, sibling, or spouse of a dead U.S. independent musician who left at least ten commercially released songs, estate papers, and no publisher running the catalog.

The wedge is a free 48-hour artist-name check. The heir types the legal name, the stage name, and the death year. Legato matches those strings against public MLC unmatched lists, SoundExchange unclaimed lists, and ASCAP/BMI repertory pages. The output is one page: likely hits, a rough dollar range, and a yes/no on whether an engagement is worth signing. No login wall. No retainer. The check is the sales page and the qualification filter.

If the estate clears the bar, Legato maps the catalog, prepares claim packs, and files. Humans file. Software matches public lists and fills forms; it does not impersonate the heir inside a members-only portal and it does not scrape behind authentication. Disputes go to a licensed attorney. Fee: 15 percent of private-system recoveries (MLC, SoundExchange, PROs, publishers, distributors) and 10 percent or the state cap, whichever is lower, on state unclaimed property. BMI’s $250 writer plus $250 publisher estate fees pass through at cost. After checks land, $199/year monitoring: quarterly public-list sweeps and one statement review per quarter.

How it works:

1. Name check — Heir submits legal name, stage name, and death year. Within 48 hours Legato matches those names against public MLC unmatched, SoundExchange unclaimed, and PRO repertory lists and returns a one-page hit sheet.
2. Catalog map — If hits exist, the team builds a work-by-work map (ISRC/ISWC where public, writers, publishers, distributors) from the estate’s papers plus the public matches. Gaps get flagged; they are not invented.
3. Engagement letter — DocuSign two-tier contingency: 15 percent on private-system recoveries, 10 percent or state cap on state unclaimed property. BMI $250 plus $250 and certificate copies billed at cost.
4. Human filing — Prepared claim packs go to MLC, SoundExchange, the relevant PRO, publishers, distributors, and state treasurers. Status lives in one estate dashboard. Redirect future payees to the estate.
5. Monitor — After recovery closes, $199/year keeps the same public lists on a quarterly cron so a late mechanical or a viral sync does not sit unmatched for another three years.

Market Research

This is not a search-demand business. Heir-specific queries are almost silent: “music royalties after death” sits around 10 U.S. searches a month, and terms like “inherited music royalties” do not clear measurable volume. “Unclaimed music royalties” is about 30. The category does not exist in the buyer’s head yet. The money does.

• The MLC still holds about $160 million in unmatched pre-2021 U.S. mechanicals as of mid-2026, out of an initial historical pool around $397 million (Velveteen / MLC). That is the mechanical slice heirs can still claim before market-share payouts start.
• SoundExchange holds on the order of $40 million in unclaimed digital performance royalties on public lists (American Songwriter). It sits on a rolling three-year clock, then regulation lets the org release it — in practice, to other payees. Do not mash this into the $160 million MLC figure. Two pools. Two clocks.
• Early 2027 is the mechanical cliff. The MLC has distributed more than $4 billion since 2021 and will start sending long-unclaimed blanket royalties to registered publishers by market share in early 2027 (Royalty Exchange; MLC market-share page). Public tools date the first window January 14, 2027. After that month leaves the pool, unregistered indie estates are done.
• Dead catalogs still earn. Billboard: tracks older than 18 months drove more than 65 percent of U.S. album consumption by 2020, up from about 36 percent in 2004.
• Demand is questions, not keywords. r/musicbusiness at 24.7K, plus r/legaladvice and r/inheritance. Top Music Attorney’s explainer at 31,900 views is the YouTube proof a deadline-tied heir version would have an audience.

The hundreds-of-millions unmatched headline is real and a trap. Most of that pool belongs to living majors and metadata errors on active works. Legato’s SAM is a deceased U.S. indie name with estate papers. The free check exists so you do not spend six months on a $400 catalog.

Competitive Landscape

Every recovery firm in this category sells to a living artist who can sign. The estate lane is a $250/hour lawyer and a BMI PDF.

• Songtrust — Self-serve publishing admin, about 65 percent indie-admin share. $100 signup, then 15 percent on performance and 20 percent on mechanicals. Songwriter laptop product; heirs would still have to complete a post-mortem transition. Pricing: $100 + 15% / 20% (songtrust.com/pricing)
• Morter Forensics — Audits MLC, SoundExchange, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, HFA, GEMA, PRS. 20 percent of recovered back-pay plus 15 percent ongoing, zero upfront. Living heavy-music artists. No heir intake. Pricing: 20% back-pay + 15% ongoing (morterforensics.com)
• Paravel Global — Distribution + recovery + logistics for living independents. Public pricing hidden. Artist-operator SKU, not an executor SKU. Pricing: unpublished (paravelglobal.com)
• Royalty Solutions Corp — Flat monthly white-label admin, application-only, established catalogs. Their copy frames commission shops at 10–25 percent. Shoebox estates will not pass the screen. Pricing: flat monthly, quote-only (royaltysolutionscorp.com)
• BMI in-house estate — $250 per deceased writer account plus $250 per publisher account. BMI only. No ASCAP, MLC, SoundExchange, publishers, or state escheat. Pricing: $250 + $250 (bmi.com/estates)
• Royalty Exchange — Sell an already-paying catalog at 5–15x annual earnings. Useful after statements flow. Useless as step one. Pricing: 5–15x to the seller (royaltyexchange.com)
• Carson Law and peers — Best open-web heir guides. About $250/hour. No contingency on small catalogs. Pricing: ~$250/hr (carsonlaw.com)

Your Opportunity

Take Morter’s contingency economics, swap the buyer from a touring artist to a grieving executor, and add the two systems artist shops ignore: state unclaimed property (finder-fee capped in about 40 states at 10 percent) and estate-document intake. Nobody else leads with a free 48-hour public-list check, because that check is a cost center until you are hunting estates. Songtrust will not cannibalize a living-writer signup flow to babysit probate. BMI will not file your MLC claim. The lawyer will not work for 15 percent of a $6,500 recovery. Own the ugly middle.

Business Model

No hourly billing. Every dollar of fee is either a percentage of a recovered check or a $199 monitoring line. Filing fees and BMI’s $250 + $250 pass through at cost so the heir never wonders if the contingency is hiding disbursements.

• Free artist-name check ($0) — 48-hour public-list match. Lead magnet and qualification. Kill cases under about $1,000 recoverable before you touch DocuSign.
• Estate recovery (15% private / 10% or state cap on escheat) — Core. One engagement letter, two fee lines. Collect only when a check posts.
• Catalog monitoring ($199/year) — Continuity after the first recovery. Quarterly sweeps plus one statement review. Priced under a single lawyer hour on purpose.

Illustrative year-one napkin (Ideabrowser verified math, not a forecast): 300 leads from Reddit plus probate referrals → 33 signed estates. Average recovered pool around $6,500. Gross recovered ~$214K. Blended contingency ~$30K plus ~$4K monitoring. Year-one band $34K–$85K for a single operator. Ceiling with a referral network is a $2M–$3.5M services shop, not a venture outcome. Heir search volume will not buy this.

Unit Economics

• $0–$50 — CAC if you live in r/legaladvice and probate lunches; paid search will not save you
• ~$900–$1,200 — Revenue per closed estate at 15 percent of a $6,500 pool
• High — Gross margin on contingency (your cost is hours plus pass-through fees)
• 90–180 days — Time to first cash, because societies are slow and you float the work

Recommended Tech Stack

Optimize for public-list matching, a boring case tracker, and a DocuSign packet. Do not build a secret scraper that logs into SoundExchange as the heir. Public pages and published unmatched CSVs only; a human clicks submit on the real portals.

• Next.js (App Router) + Vercel — Marketing site, 48-hour check form, estate dashboard. No mobile app in v1.
• Postgres — estates, aliases, works, matches, claims, fee_lines, documents. Encrypt IDs and death certificates.
• Public-list matchers, with legal care — Refresh MLC published unmatched files, SoundExchange public unclaimed-name lists, PRO repertory pages. Respect robots.txt and rate limits. Never store a third-party session cookie. Matching is strings; filing is a person.
• Stripe — $199/year monitoring and pass-through BMI/certificate invoices.
• DocuSign — Two-tier engagement letter. Version the fee exhibit when a state cap applies.
• Audit log — Every match, filing PDF, outbound email. One bad “they took our money” thread kills the funnel.

AI Prompts to Build This

Copy and paste these into Claude, Cursor, or your favorite AI tool.

1. Project Setup

Create a Next.js App Router TypeScript Tailwind app named Legato. Postgres via a hosted provider with tables: estates (id, legal_name, stage_name, death_year, status), aliases, works, matches (estate_id, source CHECK IN ('mlc_unmatched','soundexchange_unclaimed','pro_repertory'), raw_name, confidence, dollar_hint_cents), claims, fee_lines (kind CHECK IN ('private_15','state_capped'), cap_bps), documents. Row-level security so an estate user only sees their estate_id. Stripe product Catalog Monitoring at $199/year. DocuSign Connect webhook to /api/docusign. Env: STRIPE_SECRET_KEY, DOCUSIGN_*, DATABASE_URL. Do not add any authenticated scrape against MLC, SoundExchange, or PRO member portals.

2. Public-List Matcher + 48-Hour Check

Build POST /api/check. Input: legal_name, stage_name, death_year. Job queues three matchers that only read publicly published pages or bulk files: (1) MLC unmatched / historical unmatched name lists, (2) SoundExchange public unclaimed-account lists, (3) ASCAP and BMI repertory search result pages. Normalize punctuation and "The" prefixes. Return a one-page JSON result with hits, source, public URL, and a conservative dollar_range_label. If a source requires login, skip it and flag needs_human_filing. Rate-limit to 1 request per 3 seconds per source. Persist the snapshot used for the match so the 48-hour SLA is auditable. Never submit a claim from this endpoint.

3. Landing Page

Design a single-page site for Legato. Hero: "Your parent’s songs are still earning. The money is in a system you have never heard of." Sub: "Free 48-hour artist-name check against The MLC unmatched list, SoundExchange unclaimed lists, and PRO repertory. We file. You get the check. 15 percent on private recoveries, 10 percent or the state cap on unclaimed property." Sections: the January 2027 MLC market-share cliff, how it works (five steps matching the product), who we will not take (living writers, catalogs under the recoverable floor), pricing vs a $250/hour lawyer, FAQ on finder-fee caps and "we do not scrape member portals." CTA is the name-check form, not a demo video. Quiet type, no grief photography.

4. Engagement Letter + Case Tracker

Generate a DocuSign template with two fee exhibits: (A) 15 percent of amounts recovered from MLC, SoundExchange, PROs, publishers, and distributors; (B) 10 percent or the applicable state finder-fee cap, whichever is lower, on state unclaimed-property recoveries. Pass-through schedule for BMI $250 writer and $250 publisher estate fees. Build /app/estates/[id] showing matches, claim status per system, and a "ready to file" packet zip. Statuses: matched, packet_ready, filed, waiting, paid, rejected. Paid amounts write the contingency invoice in Stripe. Add a quarterly cron that re-runs the public matchers for monitoring subscribers only.

Sources

Market sizing, competitive pricing, and the 2027 MLC clock collated from Ideabrowser verified research on idea #9189 and the public sources it cites (August 2026 snapshot). Triangulate before you cite in investor materials. Year-one $34K–$85K is illustrative napkin math, not a forecast.

• The MLC — Historical unmatched royalties
• The MLC — Market-share distribution
• Velveteen — MLC unmatched historical royalties (~$160M remaining of ~$397M)
• Royalty Exchange — Mechanical Licensing Collective explainer (early 2027 unmatched payouts)
• BMI — Review your songs for MLC royalties
• BMI — Estates ($250 writer + $250 publisher)
• SoundExchange FAQ — Do unclaimed royalties expire?
• American Songwriter — SoundExchange unclaimed royalties (~$40M, public lists)
• Songtrust pricing — $100 + 15% performance / 20% mechanical
• Morter Forensics
• Carson Law — Inheriting Music Royalties, Part 1
• The Missing Mint — Unclaimed-money finder-fee caps by state
• Billboard — Catalog boom analysis (65%+ album consumption)
• Top Music Attorney — How To Collect All Your Music Royalties (31,900 views)

Page sourced via Ideabrowser MCP (idea_id 9189): get_verified_research, get_idea_research (competitive_analysis, why_now, youtube_analysis, keyword_list).