Free Resources · Royalty Matching

One Writer. Two Numbers.
Half Your Money.

Your name can be spelled ten different ways. Your writer ID can't — it's the one hard key the whole royalty system pays on. And if you've somehow got two of them, your catalog gets cut clean down the middle.

Created by Feady Crocka

Every songwriter on Earth gets a global ID number — your IPI (older systems call it a CAE). It's how BMI, ASCAP, and every foreign society know the "Ed Smith" on a cue sheet in Germany is the same writer who registered a song in Nashville. Money moves to the IPI on the work, not to your name.

So here's the trap: if half your catalog got registered under one IPI and half under another — a distributor set you up fresh, a co-writer's publisher typed you in as "new," you re-enrolled and didn't link the old account — your earnings sort into two piles that never talk to each other. You log into one, see a statement, and think that's what I'm making. You're seeing half.

Two mailboxes. Neither one is full.
A real one · our own catalog

One songwriter, two BMI numbers

A single writer — one person, one body of work — showing up at BMI under two different IPIs. Some songs routed to one, some to the other. From the outside it looked like two writers who share a name.

ONE WRITER your whole catalog IPI …424 half the works, half full IPI …522 the other half, half full
Nobody stole anything. It was a clerical split — the exact kind that happens quietly and costs you for years, because foreign plays that can't match a live, correct IPI get redistributed to everybody else.
The fix

One human, one number

The fix is a merge, not an invention — both numbers point at the same real person. Your PRO does it; you don't self-serve it and you can't wish it away by picking a favorite.

ONE WRITER your whole catalog IPI …424 (the one you keep) one mailbox — full
Every future play, in every country, finally has one place to land.

How it gets done

  • Spot it first. Search your name in your PRO's public repertory. If two IPIs come back on your works, you're split.
  • Confirm the keeper. Usually the older, more established number — but ask your PRO which to consolidate into.
  • Tell the works team plainly: one writer, two IPIs, merge and re-point every work to the surviving number. Hand them the list — both numbers and the works under each — and it moves faster.
  • Push it downstream. Once the PRO merges, make sure your publisher, admin, and the foreign societies all carry the one surviving IPI.
The line that keeps it clean

This is merging two true versions of you into one — pure admin. But if that "second identity" turns out to be someone else claiming your work, not just a duplicate of you, that's a dispute, and a dispute is a music attorney's job, not a merge request. (Education only — not legal, financial, or tax advice; policies and laws vary.)

Find your leak

Are you one writer — or two?

Run the free Royalty Match Checkup and we'll show you where your IDs, codes, and titles don't line up — or have Done Deal Digital run the full match for you.

Take the free Royalty Match Checkup → Read: If It Doesn't Match, It Can't Pay

No promises about numbers. Just clean data across every system, so what you're owed can find you.