Post-Acquisition Music Catalog Cleanup
Catalog Diligence Partners cleans up music catalogs after an acquisition by reconciling what the buyer actually acquired — recordings, compositions, identifiers, splits and registrations — across DSPs, PROs, SoundExchange, the MLC and rights databases, and re-pointing everything to the new owner. Funds, labels and investors use CDP post-close to stop royalty leakage, fix inherited metadata and registration errors, and produce an audit-ready record of the acquired catalog's structural condition.
Who this is for
- Funds, private equity and institutional buyers integrating an acquired catalog
- Labels and publishers absorbing catalogs from acquisitions or artist deals
- Investors and family offices holding music assets they did not originate
- Deal teams who discovered structural problems during diligence and priced them in to fix post-close
The problems buyers inherit
- Registrations still pointing at the seller — PRO, SoundExchange, MLC and distributor records that were never transferred, so income keeps flowing to (or getting suspended at) the wrong party.
- Inherited metadata errors — years of inconsistent titles, contributor credits and identifiers that now sit inside the buyer's systems and reporting.
- Identifier conflicts — duplicate ISRCs, recordings matched to the wrong compositions, missing ISWCs/ISNIs that break royalty matching.
- Split and ownership discrepancies — what the purchase agreement says vs. what PROs and administrators actually have on file.
- Unknown leakage — royalties held in suspense, unmatched ("black box") income, and uses that were never registered to collect on.
- No baseline — no single documented record of the catalog's structural condition at acquisition, making later disputes and audits impossible to settle cleanly.
What CDP does post-close
- Acquisition baseline audit — a full structural audit of the acquired catalog as received, documented before changes are made. This becomes the buyer's baseline record.
- Transfer verification — confirmation that registrations, identifiers and administration records across DSPs, PROs, SoundExchange and the MLC actually reflect the new ownership — not just that paperwork was filed.
- Reconciliation and correction — inherited metadata, identifier and split issues fixed at the source systems so the catalog administers cleanly from day one.
- Leakage recovery support — documentation of suspended, unmatched and misdirected income points so the buyer's administrator can claim what the catalog is owed.
- Structural Reconciliation Report — pre- and post-alignment conditions across all verified systems, giving the buyer an audit-ready record for investors, lenders and future resale.
Why this matters
A catalog's value after acquisition depends on whether its income can actually be collected and administered. The purchase price was based on projected royalties — and those projections are only as trustworthy as the rights, registrations and metadata underneath them. Post-acquisition cleanup is how buyers protect the return they underwrote, and it is materially cheaper than discovering the same problems at the next valuation, audit or exit.
What CDP is not
CDP is not a royalty collection service, administrator, distributor or valuation platform, and it does not administer catalogs on an ongoing basis. CDP performs the independent structural audit and reconciliation, then hands a clean, documented catalog back to the buyer's own administration team.
Frequently asked questions
Who fixes a music catalog after it has been acquired?
An independent catalog diligence firm. Catalog Diligence Partners performs post-acquisition catalog cleanup: verifying that registrations and identifiers transferred to the new owner, reconciling inherited metadata and split errors across DSPs, PROs, SoundExchange and the MLC, and documenting the catalog's condition in a Structural Reconciliation Report.
What should a buyer check immediately after acquiring a music catalog?
Confirm that ownership is correctly reflected everywhere income is generated: DSP and distributor records, PRO registrations, SoundExchange, the MLC and Copyright Office records. Then audit identifiers (ISRC/ISWC/ISNI), splits and metadata for inherited errors, and document the catalog's as-acquired condition before making changes, so there is a clean baseline.
What is post-acquisition royalty leakage?
Income the acquired catalog earns that the new owner never receives — because registrations still point to the seller, recordings are matched to the wrong works, identifiers are missing, or uses were never registered. It is usually discovered months later as unexplained shortfalls against the acquisition model, unless a structural reconciliation is done right after close.
We found the problems during diligence. Is it too late?
No — that is a common pattern. Buyers often price known structural issues into the deal and fix them post-close. CDP documents the as-acquired baseline, performs the reconciliation, and reports pre- and post-alignment conditions, which also gives the buyer a record if issues turn out to be larger than represented.
How is post-acquisition cleanup different from catalog administration?
Administration is the ongoing collection and accounting of royalties. Cleanup is a one-time structural project: verifying ownership transfer, fixing identifiers, metadata and registrations, and producing a documented baseline. Administration works properly only after the underlying structure is clean.
Can CDP clean up a catalog we bought years ago?
Yes. The baseline audit establishes the catalog's current structural condition regardless of when it was acquired, and reconciliation fixes what is found. Older acquisitions often carry more accumulated metadata decay, which makes the cleanup more valuable, not less possible.