Quick answer: Music royalties do not stop when an artist dies. The copyrights and contract rights that produce them pass under the artist’s will or trust, or under Florida’s intestacy statutes if there is no plan. Who ends up in control depends on which rights the artist owned (the song, the recording, or a share of either), what the artist signed, and whether the estate plan names someone who can manage a catalog.
Key Takeways
- Two Copyrights per Song The composition (music and lyrics) and the sound recording (the master) carry separate copyrights. Each can have different owners and distinct royalty streams.
- Generational Lifespan Copyright in works created since 1978 generally lasts for the author’s life plus 70 years, meaning a single catalog can support two or three generations.
- Strict Florida Will Requirements A Florida will must be signed and witnessed by two people. Florida does not accept unwitnessed handwritten wills, even from other states (the handwritten will accepted for Aretha Franklin in Michigan would be invalid here).
- Federal Termination Rights Federal law grants an author’s spouse, children, and grandchildren the right to terminate old publishing and record deals. A will or trust cannot reassign this right to anyone else.
- Name & Likeness Protection Florida protects a person’s name and likeness from unauthorized commercial use for 40 years after death.
- Estate Tax Exemptions Florida has no state estate tax. The federal exemption is $15 million per person for deaths in 2026, though celebrity estates and the IRS frequently battle over how to accurately value music catalogs.
What happens to music royalties when an artist dies?
Royalties keep flowing after death because the copyrights and contracts behind them are property. Federal law provides that a copyright may be bequeathed by will or pass under the state’s intestacy laws like other personal property (17 U.S.C. Section 201(d)). The estate, the trust, or the heirs step into the artist’s position.
The money reaches the family through several payors. A performing rights organization such as ASCAP or BMI pays the writer’s share of performance royalties on the composition. The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) pays mechanical royalties from U.S. streaming and download services. SoundExchange pays digital performance royalties on sound recordings and sends the featured artist’s share directly to the artist, apart from the label. The record label pays whatever artist royalties the recording contract provides. After a death, each payor needs proof of who now has the right to be paid, usually letters of administration from the probate court or a trustee’s certification, and payors may hold payments until they receive it.
Copyright Duration by Type of Work
(created on or after Jan 1, 1978)
(a status labels often claim for recordings)
One song, two copyrights: the “In Da Club” example
50 Cent’s “In Da Club,” the 2003 single from Get Rich or Die Tryin’, shows why an estate plan cannot treat a hit as one asset. Billboard credits the song to three writers: Curtis Jackson (50 Cent), Andre Young (Dr. Dre), and Mike Elizondo. The album’s printed credits list several music publishers sharing the composition, and the recording was released through Shady, Aftermath, and Interscope. One track therefore carries at least three songwriter shares, several publishing interests, and a master credited to label imprints.
His other singles follow the same pattern. Billboard credits “21 Questions,” recorded with Nate Dogg, to four writers, and singles such as “Candy Shop” with Olivia and “Ayo Technology” with Justin Timberlake and Timbaland add featured performers, each of whom typically signs a separate agreement. These are the credits published at release. They do not show who owns each interest today, and nothing in this article describes 50 Cent’s own contracts or estate plan.
Music Copyright Structures
For an independent artist in Miami who self-releases through a digital distributor, both columns may belong to the same person. For a signed artist, the publishing side may be shared with a publisher and the master may belong to the label, which leaves the artist with a royalty stream rather than ownership. The estate plan has to describe what the artist actually holds.
Who inherits a musician’s rights in Florida?
With a valid will
A Florida will must be in writing, signed at the end by the person making it, and signed in front of two attesting witnesses who also sign in each other’s presence (Florida Statutes Section 732.502). A will that names the copyrights and royalty rights specifically, and appoints a personal representative who understands the music business, gives the probate court and every royalty payor a clear instruction. The catalog still goes through probate, which runs under court supervision and includes a creditor claim period of at least three months after notice to creditors is published.
Aretha Franklin’s family spent about five years in court over which of her handwritten papers controlled. In July 2023, a Michigan jury accepted a 2014 handwritten document found under a couch cushion over a 2010 will found in a locked cabinet. Both documents let her sons benefit from her music royalties and copyrights. A Florida court would not have reached that question, because Section 732.502 requires two witnesses and excludes handwritten (holographic) wills from the rule that honors wills signed in other states.
With a funded revocable trust
Assets owned by a revocable living trust pass to the beneficiaries without probate. For a catalog, funding the trust means signing a written assignment of each copyright and each royalty interest to the trustee, because federal law requires a transfer of copyright ownership to be in writing and signed by the owner (17 U.S.C. Section 204(a)). Recording the assignment with the U.S. Copyright Office gives public notice of the transfer for registered works. Some publishing and recording agreements limit assignment, so each contract needs review before the transfer.
Once funded, the trust lets a trustee, or a co-trustee with music business experience, keep registering new uses, approve licenses, and pay beneficiaries on the schedule the artist chose, without waiting for a court appointment.
With no plan
Without a will or trust, Florida’s intestacy statutes decide who inherits, starting with a surviving spouse and descendants, and a court appoints a personal representative. Prince’s estate shows what that looks like at scale. Prince died in April 2016 without a will. The estate’s administrator appraised it at 82.3 million dollars, the IRS valued it at 163.2 million dollars, and the parties settled at 156.4 million dollars in January 2022, almost six years later. By then two of his six sibling heirs had died, and a music company, Primary Wave, had bought the interests of some heirs and ended up with close to half of the estate.
The right a will cannot override: copyright termination
Federal law lets an author cancel a copyright transfer or license signed on or after January 1, 1978, during a five-year window that generally opens 35 years after the grant (17 U.S.C. Section 203). For a publishing or recording deal signed in 2003, that window can open as early as 2038, depending on the grant’s terms. The author or the heirs must serve written notice between two and ten years before the termination date.
If the author has died, the statute decides who holds the termination right. A surviving spouse holds all of it when there are no children or grandchildren. When there are, the spouse holds half and the children and grandchildren share the other half per stirpes. Only when none of them are living does the right pass to the author’s executor, personal representative, or trustee. Congress wrote that the right cannot be waived in advance or contracted away, and it does not apply to works made for hire.
This is where many musician estate plans break. An artist who signed a publishing deal and then leaves all music interests to a partner may expect the partner to control those songs. If the artist has children, they can later terminate that publishing deal, and the recovered copyrights go to them rather than to the partner named in the will. A songwriter’s estate plan should list every grant, its date, and its termination window, and it should be written with the statutory heirs in mind.
Name, image, and likeness: Florida’s 40-year rule
Florida Statutes Section 540.08 bars using a person’s name, photograph, or likeness for trade or advertising without consent. After death, consent comes from whoever the person authorized in writing to license that use. If nobody was authorized, consent can come from any one member of the class made up of the surviving spouse and surviving children. The statute stops applying 40 years after death.
The words “any one” matter. Without a written designation, a single child or the surviving spouse can consent to a commercial use the rest of the family opposes. A musician can prevent that by naming, in writing, the person or entity authorized to license the name and likeness, often the trustee of the same trust that holds the catalog.
These rights carry real value. 50 Cent sued Taco Bell in 2008 over a promotion that used his name without permission, and the case settled in 2009 on confidential terms. After Michael Jackson died, the IRS valued his image and likeness at 161 million dollars, and in 2021 the U.S. Tax Court set the value at 4.15 million dollars.
How a music catalog is valued for estate tax
Florida has no estate tax and no inheritance tax. The federal estate tax applies to estates above 15 million dollars per person for deaths in 2026 (30 million dollars for a married couple using both exemptions), with a top rate of 40 percent. The federal return, Form 706, is due nine months after death.
The IRS measures a catalog at its fair market value, generally on the date of death, which means an appraiser projects the income the rights will produce and discounts it to present value. That projection is a judgment call, and it is where estates and the IRS fight. In Prince’s case the IRS figure was nearly double the estate’s appraisal. In Michael Jackson’s case the IRS valued three disputed assets at 482 million dollars, and the Tax Court set them at 111 million dollars.
A catalog also creates a cash problem, because the tax is due in cash while royalties often arrive quarterly or twice a year. Artists with large catalogs plan for that with tools such as life insurance held in an irrevocable trust, lifetime gifts of catalog interests, or an entity that holds the catalog so partial interests are easier to transfer. Which tools fit depends on the catalog’s size and the family’s goals, and each one needs a current appraisal. Even an estate below the exemption benefits from a supported date-of-death value, because heirs who later sell the catalog generally measure their taxable gain from that value.
Estate planning checklist for musicians, songwriters, and producers in Florida
- Build a rights inventory. List each song and recording with its writers, splits, publishers, ISWC and ISRC codes, and copyright registration numbers.
- Collect every contract. Gather publishing, administration, recording, distribution, producer, and sync agreements, plus any band or partnership agreement.
- Map termination windows. Note the signing date of each grant and the earliest date a termination notice could be served.
- Choose the vehicle. For most working artists that is a revocable trust with a pour-over will, because a will alone sends the catalog through probate.
- Fund the trust in writing. Assign copyrights and royalty rights to the trustee, check each contract for consent requirements, and record copyright assignments with the Copyright Office.
- Name the right fiduciaries. Pair a trustee who manages money well with a co-trustee or advisor who knows the music business.
- Designate who licenses your name and likeness. Put it in writing so Florida’s default “any one” rule does not apply.
- Give access to royalty accounts. List PRO, MLC, SoundExchange, distributor, and label portals, and authorize access under Florida’s Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (Chapter 740, Florida Statutes).
- Get an appraisal and plan for liquidity if the catalog could bring the estate near the federal exemption.
- Review the plan after every new deal, catalog sale, marriage, divorce, or birth.
Frequently asked questions
No. The rights behind them pass to the artist’s estate, trust, or heirs, and royalty payors resume payment once they receive proof of who now owns the right to be paid.
For songs created on or after January 1, 1978, copyright generally lasts for the author’s life plus 70 years. For co-written songs, the 70 years run from the death of the last surviving writer.
Yes. Federal law allows a copyright to pass by will. In Florida, the will must be signed at the end and witnessed by two people who sign in each other’s presence.
A funded revocable trust avoids probate and lets a trustee keep licensing and collecting without waiting for a court appointment. The trust controls only the rights that were assigned to it in writing.
Publishing rights cover the composition, meaning the music and lyrics. Master rights cover a specific recording of that composition. They are separate copyrights and are often owned by different people.
They may be able to. Under 17 U.S.C. Section 203, a surviving spouse, children, and grandchildren can terminate a grant signed on or after January 1, 1978, during a window that opens 35 years after the grant, and a will cannot take that right from them.
The person or entity the artist authorized in writing. Without one, any one of the surviving spouse and children can consent to commercial use. The protection lasts 40 years after death.
No. Only the federal estate tax applies, and for deaths in 2026 it reaches estates above 15 million dollars per person.
Billboard credits the song to Curtis Jackson (50 Cent), Andre Young (Dr. Dre), and Mike Elizondo. Dr. Dre and Mike Elizondo produced it.
Keep your catalog working for the people you choose
A song keeps earning long after the session ends, and the documents you sign now decide who controls it. Inventory the compositions and masters you own, collect the contracts, map the termination dates, put the catalog in a funded trust, and name who can license your name.
Trust Counsel, P.L. is an estate planning, probate, and trust law firm in Coral Gables, Florida. To review how your songs, recordings, and royalty accounts fit into a Florida estate plan, schedule a consultation at our office at 201 Alhambra Circle, Suite 802, Coral Gables, FL 33134, or call (305) 707-7126.
Sources
- U.S. Copyright Office, Title 17, Chapter 2 (Sections 201 to 205): https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap2.html
- 17 U.S.C. Section 203, termination of transfers: https://law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/203
- U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 12, Recordation of Transfers: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ12.pdf
- U.S. Copyright Office, musicians and copyright: https://www.copyright.gov/engage/musicians/
- Florida Statutes Section 540.08: https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/statutes/2025/540.08
- Florida Statutes Section 732.502: https://m.flsenate.gov/Statutes/732.502
- IRS, Frequently asked questions on estate taxes: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/frequently-asked-questions-on-estate-taxes
- Kiplinger, 2026 estate tax exemption: https://www.kiplinger.com/taxes/new-estate-tax-exemption-amount
- Associated Press via WHDH, final valuation of Prince’s estate: https://whdh.com/news/final-valuation-of-princes-estate-pegged-at-156-4-million/
- NPR via GBH, jury rules Aretha Franklin’s handwritten will valid: https://www.wgbh.org/news/national/2023-07-11/a-jury-rules-a-handwritten-will-found-under-aretha-franklins-couch-cushion-is-valid
- Associated Press via Boston Globe, Tax Court ruling on Michael Jackson’s estate: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/05/05/business/after-years-court-hands-tax-win-michael-jackson-heirs/
- TIME, 50 Cent’s lawsuit against Taco Bell: https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1970915_1970917_1970898,00.html
- Billboard Hot Rap Songs credits, week of April 5, 2003: https://www.billboard.com/charts/rap-song/2003-04-05/
