UK musicians, help me settle a debate - PRS/MCPS/PPL/distribution

Hi all,

I need help and I stand very willing to be wrong here! My partner is the pro musician, not me, but he's old school and been in the business a long time (pro since the 80s). He's a guitarist and has written/co-written a fair bit of original material.

He's never seen royalties from his music, but he's never registered himself with PRS/MCPS. He's always counted on bandmates to register his songs etc and a record label that closed down.

I'm wondering though, is he missing out on royalties? His songs are still getting streamed. Even if people have been legit and registered him as a songwriter, wouldn't he need his own account since it's a lifetime account with these agencies so that they can connect it up and know who to pay?! Did he miss a basic step he should have done at the start?!

His argument is PRS is just a stealth tax and never pay anyone anyway, and that there's no point registering. And that if he's going to get any royalties it would be by using his own distributor like distrokid? Is he right? Is there any income to be had with PRS/MCPS or is it so negligible compared to the distributor/record label payouts that is not that important to register? Might be have old royalties waiting to claim, or too late to claim? Or is there really no point?? Is the main income stream via the distributor?

Thanks for helping me understand! And please do share if you actually do get any income from signing up to these agencies. Thank you!