The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) is a nonprofit organization created in 2019 by the Music Modernization Act (MMA) to administer blanket mechanical licenses to eligible streaming services and pay the resulting royalties to songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers. It is designated by the US Copyright office (USCO), and endorsed by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI), and the Songwriters of North America (SONA).
No. If you're signed up with Songtrust, we register your songs with The MLC on your behalf, along with registration at local societies and other pay sources in the US and in more than 215 countries and territories around the world.
The MLC covers a limited scope of US only services whose activities are covered under section 115 of the Copyright Act. This means that The MLC will only collect and pay mechanical interactive streaming royalties generated by eligible Digital Service Providers (DSPs) including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, and others.
The MLC does not collect or distribute royalties for any of the following usage types:
However, Songtrust is well placed to ensure that our clients continue to receive royalties from the above types of usages via our network of more than 215 pay-sources.
Only the United States. It does not collect mechanical royalties generated outside of the US.
The MLC is a nonprofit organization designated by the U.S. Copyright Office. The MLC’s board of directors includes ten music publishing executives and three songwriters; Kara DioGuardi, Oak Felder, and Kevin Kadish. The MLC has three advisory committees; the Operations Advisory Committee where Songtrust co-founder Joe Conyers III serves, the Dispute Resolution Committee where Songtrust Global Head of Rights Management Operations, Sean McGraw serves, as well as an Unclaimed Royalties Oversight Committee.
The MLC was founded to administer blanket mechanical licenses to eligible DSPs. Under these licenses, The MLC invoices DSPs and then distributes mechanical royalties to rights holders based on interactive streaming usages on these services.
The MLC administers blanket mechanical licenses to interactive streaming services in the United States that are eligible to receive one. It then collects the royalties due under those licenses from the digital service providers and pays them to the appropriate songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers.
The MLC is officially, and fully, operational as of January 1st, 2021.
Songwriters, composers, lyricists and music publishers do not pay to use The MLC. By law, the digital services that use The MLC will proportionally fund The MLC’s startup costs of $33.5 million and first-year operational budget of $28.5 million. Following the first year of operation, each subsequent year’s funding requirements will be reassessed and funded by the DSPs.
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