Nearly $700M Has Been Paid to Songwriters and Publishers by The MLC to Date

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) has distributed nearly $700 million in blanket royalties to its members in the year and a half since launching full operations.

The MLC reports that rightsholders have received more than $800 million to date, including nearly $700 million in blanket royalties paid directly by the MLC, plus nearly $120 million in royalties processed by The MLC but paid by DSPs.

The MLC was established by the Register of Copyrights in July 2019 pursuant to the Music Modernization Act that was signed into law in 2018.

It administers a blanket compulsory license for the use of musical works by digital music services. From January 2021, The MLC started processing and paying out “mechanical royalties” at no cost to songwriters or music publishers.

The group disclosed the $700 million milestone on Friday (October 21) following its second annual membership meeting in which it announced that Kara DioGuardi, Tim Cohan and Scott Cutler were reelected to the board of directors.

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