What is the MLC?

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) is a nonprofit organization created by the Music Modernization Act, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump in 2018. The MLC’s role is to collect digital mechanical royalties in the United States. Its operation is overseen by the U.S. Copyright Office.

A mechanical royalty is due to you every time your song is streamed on an interactive streaming service (DSP, like Spotify, Apple Music, or Amazon Music, etc.), downloaded as an mp3, or sold as a physical product in the form of a vinyl record or CD. This particular kind of royalty is not collected by your performing rights organization (PRO, like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, etc.). 

The MLC was established to make sure that songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers can collect all of the digital mechanical royalties due them. According to the MMA, the DSPs “are required to send the MLC monthly usage data files and the corresponding royalties (calculated at the statutory rates).”
Royalties from these streams will flow from the digital service provider (DSP) to the MLC. (NOTE: A number of the largest publishers have direct deals with the DSPs, so the vast majority of the royalties from compositions they control will not flow through the MLC.) The MLC will then distribute them to music creators and copyright owners who have registered with it. 

If you have a contractual relationship with a publisher or a publishing administrator, it’s their responsibility to properly register your work with the MLC. All self-administered songwriters, composers, lyricists, music publishers, and administrators must register with the MLC to receive their royalties. Sign up here.

While most experts believe the MMA will offer significant benefits to music creators, it’s by no means a perfect piece of legislation. Perhaps its greatest flaw is the composition of the MLC board, a majority of which are publishers and most of whom are the major publishers whose controlled works will not be paid through the MLC. MusicAnswers and a few other music creator organizations have long argued that, at minimum, the MLC board, which has the sole authority to determine policy, should be divided equally between writers and publishers and that the vast majority of members of the board should be self-administered writers and smaller publishers. We will continue to work with others to attempt to revise the MMA to that end.