This month, members of The MLC team hit the road to spread the word about The MLC at a number of industry events and conferences. We were in Los Angeles and Atlanta participating in the MMF-US Roadshow for music managers, we spoke to copyright professionals attending the California Copyright Conference, we met with songwriters who attended SongCon, and we spoke to music publishers and administrators at the Church Music Publisher’s Association annual conference.
Looking ahead, we are excited to celebrate two upcoming milestones with our Members — The MLC is approaching 20k Members and more than $500 million in royalties distributed! Please continue to help us encourage other rightsholders to become Members of The MLC and Connect to Collect®, and please continue to Play Your Part™ by using our new Claiming and Matching Tools to ensure you are receiving all the mechanical royalties you are owed for your songs.
Read on for a recap of our most recent royalty distribution and some important Member reminders, and check out our webinar calendars to see what topics we’ll be covering in May.
The MLC completed its fourth royalty distribution of the year on Friday, April 15th, setting another new record for our highest initial match rate. This month's distribution primarily covered newly reported usage that took place in January of 2022. The total of all royalty pools reported to The MLC for this cycle was just over $60.1 million. We were able to match 84.9 percent of that amount to songs currently registered in our database. After deducting royalties for usage covered by voluntary licenses maintained by DSPs with rightsholders, we collected $56.5 million in royalties and distributed $41.4 million to our Members.
The remaining royalties still pending distribution break down as follows:
$9.1 million in royalties for uses we have not been able to match to registered works;
$5.6 million in royalties for shares of matched works that have not yet been registered (or claimed) by our Members; and
$432k in matched royalties that are on hold.
The MLC also distributed an additional $2.1 million in royalties from previously unmatched or unclaimed uses that we were able to match – through reprocessing – to data submitted to us after we completed the initial distribution cycle for that usage.
Finally, we have one correction to make about the metrics we shared last month for the March distribution. The amount of royalties we distributed last month as a result of reprocessing was actually $3.7 million, not $4.6 million as we’d previously reported.
Some Members received a legal notice from us in October 2021, alerting them that they had been named as a party to a prior settlement agreement with either Spotify or Google/YouTube — something that could impact their ability to receive any additional historical unmatched royalties from uses of their works by those services for specific periods of time. If you received one of these notice letters from us, click below for a recap of what you need to do to. Keep in mind — April marks the halfway point during which you can file a Notice of Dispute with The MLC in connection with these prior settlements.
Like every organization today, The MLC is very concerned about e-mail and telephone scams. One way you can help us combat fraud is to educate yourself about the kinds of threats you may encounter and be diligent about looking out for them. To learn how to protect yourself against threats, read The MLC’s fraud tip sheet that addresses what to look for across MLC Member communications, our website, the Portal and more.
One way The MLC prioritizes the accurate distribution of royalties is to verify our monthly distributions are routed to the correct Member accounts. Beginning in May 2022, The MLC will initiate a new, recurring process to ensure accurate distributions. Members will be unable to update their banking and tax information in the Portal between the 7th and 14th of each month, so our team has sufficient time to verify any proposed changes to this information Members may wish to make. Members of The MLC can find a banner in the Portal that explains this issue further.
The MLC has partnered with the Music Business Association to arrange a special discounted registration rate for our Members. The Music Biz 2022 conference, taking place May 9-12 in Nashville, will be an amazing opportunity to take part in industry-defining conversations while networking with hundreds of music executives and professionals from around the world. Members of The MLC can take advantage of a discounted registration rate of $499 with the promo code “MLCMB22”. It’s not too late to get your ticket!
