It’s hard to believe we’ve begun our third year of operations! Today, we are excited to share that our cumulative total royalties distributed (from all distributions including February 2023) has now surpassed $1 billion in total royalties distributed ($945.9 million in blanket royalties and another $137.1 million in voluntary royalties). We are grateful for the part you’ve played to help us reach this significant milestone, starting with taking the time to sign up and become a Member and then using our suite of Member Tools to register your songs, claim your shares of songs others have registered and help us identify missing matches for your songs. And don’t forget, everything The MLC does is completely free to you, because DSPs pay all of our operating costs!
This month, in addition to providing our regular summary of February’s monthly distribution, we will also share an annual recap of all our 2022 royalty distributions, as well as updated cumulative statistics for our 2021 distributions. This recap highlights the fact that we continue to achieve historically high match rates, which has allowed us to distribute more digital audio mechanicals than ever before to you our Members. We’ll also discuss how The MLC is illuminating — and eliminating — the “black box” for digital audio mechanicals. Finally, we've included an update on our progress processing historical unmatched royalties and the latest timeline showing what happens once the CRB issues a final rate determination setting out the rates for the Phono 3 period (2018 to 2022).
As always, we appreciate you taking the time to read our Member newsletter each month. This newsletter is one of the primary ways that we communicate with you, and it continues to be the most accurate source of information about The MLC, along with our website and our official social media channels.