Today we are writing to let you know that Members can now search a third set of historical unmatched royalty data — data that remained unmatched after we completed our initial internal matching processes — using the Matching Tool in The MLC Portal. This third set of data consists of the remaining unmatched data for all rate periods from the following six DSPs: Amazon, Trebel, Audiomack, GTL, Mixcloud and Qobuz.
So, when Members use the Matching Tool to search for unmatched data that corresponds to their musical works, their search results will include the remaining historical unmatched data from these six DSPs, in addition to the remaining historical unmatched data from the ten DSPs that we added to the Matching Tool over the last two months (i.e., Deezer, Hoopla, Pandora, SoundCloud, Tidal, iHeart, Apple Music, Pacemaker, Recisio and Weav).
As we shared before, unmatched usage data is identified in the search results within the Matching Tool as follows:
An “H” icon will indicate historical unmatched usage that took place before January 1, 2021 (the blanket license effective date)
A “B” icon will indicate blanket unmatched usage that took place on or after January 1, 2021
Search results that display both icons will identify unmatched usage that took place both before and after January 1, 2021
To the extent Members propose matches that cover data from any of these sixteen DSPs, once accepted, The MLC will reference these matches when we process (or reprocess) blanket royalties and historical royalties in future distributions.
Of the six DSPs from which we received the data that was made available to be searched in the Matching Tool today, only two DSPs, Amazon and Trebel, transferred data and royalties related to uses that took place in the Phonorecords 2 rate period or prior periods. Thus, the only new DSPs for which we will include royalties from matched historical uses in our August distribution are Amazon and Trebel. The other four DSPs only transferred data and royalties related to uses that took place in the Phonorecords 3 rate period. We will continue to hold that data and those royalties while we await the issuance of a final rate determination by the Copyright Royalty Board for the Phonorecords 3 rate period.
On Friday, we will distribute the first set of matched historical royalties that were transferred from Amazon and Trebel to The MLC, totaling approximately $1.3 million. These matched royalties are for uses that took place during the Phonorecords 2 rate period (i.e., between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2017), with the exception of Amazon uses that date back to July 2012. Additionally, we will also distribute approximately $500k in newly matched royalties for the other six DSPs we have previously begun to distribute (i.e., Deezer, Hoopla, Pandora, SoundCloud, Tidal, and Apple Music), bringing our total August distribution of matched historical royalties to approximately $1.8 million.
These historical royalties will be identified separately on the royalty statements we provide to Members, and we will specify the usage month for these historical royalties just like we already do for blanket royalties.
Over the summer, we have shared status updates with you on our efforts to match the data we received for historical unmatched uses and then pay out the matched royalties. If you want to catch up on any of these Member communications, you can find all the updateshere. We will reach out again in the coming weeks with another update about the next wave of data that will be uploaded to the Portal and the matched historical royalties that will be paid out in the September distribution. Thank you for continuing to Play Your Part in The MLC process.
