It was great getting to see many of you at industry events this month — particularly, those of you who were in New York City to attend events related to Songwriter Week and Indie Week. In this Member newsletter, we provide details about this month’s distribution (both blanket and historical) and share some information about our new Overclaims Tool.

The MLC completed its sixth royalty distribution of the year on June 14, bringing us to 39 total royalty distributions since we began full operations — all of which were on time or early. June's distribution primarily covered newly reported usage that took place in March of 2024. The total of all royalty pools reported to The MLC for this cycle was approximately $79.4 million. 

Every month our team attempts to match the newly reported sound recording uses we receive to the musical works data in our public database and then distributes the resulting matched royalties to our Members. This month, we were able to match more than 82 percent of the total royalty pools reported to us by DSPs to songs registered in our database.   

After deducting royalties for usage covered by voluntary licenses maintained by DSPs with rightsholders, we collected approximately $76.1 million in royalties and distributed approximately $54.9 million to our Members.  

To learn more about our June 2024 distribution, click here:

This month, we distributed the second group of DSPs of matched Phono 3 historical royalties covering usage from 2018, 2019 and 2020. These royalties pertain to uses during those three years that took place on six digital services: GTL, Mixcloud, Pandora, Qobuz, Recisio, and YouTube. We distributed roughly $10.6 million, plus interest, in matched Phono 3 historical royalties. These royalties cover usage for which these six DSPs previously had not distributed any royalties. (We refer to these types of uses as “previously unpaid uses.”) We also distributed $426k in matched Phono 3 historical royalties, plus interest, due to reprocessing.

We also continued to distribute matched historical royalties for uses that took place between 2007 and 2017 (during the Phono 1 and 2 rate periods). As a result of reprocessing the remaining unmatched historical royalties that we began processing last year, we were able to distribute approximately $120k in historical royalties this month, plus interest, from a number of different digital services.

To read more about the historical unmatched royalties we have distributed so far, click here:

In May, The MLC filed a legal action against Spotify in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The action seeks recovery of unpaid royalties due by Spotify under the terms of the compulsory mechanical blanket license. Spotify's alleged underpayments began in their March reporting to The MLC. The June distribution of Spotify's March reporting is the first royalty distribution affected by the alleged underpayments. 

A copy of The MLC’s corresponding press release, which includes a link to the complaint that The MLC filed to initiate the legal action, is available here.

MAST Global had its blanket license terminated effective June 24, 2024. The blanket license was terminated due to MAST Global’s failure to comply with certain statutory obligations, despite receiving formal notice of default from The MLC and having the benefit of the two-month cure period set forth in the MMA. A copy of the Notice of Blanket License Termination is archived in The MLC’s searchable index of DSP Notices, available here.

What does this mean for you? MAST Global can no longer rely on the blanket license for the rights to make and distribute digital copies of your songs. Instead, MAST Global will have to license your songs from you and pay you mechanical royalties directly. You will not receive royalty payments from The MLC for any uses of your songs by MAST Global after the date of termination. However, you may still receive royalties from The MLC for uses that took place prior to termination.

The MLC has released its latest new Member Tool — the Overclaims Tool — in The MLC Portal. This first iteration of the tool enables Members to see works they have registered that are in overclaim —  that is, newly registered works for which the individual shares submitted by all Members for a particular work add up to more than 100%. When an overclaim occurs within the first 90 days after a work is newly registered, The MLC automatically puts royalties for that work on hold in accordance with The MLC’s Ownership Dispute Policy.  

Those overclaimed works, along with the details about each of the claims submitted for the work, can now be seen in the main dashboard of the Overclaims Tool. In addition, Members can initiate an e-mail exchange with all of the other Members claiming shares of the overclaimed work in order to try and resolve the overclaim directly, and Members can use the tool to amend or relinquish their shares on overclaimed works. Members can also look for specific overclaimed works in their dashboard by using a search feature and filter the overclaimed works in their dashboard by status type. 

The MLC will continue to roll out new features in the Overclaims Tool over the next year. To learn more about the new Overclaims Tool, please review our Help Center article here.

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