Our cumulative total royalties from all distributions includes $1.823 billion in blanket royalties and an estimated $193 million in voluntary royalties, calculated at statutory rates.
Happy spring, everyone! It’s been a busy March at The MLC. We thought it would be helpful to open this month’s newsletter with a quick recap of a few highlights from earlier this month:
First, on March 11, we sent you some additional information about the Phono 3 royalty adjustments we received from DSPs in February. This note supplemented the initial update about these adjustments we sent you on February 21 and included an explanation of how the performance royalties DSPs report to The MLC can impact the mechanical royalties they owe.
The following day, we updated Members about the Copyright Office’s first periodic review of The MLC’s designation and invited Members to submit an endorsement supporting the continued designation of The MLC.
Finally at the end of that week, we completed our third monthly royalty distribution of 2024, distributing approximately $68.4 million to Members.
March’s distribution brought us to another significant milestone for our Members:
Our cumulative total royalties from all distributions includes $1.823 billion in blanket royalties and an estimated $193 million in voluntary royalties, calculated at statutory rates.
Keep reading to learn more about each of these topics. We hope to see you at some upcoming industry events next month!
The MLC completed its third royalty distribution of the year on March 15, bringing us to 36 total royalty distributions since we began full operations — all of which were on time or early. March’s distribution primarily covered newly reported usage that took place in December of 2023. The total of all royalty pools reported to The MLC for this cycle was approximately $97.2 million.
Every month our team attempts to match sound recording uses 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 85 percent of the total royalty pools we administered to songs currently registered in our database.
After deducting royalties for usage covered by voluntary licenses maintained by DSPs with rightsholders, we collected approximately $92.9 million in royalties and distributed approximately $68.4 million to our Members.
To learn more about our March 2024 distribution, click here:
This month we announced an opportunity for Members to join other rightsholders and industry organizations in showing their support of The MLC. As we’ve previously shared, it has been almost five years since The MLC was first designated by the Register of Copyrights to administer the blanket license under the Music Modernization Act (MMA). The MMA requires that the Register review that designation every five years, and that process began in January.
One of the factors that the Register considers in their review process is the endorsement and support that The MLC has received from musical work copyright owners, which includes all those with the exclusive right to license musical works for activities covered by the blanket license. In advance of The MLC’s original designation five years ago, we received and submitted endorsements from rightsholders representing the overwhelming majority of the market, along with dozens of industry organizations and professionals. We are now collecting endorsements again, to show the Register that we continue to have the support of rightsholders representing an overwhelming majority of the market. With your support, we look forward to continuing to serve in the future.
If you’d like to add your name to the list of Members who endorse our continued designation, please click here to log in to the Portal and submit your endorsement form.
In February, we provided Members with a high-level summary of the Phono 3 royalty adjustments. Included in that summary was a breakdown of the adjustments to mechanical and performance royalties that have been reported to The MLC as of February 23, 2024. Earlier this month, we shared that we added a new page on our website explaining more about the performance royalties DSPs report to The MLC and how those can impact the mechanical royalties they owe. You can find this new page here.
We have also added links to this new performance royalties page on the recently published Adjustments to Phono 3 Royalties page. You can find that revised page here.
Last month, we published our 2023 Annual Royalty Recap, highlighting our 2023 distributions, updated cumulative statistics from our 2021 and 2022 distributions and our cumulative total royalties distributed (as of the February 2024 distribution). If you haven’t had a chance to take a look at it yet, you can find the full report here.
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