The MLC completed our ninth distribution of the year, and 18th overall, on Tuesday, September 13th. This month's distribution primarily covered newly reported usage that took place in June of 2022. The total of all royalty pools reported to The MLC for this cycle was $60.2 million. We were able to match 85 percent of that amount to songs currently registered in our database. (Our current match rate for all periods through last month’s distribution has now surpassed 88 percent.) After deducting royalties for usage covered by voluntary licenses maintained by DSPs with rightsholders, we collected $57.2 million in royalties and distributed approximately $42.5 million to our Members.
The remaining royalties still pending distribution break down as follows:
- $9.0 million in royalties for uses we have not been able to match to registered works;
- $5.3 million in royalties for shares of matched works that have not yet been registered (or claimed) by our Members; and
- $436k in matched royalties that are on hold.
In addition, The MLC also distributed another $4.2 million in blanket 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. Every month when we pay out the royalties from reprocessing, we reduce our total unmatched and unclaimed royalty pools from prior periods.
This month we distributed approximately $1.5 million in matched historical royalties that were transferred to The MLC by Google Play. These matched royalties represent the first set of matched royalties we are distributing for uses that took place on this service during the Phonorecords 2 rate period (i.e., between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2017).
Additionally, we also distributed approximately $100k in newly matched royalties for the other 8 DSPs we have previously begun to distribute, bringing our total September distribution of matched historical royalties to approximately $1.6 million. To catch up on the progress we’ve shared about historical unmatched royalties so far, you can find all the updates here.
Finally, we have one correction to make about the metrics we shared last month for the August distribution. The total of royalties collected for last cycle was $58.1 million, not $60.1 million as we’d previously reported.
