This month, our Member newsletter offers details about our most recent royalty distribution, notices of corrective royalty adjustments related to the Copyright Office’s recent rule addressing statutory terminations, and information about our new Catalog Transfer Policy. We’ve also included a reminder for our Annual Member meeting next month. We hope you can join us then to hear more about what The MLC has accomplished over the past year and what lies ahead in 2025!

The MLC completed its ninth royalty distribution of the year on September 13, bringing us to 42 total royalty distributions since we began full operations — all of which have been completed on time or early. September’s distribution primarily covered newly reported usage that took place in June of 2024. The total of all royalty pools reported to The MLC for this cycle was approximately $78.5 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 85 percent of the total royalty pools initially reported to us by DSPs for their June 2024 usage to songs registered in our database.

After deducting royalties for usage covered by voluntary licenses maintained by DSPs with rightsholders, we collected approximately $75.3 million in royalties and distributed approximately $56.2 million to our Members.

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

This month, we processed our first set of adjustments. We received these adjustments for two DSPs, covering usage they originally reported to us in 2021 and 2022. These adjustments represent the difference between the royalties we initially processed for the usage periods during those two years at the Phono 2 rates and the royalties that are due at the Phono 3 rates (now that these rates have been finalized). Neither of these DSPs reported adjustments for 2023. The aggregate value of these adjustments was $50,765.70. To the extent any of these adjustments pertained to works in your catalog, you will see them identified on your statement by the category type ["Adjustments"], along with the names of the specific DSP for which the adjustment was made.

Since April, we have been distributing matched Phono 3 historical royalties in sets. For each set of royalties from a given DSP (or DSPs), we first distribute matched historical royalties for previously unpaid uses reported by the DSP (or DSPs) concerned, and we then aim to distribute matched historical royalties for previously partially paid uses from that same DSP (or DSPs) in the following month.

This month, we distributed $15.5 million in historic unmatched reprocessing, of which $15.45 million of that amount related to reprocessing for 2018, 2019, and 2020. Most of this amount is from Spotify’s previously partially paid usage from 2018 and 2019, but there was also some reprocessing of Apple, Pandora, SoundCloud, and YouTube for 2018, 2019, and 2020.

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

The U.S. Copyright Office’s final rule regarding statutory termination rights established a multi-step process for The MLC to follow in order to debit payments made to pre-termination owners under The MLC’s prior interim statutory terminations policy and then credit those payments to post-termination owners. On September 9, The MLC sent notices to affected Members that contained detailed information about this corrective adjustment process and the steps the affected Members need to take pursuant to this process. If you received a notice and have any questions about the information included in the notice, please contact publisherservices@themlc.com.

On July 9, 2024, The U.S. Copyright Office issued a regulation that requires The MLC to make the procedures by which The MLC analyzes and processes catalog transfer requests available on The MLC website. (37 C.F.R. 210.30)

In response, The MLC has drafted a new Catalog Transfer Policy that outlines the standard procedures The MLC uses to (a) analyze catalog transfer requests, (b) administer royalties for works, or shares of works that are subject to a catalog transfer, and (c) address conflicts and disputes that arise in the catalog transfer process.

This new Catalog Transfer Policy (available here) reflects both the processes The MLC has developed over the past several years for handling catalog transfers and the feedback on these processes we have received from Members. In that regard, it is completely consistent with The MLC’s existing processes for facilitating catalog transfers requested by members. This new Catalog Transfer Policy will officially take effect on October 9, 2024.

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