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A Letter from CEO, Kris Ahrend

I hope this finds all of you enjoying summer so far. July 1st marked 18 months since The MLC officially began operations and the midway point in our second full year of operations. A lot has happened since our last issue of the Quarter Note.

With the completion of our July monthly royalty distribution — The MLC’s 16th overall — we have now distributed more than $580 million in blanket royalties to our Members, and each of those 16 distributions has been completed on time or ahead of schedule.

Additionally, our initial match rates — the percentage of royalties sent to us by DSPs that we have matched to musical works in our database — have continued to improve. Our initial match rate exceeded 85 percent for the first time in our May distribution, and our initial match rates for the June and July distributions were also above 85 percent.  

The MLC’s 2021 Annual Report is now available on the Governance page of our website. The report offers a look into our first full year of operations, key performance metrics from 2021, a financial summary and more.

The MLC took two notable steps forward this past quarter in our work on processing historical unmatched royalties. First, after we completed our initial attempt to match these historical uses, we began making the remaining unmatched data available for our Members to search using the Matching Tool in The MLC Portal. This remaining unmatched data covers all historical time periods. Second, we paid out our first two sets of royalties for matched historical uses in our June and July royalty distributions.

The MLC recently released a new video that explains the important role metadata plays in helping rightsholders ensure they receive all the mechanical royalties they are owed when their songs are used on the digital audio services that operate under the blanket license The MLC administers.

The video is available on YouTube; please feel free to share it with the rightsholders you represent and on your social media platforms.

ARIPO.org – What You Should Know About the Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC)

Billboard – Black Music Month & Juneteenth 2022: Industry Celebrations (Updating)

Music Business Worldwide – Spirit Music Group Exec Melanie Santa Rosa Joins MLC Operations Advisory Committee

Music Connection – The MLC, NSAI and The Bluebird Café at Key West Songwriters Festival

Music Row – The MLC & Nashville Music Equality To Host Summit For Black Music Month

Soundfly – Here’s Everything Rightsholders Need to Know About The MLC

The Support Team Is Here For You!

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