In our final Quarter Note of the year, we are excited to share several notable milestones from The MLC’s fourth year of operations. While there is still more work ahead of us, we were able to accomplish a lot this year, thanks to your support. We look forward to continuing to work with you in the coming year. On behalf of the entire MLC team, we hope you have a happy holiday season!
It’s hard to believe the holidays are here! As the year winds down, we are reminded how grateful we are for the support and partnership we continue to receive from so many of you.
In our final Quarter Note of the year, we are excited to share several notable milestones from The MLC’s fourth year of operations. While there is still more work ahead of us, we were able to accomplish a lot this year, thanks to your support. We look forward to continuing to work with you in the coming year. On behalf of the entire MLC team, we hope you have a happy holiday season!
This year, we are on track to complete all 12 monthly royalty distributions on time or early. Our final distribution of the year (later this month) will bring us to 45 total distributions since launching operations in 2021 — all of which have been on time or early.
Here are some highlights from our fourth year of operations:
We’ve added more than 15,000 new members to date in 2024 — putting us on track to have our largest ever annual increase in Members. This brings our total enrollment to nearly 50,000 Members.
This year, we’ve added more than 7 million works to our public database, which allows anyone to search The MLC’s song ownership database free of charge. We’ve now compiled data for more than 43 million works.
Our current average match rates for 2021 and 2022 now range between 90 and 94 percent, and our overall current match rate for all periods is now approximately 91 percent.
As of the November distribution, our total royalties distributed had grown to more than $2.6 billion since we launched full operations in January of 2021.
We participated in nearly 270 in-person and virtual events this year, including industry events held in more than 20 states and in several countries across Central and South America, Asia, and Europe. To date, we have now participated in more than 870 outreach and education events.
We’ve added more than 100,000 new social media followers to date in 2024, bringing our total to nearly 235,000 followers across YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, X, and TikTok.
To date, we’ve received, reviewed, and approved nearly 2 million proposed matches submitted by our Members using the Matching Tool, enabling us to distribute millions of dollars in additional royalties that were previously being held.
As of the November distribution, The MLC has distributed nearly $188 million — almost 50 percent — of the nearly $400 million in previously unmatched historical royalties that DSPs transferred to The MLC. The following graphic shows the total amount of historical royalties that we have been able to distribute so far, broken down by rate period.
We expect these percentages will continue to improve as we process the remaining unmatched historical royalties from the Phono 3 rate period while continuing to reprocess the remaining royalties from all three rate periods.
You can track the progress we’ve made so far distributing historical unmatched royalties by accessing our dynamic historical royalties dashboard.
Do you (and your clients) know the difference between unmatched and unclaimed royalties? Do you know about all of the tools The MLC has created for its Members? Do you know there are four different ways creators are entitled to be paid when their music is distributed on digital audio services in the United States? The MLC has created educational videos that answer these questions and many more. You can find all of The MLC’s educational videos, including two new videos on unmatched and unclaimed royalties, on our YouTube channel.
The MLC is excited to announce a new podcast launching this January called “Taking Care of Your Music Business." Designed to educate and empower creators at every stage of their career, this podcast will focus on the business aspects of the music industry. We’ll explore all the ways creators earn and access royalties, and we’ll share tools and actionable steps to help creators maximize their earnings. All episodes will be available on our YouTube channel — subscribe here!
