In January 2021, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC)began administering blanket mechanical licenses to eligible streaming and download services (digital service providers or DSPs) in the United States. The MLC will then collect the royalties due under those licenses from the DSPs and pay songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers.

The MLC has built a publicly accessible musical works database, as well as a portal that creators and music publishers can use to submit and maintain their musical works data. These tools will help ensure that creators and music publishers are paid properly.

It is also striving to ensure songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers receive their mechanical royalties from streaming and download services in the U.S. accurately and on time.

In order to pay these royalties, The MLC utilizes a portal where creators and music publishers submit their musical works data, which is then matched to the appropriate monies. Therefore, the importance of getting the word out to self-administered songwriters and collecting the necessary data is paramount in ensuring that creators are being compensated for their work. The MLC’s CEO Kris Ahrend shares insights from its first full year of operations and how it has already distributed more than $106 million in royalties to songwriters.