The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) announced the completion of its first monthly distribution of mechanical royalties, another important step in realizing the promise of the Music Modernization Act.

The distribution process started in February when DSPs began reporting their streaming and download usage data for January 2021, for which the royalty pool totaled more than $53 million. The MLC was able to match about 80% of the reported royalties to works registered in its database, which is in line with industry benchmarks for initial matching.

Next, the MLC established which uses were covered by voluntary licenses between DSPs and copyright owners, determining that the remaining amount of mechanical royalties owed by DSPs totaled more than $40 million. These royalties were successfully successfully collected and included. The results are $24 million in matched royalties paid by the MLC to its Members and $16.4 million currently pending distribution. The pending distribution breaks down as: $4.9 million in matched royalties for registered works for which claims haven't been submitted; $500k in matched royalties on legal hold; and $11 mllion related to usage that the MLC has not yet been able to match in its public database.

Kris Ahrend, the MLC’s CEO, said: “Thanks to the hard work and diligence of our team, and the cooperation and support of our many partners, we have now begun fulfilling our important mission of ensuring that rightsholders receive their proper share of the blanket mechanical royalties paid by DSPs.”

As the MLC continues working to reduce the amount of royalties pending distribution it encourages its members to check and update their data in the MLC portal and rightsholders who are not members to join the MLC and register their songs. (Note: royalties pending distribution will accrue interest until distribution).