An Update from CEO, Kris Ahrend

It’s hard to believe that June is already here. It’s been another busy month here at The MLC. 

The big news is that we completed our second royalty distribution to Members, and once again payments went out on-time. This distribution included royalties payable on usage that took place in February of this year. I’m pleased to report that our initial match rate for February’s usage was just over 82%, improving on January’s initial match rate of 80% and, again, in-line with industry benchmarks. Starting with next month’s distribution, we will begin to reprocess the unmatched royalties from January and February that we could not initially pay out, with the hope of improving those match rates further in the coming months.

With two royalty distributions now complete – and more than $47 million in royalties now paid to our Members – I want to stress again how important it is for anyone who is entitled to receive digital audio mechanical royalties to join The MLC if they have not already done so.   

In particular, if you’re a self-administered songwriter, composer or lyricist - meaning you manage the collection of your mechanical royalties and do not work with a music publisher or administrator – you need to become a Member of The MLC so that we can pay you the mechanical royalties that we receive from digital audio services when they make your songs available on their services. Joining The MLC is free and easy – simply click the blue Connect to Collect™ button on themlc.com to start the process. If you have any questions about the membership process, The MLC employees on our Support Team are available six days a week to provide you with one-on-one support. You can contact them by filling out this form or calling 615-488-3653. 

I also want to remind you of something we frequently share with our Members, which is that “good data leads to more dollars.” Put another way, the best thing a Member can do to ensure that we pay them properly is to make sure the data we have for their songs in our database is accurate and complete. If you currently work with any of our Members in a legal, financial, management or administrative capacity, please encourage them to use our free Public Search feature – accessible via the yellow button on the top of our homepage – to regularly check their data and make sure it is accurate and complete. Better yet, offer to help them do that! Anyone can check our data, and the more people that do so, the more likely the data will be accurate and complete. Once again, our friendly and knowledgeable Support Team is available to help if you have any questions.  

Finally, please consider helping us reach more potential MLC Members by spreading the word about The MLC. If you know of someone in your professional or personal networks who has not yet joined, please tell them about us and direct them to visit our website to learn more about what we do. You can also encourage them to follow us on social media or sign up to receive this newsletter. Raising awareness about The MLC is another way you can “Play Your Part” and help ensure that that every eligible rightsholder receives the mechanical royalties they have earned and deserve

Thanks for your continued interest in The MLC. Now that we are beginning to turn the page on the pandemic here in the States, I look forward to having the chance to meet more of you in person.  

Until next month, all my best regards,