October 2024 Royalty Distribution Recap

The MLC completed its tenth royalty distribution of the year on October 11, bringing us to 43 total royalty distributions since we began full operations — all of which have been completed on time or early. October’s distribution primarily covered newly reported usage that took place in July of 2024. The total of all royalty pools reported to The MLC for this cycle was approximately $86.4 million. 

Every month our team attempts to match the newly reported sound recording uses we receive to the musical works data in our public database and then distributes the resulting matched royalties to our Members. In October’s distribution, we were able to match nearly 86 percent of the total royalty pools initially reported to us by DSPs for their July 2024 usage to songs registered in our database.   

After deducting royalties for usage covered by voluntary licenses maintained by DSPs with rightsholders, we collected approximately $83.2 million in royalties and distributed approximately $62.6 million to our Members.

As you regularly see in our monthly newsletters, we always break down the remaining royalties that are pending distribution into the following three categories: unmatched, unclaimed, and on hold. We do this to provide greater transparency into the reasons these royalties are being held and to help you understand the steps you can take to help us reduce these amounts. For a refresher on these terms and what you can do to collect your royalties, check out our latest Annual Royalty Recap that we published in February.  

Last month, the remaining royalties still pending distribution break down as follows:  

• $12.2 million in royalties for uses we have not been able to match to registered works; 
• $7.4 million in royalties for shares of matched works that have not yet been registered (or claimed) by our Members; and 
• $1.1 million in matched royalties that are on hold. 

In addition, The MLC also distributed another $19.7 million in blanket royalties from previously unmatched or unclaimed uses that we were able to match, through reprocessing, to data submitted to us after we completed the initial distribution cycle for that usage. Thanks to reprocessing, our current average match rates for 2021 and 2022 now range between 91 and 93 percent, and our overall current match rate for all periods is above 90 percent.