First Royalty Distribution Recap

The MLC’s first-ever royalty payments were sent out to Members on Friday, April 16 – which was exactly 75 days after the end of January and right on schedule.   

Here are some of the key takeaways: 

• The distribution covered royalties paid by digital service providers (DSPs) for their use of musical works during January 2021, and the royalty pools reported to The MLC totaled more than $53 million. 
• We were able to match roughly 80 percent of the royalties reported to musical works registered in our public database, which is right in line with industry benchmarks. 
• As a result of these matches, The MLC distributed more than $24 million in matched royalties directly to our Members. 

• Additionally, The MLC sent data for an another $13 million in matched royalties back to DSPs to use as the basis for paying royalties covered by their voluntary licenses with rightsholders. 

We are pleased with the 80 percent match rate for our first distribution, but we expect that figure – as well as the total royalties collected – to increase in the future as current Members confirm their splits on newly-released works and new Members add their data for previously-unregistered works to the database. We will also continue to work closely with DSPs to improve the quality of the data they supply us, which will improve the results of our matching processes 

Be sure to go to our website and review both the FAQ section on royalty distributions and this page that covers The MLC’s entire royalty distribution process, including information on adjustments, the timing and cadence of future distributions and more.