The MLC Is Not Paying 25% Of Earned Mechanical Royalties…The Same As It Was Before The Music Modernization Act (MMA) Was passed. The Only Difference Now Is They Get To Take Your Money.

Before the Music Modernization Act (MMA) was passed into law creating the Mechanical Licensing Collections (The MLC), about 25% of earned mechanical royalties from streams in the U.S. were not paid to the songwriters who earned them.

Then the National Music Publising Association (The NMPA) wrote the MAA and lobbied to get it passed into a law under the guise it would get songwriters paid their mechanicals.

Three years after the Mechanical Licensing Collections (The MLC) came into existence, about 25% of earned mechanical earned are still not paid to the songwriters who earned them.

To see the evidence that The MLC has not paid 25% of mechanical royalties look at The MLC’sMarch, 2024 email that states it paid $1.823 billion in “blanket royalties” between 1/1/21 to 12/31/2023.

You can view The MLC email here:

[embed]March 2024 Member Updates we sent you some additional information about the Phono 3 royalty adjustments we received from DSPs in February. This…emails.themlc.com

Then using the MLC’s own “Rate Sheets” it shows that just Apple, Amazon, Spotify, YouTube and Pandora paid a total of $2.423 billion in “blanket royalties” earned from 1/1/21 to 12/31/2023.

Total Royalties Paid By Amazon, Apple, Pandora, Spotify & YouTube Music To MLC From 1/1/21–12/31/23

This means 25% of the “blanket royalties” an amount of about $600 million, in unpaid royalties are sitting at The MLC.

The significant and possibly most important difference between pre and post MMA is that the NMPA wrote into the law that the unpaid royalties can be taken and handed disproportionately to Sony, Universal and Warner (who pay over 90% of the NMPA’s annual dues).

Clearly, as there is nothing in the MMA that requires any songwriter to get paid their earned royalties and no repercussions to The MLC if they do not pay them, the purpose of the MMA was to create a legal way to take songwriters money and hand it to the NMPA members.

They just lied to you to get it passed…