Monetize › Rights & royalties admin
The MLC
The US Mechanical Licensing Collective: collects streaming mechanical royalties for songwriters and publishers under the Music Modernization Act. Free to join; unclaimed if you don't.
- Best for
- Collecting US streaming mechanicals you're otherwise leaving behind. Self-administered songwriters, composers, lyricists and publishers who control their US mechanical rights and are not already using a publishing administrator to collect them.
- Skip if
- A publishing admin already collects these for you. A publisher, administrator or eligible foreign collection society already collects your US digital mechanical royalties. You also do not need it if you only own master-recording rights and did not write or control the composition.
- First move
- Register free and search unmatched royalties for your songs. Confirm whether your publisher or administrator already represents your US mechanical rights. If not, join as a self-administered songwriter, search for each composition before creating a new entry, register accurate writer shares and connect each work to its corresponding recordings and ISRCs.
- Watch out
- The MLC only covers US digital audio mechanical royalties—not performance, sync, physical mechanical, master or neighboring-rights income. Duplicate works, inconsistent titles, missing ISRCs and conflicting ownership shares can delay payment. Unmatched royalties may eventually be distributed using a market-share formula, making accurate and timely registration important.
- Reach
- Established
- When
- Useful from day one.
- Based in
- United States