On February 16, 2021, the U.S. copyright management organization Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) announced that it had collected a royalties of $424 million from 20 music delivery services, including Spotify and Apple Music.
The Music Modernization Act, which came into force in 2018, decided to establish a non-profit organization that manages copyrights to promote the payment of copyrighted music in response to new format technologies such as digital transmission services. As a result, MLC is in charge of managing music data, collecting royalties from music services, and distributing them to copyright holders.
MLC began comprehensive license management for music services on January 1, 2021, but the law also mandated royalties for copyright infringement in the past. That’s why MLC is asking for royalties that aren’t properly paid for music services, and as a result, it has collected royalties from 20 music services, including Spotify and Apple Music.
In its February 16, 2021 announcement, MLC reported that it received a royalties of $425,438,787 on 20 music services. Each company pays $16334 million for Apple, $152.3 million for Spotify, $4274 million for Amazon, and $32.86 million for Google.
The usage fee collected this time will be processed by MLC and paid to singers and music companies who own the copyright from April 2021. MLC reportedly obtained 1.3 TB of data files from the delivery service to properly manage the distribution of royalties.
NMPA CEO David Israelite said it was a big win for music producers and the delivery service itself.The music industry has been demanding accurate royalty payments for delivery services for several years. He said it would bring profits to the entire company.
Until the enforcement of the Music Modernization Act, it was difficult to manage the vast music licenses that existed in dozens of music delivery services. MLC said it has been preparing for more than a year for MLC to activate music licenses, and has developed a number of resources to help creators and music companies change their mechanical licenses. Related information can be found here .