Royalties and collection

What music earns, and the organizations that collect it and pay it out.

• Mechanical Licensing Collective

  The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) is a nonprofit organization, designated by the U.S. Copyright Office under the Music Modernization Act of 2018, that administers the blanket mechanical license for digital audio services in the United States. Since January 2021 it has collected mechanical royalties from streaming and download services and paid them to music publishers and self-administered songwriters.

• Music royalties

  Music royalties are payments made to rights holders for the use of their music. Because every recorded song carries two copyrights, royalties flow in two streams: composition royalties — performance, mechanical, sync and print — paid to songwriters and publishers, and master royalties — sales, streams, master licensing and digital performance — paid to recording owners and performers.

• Performing rights organization

  A performing rights organization (PRO) licenses the public performance of musical compositions — on radio, television, streaming services and in venues — and distributes the fees as royalties to songwriters and publishers. In the United States the PROs are ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and GMR; most other countries have a single national society, such as PRS for Music in the UK or SOCAN in Canada.

• SoundExchange

  SoundExchange is a nonprofit collective management organization, founded in 2003 and based in Washington, D.C., that collects digital performance royalties for sound recordings in the United States. It collects from non-interactive digital services such as satellite and internet radio under the statutory license and pays recording owners, featured artists and non-featured performers.