The MLC for Songwriters: US Streaming Mechanicals

The MLC, formally the Mechanical Licensing Collective, is the body songwriters use for US streaming mechanicals; it came out of the 2018 Music Modernization Act. Royalty collection began in January 2021. No other US organization gathers digital mechanical royalties from streaming platforms and sends them straight to songwriters and publishers. (Our CMO directory has a quick reference card showing the registration link and payment timing.)

When your songs play through Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, YouTube, or another interactive streaming service, the MLC receives royalties that belong to you. Getting paid, however, comes down to registering those songs properly.

Quick answer: Every US streaming mechanical royalty flows through the MLC. Sign-up costs nothing. Enter each song with its ISWC and complete splits, then check the unmatched pool for earnings left behind by earlier streams.

Royalties the MLC collects

The MLC's job is limited to US digital mechanical royalties. An interactive-service stream generates a mechanical royalty, which the service puts into one pool. After connecting each play to the composition's songwriter and publisher owners, the MLC pays them.

That includes:

• Every on-demand interactive stream (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, etc.)
• Every non-interactive subscription stream that clears the statutory blanket license's threshold for being "interactive enough"
• Limited downloads (uncommon now, but not gone)

The MLC does not collect:

• Performance royalties (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC collect those)
• Physical mechanicals from CDs, vinyl, cassette (managed through HFA or direct license)
• Sync revenue (managed deal by deal)
• Streaming mechanicals outside the US (local CMOs cover their own territories)
• Neighboring rights (SoundExchange collects US digital master-performance royalties)

Think of the MLC as one defined channel in the royalty system. Indie writers overlook this channel more than most, partly because it only arrived in 2021.

Money in the unmatched pool

If the MLC receives a stream report without enough metadata to connect it to a registered work, that money goes into an unmatched pool. Members of the public can search the pool through the MLC portal and submit claims for unclaimed royalties.

By August 2026, The MLC had paid out $238 million from $397 million in historical unmatched royalties. Those royalties came from streams between 2007 and 2020, before its blanket license began, and were transferred by digital services. That left about $159 million unclaimed, according to The MLC's own historical royalties dashboard. The organization says the pool is no longer technically a hidden "black box" because members can search all unmatched-use records. Still, funds remain there until somebody establishes a match. Many indie songwriters have earnings in that pool because their own streamed songs were never registered correctly.

To search for yours:

1. Open an MLC account through portal.themlc.com.
2. Search for each song using its title, ISWC, or ISRC.
3. Submit a claim when you find a song in the unmatched pool. The MLC will review it, then either issue payment or request additional proof.

That one-time process recovers older streams that failed to match. For future plays, the goal is a correct match as soon as each stream occurs.

Registration process

Correct stream matching at the MLC relies on three identity layers:

1. Your account

Sign up at portal.themlc.com at no cost. Identity verification generally takes a few business days.

2. Your member category

Choose one or more registration types:

• Songwriter (a writer without a publishing entity)
• Self-Administered Songwriter (a writer managing their own publishing)
• Publisher (an administrator of publishing for one or more writers)

Most independent writers should pick "Self-Administered Songwriter" because they both create the songs and manage the publisher side themselves.

When Davincii works with you, we enroll as a Publisher and connect your writer side with our publishing entity. We then register the songs together.

3. Registered works

Each song gets a separate registration containing all metadata:

• Title, plus any alternate titles
• ISWC, the composition's global identifier. After you register a song with your PRO (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC), it provides the code. The MLC can't create a match without an ISWC.
• Writers with their PROs, IPI numbers, and writer-share splits
• Publishers with their PRO/MLC affiliations, IPI numbers, and publisher-share splits
• ISRC codes covering every recording of the song. Distributors such as DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby, and UnitedMasters assign one for each release.

Both the writer side and publisher side must separately add up to 100%. Registrations often fail because an ISWC is absent, the splits do not total correctly, or a co-writer has not registered.

When payments arrive

Distributions from the MLC are monthly, not quarterly. Each usage month is paid roughly 75 days after that month closes:

• January usage → paid in mid-April
• February usage → paid in mid-May
• March usage → paid in mid-June
• and so on, one distribution every month

Compared with ASCAP/BMI, the money arrives both more often and sooner: a monthly cycle running about two and a half months behind usage, against a quarterly cycle running six to nine months behind. Find confirmed distribution dates on themlc.com.

Every statement separates usage by platform, letting you review Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music individually. That makes the records easy to audit.

Common failures

These are the usual reasons independent writers miss MLC royalties:

1. No MLC registration. Unmatched keeps filling as streams occur. Your earnings are waiting, but you must claim them.
2. No ISWC. The MLC needs it to connect the ISRC data reported by a streaming service with your composition. Your PRO supplies the ISWC, so confirm that your work has one.
3. Splits fall short of 100%. Writer and publisher sides both need complete totals. A co-writer who has not entered their portion commonly causes an incomplete split.
4. A co-writer has no MLC account. Their portion can remain unmatched forever when they never register. You cannot complete this step on their behalf.
5. The stage and legal names differ. Matching uses the legal name held by your PRO. Suppose BMI lists you as "John Smith" while your distributor tells streaming platforms you are "Big Smitty". That difference may prevent a match. The MLC uses fuzzy matching, though it is not flawless.
6. Registration processing delays. New works may take the MLC several weeks to process. Registering on the first day of a major streaming push sends income into unmatched until approval finishes. Get it done early.

Davincii's work with the MLC

For each artist we represent:

1. Set up the account. We usually use our Publisher entity, though an artist can choose their own self-administered songwriter account.
2. Register the catalog. Each work gets full metadata. We confirm the ISWC through the artist's PRO, obtain the ISRC from their distributor, and verify publisher and writer splits with every co-writer.
3. Audit the unmatched pool. During onboarding, we search for the new artist's existing catalog in the MLC unmatched records. Any recovered royalties return to that artist.
4. Review every monthly statement. Using stream counts, we compare expected revenue against each MLC distribution. We flag shortfalls and submit claims where required.

For an indie songwriter with a moderately streamed catalog, the MLC is the single highest-leverage organization to join. Performance royalties matter, but streaming mechanicals are generally the larger figure. The per-play calculation is laid out in how much Spotify pays per stream.