Resources for Lawyers*
*The materials on this page and included within our Lawyer Toolkit were prepared by our Educational Partnerships team and are provided to assist members of the legal and music publishing community in finding answers to their most common questions regarding The MLC. The purpose of these materials is to provide general information about The MLC and is not intended to provide legal advice, and nothing contained within the materials should be construed as legal advice.
Lawyer Toolkit
We have created a package of information for lawyers who advise musical works rightsholders (such as music publishers, songwriters, composers, and lyricists). The toolkit features a PDF document that explains the roles and responsibilities related to mechanical licensing and royalties, becoming a Member of The MLC, The MLC’s royalty distributions timeline, catalog transfers, The MLC’s Member tools, and other topics. Click here to download the Lawyer Toolkit (Version 2).
Helpful Links
The following areas of our website are mentioned in the toolkit. Links are provided below to make it even easier to find these pages:
Ex-U.S. CMOs that are Members of The MLC
Historical Unmatched Royalties
Digital Royalties Landscape diagram
Policies (Ownership Disputes, Statutory Terminations)
Explainer Videos
We have created short explainer videos, and longer deep-dive videos, to help you and your clients learn more about The MLC and how to collect digital mechanical royalties. The list below are just a few of the most popular ones. Visit The MLC’s YouTube channel for many more.
About The MLC in 60 seconds (animated)
Four Ways to Get Paid Your Streaming Royalties (animated)
Playlist of videos for Independent Songwriters
Playlist of videos for Publishers, Administrators, and CMOs