About Us

About The MLC

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) is a nonprofit organization designated by the U.S. Copyright Office pursuant to the historic Music Modernization Act of 2018.

In January 2021, The MLC began administering blanket mechanical licenses to eligible streaming and download services (digital service providers or DSPs) in the United States. The MLC collects the royalties due under those licenses from the DSPs and pays songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers. 

The MLC has built a publicly accessible musical works database, as well as a portal that creators and music publishers can use to submit and maintain their musical works data. These tools help ensure that creators and music publishers are paid properly. 

Our Mission

The MLC will strive to ensure songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers receive their mechanical royalties from streaming and download services in the U.S. accurately and on time.

Our Principles

The MLC is founded on four guiding principles that underpin our work, our team and our operations:

We are committed to EXCELLENCE.

The MLC is focused on shaping the future of the music industry by encouraging collaboration and improving the quality of musical works data.

We embrace DIVERSITY.

We are passionate about building a diverse and inclusive team that includes people with different backgrounds, views, and experiences. We will serve songwriters from every genre, located across the United States and beyond.

We value TRANSPARENCY.

The MLC will build trust by operating transparently. The MLC is governed by a board of songwriters and music publishers who will help ensure our work is conducted with integrity.

We are a SERVICE organization.

Service is at the heart of everything we do at The MLC. We aim to maintain strong relationships with each person we serve.