A Letter from the MLC CEO Kris Ahrend:
Greetings from Nashville and Happy Holidays!
It’s hard to believe The MLC’s first year of operations is coming to a close! I’m grateful for all of the support and assistance we’ve received from our Board and Committee Members, our stakeholders, our team and – most of all – our Members.
Together, we were able to achieve a number of important milestones this year, including launching full operations on January 1, 2021; growing the number of musical works in our public database by almost 40%; more than doubling our Membership; completing nine monthly royalty distributions on-time or early and distributing more than $280 million in digital audio mechanical royalties to our Members. In short, we began turning the promise of the landmark Music Modernization Act into reality.
On behalf of everyone associated with The MLC, thank you for being active and engaged participants in our work in 2021 and for continuing to “Play Your Part” to help us fulfill our important mission. We’re excited to continue our work in 2022. Best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year!
January 1, 2022 will mark one full year since The MLC officially began operations. Here are some of the notable highlights of its work over the past year:
- Hosted or participated in more than 150 webinars, which collectively engaged more than 12,500 attendees;
- More than doubled Membership to more than 16,000 Members;
- Added more than six million musical works to our database – an increase of nearly 40 percent – bringing the total number of works in the database to well over 23 million;
- Successfully onboarded more than 40 digital service providers (DSPs) as blanket licensees, almost all of which are now regularly sending The MLC royalties and accompanying data each month;
- Completed nine monthly royalty distributions – all on time or ahead of schedule – and paid out more than $280 million in digital audio mechanical royalties to our Members;
- Received more than $424 million in historical unmatched royalties and roughly 4,000 files of accompanying data from 21 DSPs, which have now begun to process with a view toward beginning to distribute these royalties in 2022;
- Fielded more than 23,500 calls and emails this year – an average of almost 2,000 a month and more than 60 a day.
