Pictured: Kara DioGuardi
The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) announced on Monday that it had held its Annual Membership Meeting on Wednesday, October 1, 2025, "marking another year of growth, progress, and impact for songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers."
"The meeting opened with announcements regarding the organization’s Board of Directors. The MLC’s Class A Members re-selected Kara DioGuardi to serve another three-year term as a Songwriter Director of the Board," a statement read. "The MLC’s Class B Members re-elected Tim Cohan of peermusic to serve another term as a Publisher Director and elected Lidia Kim of Concord Music Publishing as a new Publisher Director. The makeup of the Class C Members will remain unchanged in 2026. Following these announcements, Board Chair Alisa Coleman shared personal remarks about The MLC’s progress over the past year."
“The MLC has become the largest single source of U.S. digital revenue for songwriters and publishers—distributing more than $3 billion in royalties since launching operations, at no cost to our Members,” said Alisa Coleman, Board Chair of The MLC. “With pride comes responsibility. Our job now is to sustain this success, keep improving, and ensure every songwriter and publisher—no matter their size or background—can rely on The MLC as a trusted partner in their creative journey.”
"Over its first four years of operations, The MLC has continued to efficiently administer the blanket compulsory mechanical license for more than 50 digital service providers (DSPs) across the United States. In 2025, membership has grown to more than 68,000 Members worldwide," they said. "The MLC has also continued to see a steady increase in the volume of musical works data added to its public database, which now contains data for more than 50 million songs, allowing anyone to search The MLC’s database for free or download a complete copy of The MLC’s public data for a nominal fee of $25 per month. As a result, The MLC has surpassed a major milestone, distributing more than $3 billion in total royalties to rightsholders."
Here are some of the key metrics and milestones that members of The MLC’s leadership team shared during the meeting (directly from The MLC):
- The MLC has completed 54 monthly royalty distributions to date, every one of which has been completed on time or early.
- The MLC has processed more than $3.9 billion in total royalties and directly distributed more than $3.3 billion in blanket royalties to rightsholders.
- The MLC has distributed more than $225 million in historical royalties—more than 57 percent of the total amount of historical unmatched royalties DSPs were unable to match and distribute before transferring them to The MLC.
- The MLC now has more than 68,000 Members, having added more than 18,000 to date in 2025.
- The MLC has compiled data for more than 50 million works in its public database, an increase of more than 6 million new works added in 2025 alone.
- The MLC’s current match rate for all royalties processed through September’s royalty distribution is nearly 92 percent.
- The MLC has successfully developed and continues to enhance its growing suite of tools that enable Members to register works, claim their shares of previously registered works, submit proposed matches of their works to unmatched usage, and more.
- The MLC has made extensive efforts to conduct outreach and educational activities aimed at reaching the full cross-section of the rightsholder community, with nearly 200 outreach and education events in 2025, contributing to a total of more than 1,000 outreach and education activities to reach and educate rightsholders.
“We’re incredibly grateful for the support of our Members and partners,” said Kris Ahrend, CEO of The MLC. “Together, we’ve built an organization that is committed to providing world-class service that empowers our Members, enhances transparency, drives innovation, and transforms the way rights and royalties are administered in the music business. We look forward to achieving more milestones in the coming year, all while remaining laser-focused on fulfilling our mission to ensure that songwriters, composers, lyricists, and their music publishing and administration partners receive their mechanical royalties from streaming and download services in the United States accurately and on time.”
More information on The MLC’s Board of Directors and Advisory Committees can be found here. For more information about The MLC, visit https://www.themlc.com.
