Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) Portal Is Going Live “Later This Quarter”

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Washington, D.C.’s James Madison Memorial Building, which houses the U.S. Copyright Office.

The Mechanical Licensing Collective’s user portal is set to go live “later this quarter,” according to a new release.

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) recently announced the timetable for the debut of its much-anticipated portal, along with a pair of new tools. Last July, Digital Music News was first to report that, following a heated and contentious battle, the U.S. Copyright Office had selected the self-named Mechanical Licensing Collective to run the MLC. A coalition created by both leading music publishers and prominent indie publishers, the entity (which received some $62 million in startup capital in November 2019) is tasked with administering mechanical publishing royalties from streaming platforms.

Per the release, self-administered songwriters and music publishers can better “organize and prepare their musical works data” – and help the MLC to “fulfill its important mission of paying royalties accurately and expediently” – by utilizing the aforementioned tools. To be sure, the latter of these tools directly concerns the user portal.

Tailored for publishers and administrators, the first resource, the Data Quality Initiative (DQI), will enable hassle-free cross referencing between “large schedules of their musical works’ data” and the MLC’s comprehensive database. From there, the MLC will provide “reports that highlight the discrepancies” between the two sets of information, as part of a larger effort to optimize accuracy.

Additionally, the MLC noted that it has started “working directly with a number of music publishers and administrators to on-board them into the initiative.” The release didn’t specify which publishers and administrators are currently involved, however.

Designed to help songwriters “begin to organize their musical works’ data” ahead of the user portal’s rollout, the second resource – aptly called the Music Data Organization Form – is available to download on the MLC’s website. Interested individuals need only disclose their name, email address, country, and zip code.

Elaborating upon the Form’s purpose in a statement, Mechanical Licensing Collective CEO Kris Ahrend said: “The Music Data Organization Form is designed as a worksheet to help guide self-administered writers through the process of collecting the data they’ll need to register with The MLC. The form essentially outlines the information self-administered writers will need to compile in order to register their musical works in The MLC Portal.”

Though the announcement didn’t identify a precise release date for the portal (specifying that it will become available “later this quarter,” once again), it did indicate that users will be able to establish their accounts, “search, view, and edit” the MLC’s library, and register new works yet.