Register Your Songs With The MLC Before an Artist Releases Them

When an artist licenses your song and puts their recording on streaming services, two kinds of money start to move for the composition. One is performance money, collected by your PRO. The other is mechanical money from interactive streams, and in the United States The MLC collects that.

Many songwriters register with a PRO and stop there. This article is about the other half: what The MLC does, how to register, and why a news item from this month makes the timing matter.

What The MLC actually collects

The MLC collects digital audio mechanical royalties from streaming services and passes them on. Its site says it distributes them to members on a monthly basis.

It does not replace your PRO. Performance royalties still come through ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or another society. The MLC's own guidance is clear that registering there does not replace registering with a PRO or with the U.S. Copyright Office.

Songtrust's explainer adds a useful detail: in the U.S., mechanical royalties are payable entirely to the publisher. If you have no outside publisher, you are the publisher, and that share is yours to claim.

What it costs and what you need

Joining The MLC is free, and so is registering works. You do not need a company first. Individual songwriters can become members.

Gather these before you start: the song title, every writer with an ownership split, your publisher information if any, and identifying codes where you have them. Recording details such as the ISRC, which comes from the artist's distributor, help The MLC match the song to streams.

Search first, then register

Someone may have registered your song already, perhaps the artist or their distributor, sometimes with only part of the ownership. Check before you create a duplicate.

The MLC's Public Work Search lets anyone view ownership data on more than 55 million songs for free. If your song is there with a missing share, the Claiming Tool lets you claim your portion. If it is not there at all, use the Works Registration Tools.

• Individual registration, one song at a time in the portal.
• Bulk registration with a template, for larger catalogs.
• Common Works Registration (CWR) files for very large catalogs.

Why this month's news raises the stakes

On October 6, 2026, Music Business Worldwide reported that The MLC has paid out more than $4.2 billion to songwriters and publishers since launching in January 2021, and will begin market share distributions of unmatched and unclaimed royalties in April 2027.

The MLC says that first distribution starts with January 2021 usage and releases one month of remaining royalties at a time. It says it was holding just over $6 million in unmatched and unclaimed royalties from January 2021 usage after its September 2026 distribution, and it expects that figure to shrink as matching continues. Under the Music Modernization Act, those leftover funds are split by relative market share rather than going to the songs that earned them.

The practical meaning: every song you register and match before then is money that goes to you rather than into a shared pool.

Co-writers and licensed songs

Each co-writer with independent rights should register their own share. Agree on splits first, as our guide to listing a co-written song explains, so no one over-claims.

If a song you wrote is licensed to an artist, the artist's release is what creates streams to match. The license certificate for every Starchild license names the writers with PRO and IPI, which gives everyone the same data to work from. See who registers what for a licensed song for the artist's side.

A ten-minute routine

The MLC also offers a Catalog Export Tool, which gives you a downloadable list of your registered works for your own records.

• Create your free MLC account and add your banking and tax details.
• Search your catalog in Public Work Search.
• Claim missing shares, register missing songs.
• Check the Overclaims Tool if a song's shares add up to more than 100%.
• Repeat when a new song is licensed or an artist announces a release.

What happens when a song is never registered

The MLC does not lose the money. Royalties it has received but cannot match to a registered owner are held. Its site says unmatched or unclaimed royalties will be held for a minimum of 3 years to find and pay the rightful owner.

After that, the Music Modernization Act requires the leftover funds to be distributed, with statutory interest, by relative market share. The MLC has said it is holding them longer than the minimum: six years before the first distribution, double the three-year statutory minimum.

The MLC says these payments will be allocated on a song-by-song, pro rata basis, using reported usage and distribution data. In plain terms, the leftover money flows to works that are registered and matched. A registered, matched song is paid for its own streams as they happen. An unregistered one waits in line for a share of a pool that is years away.

How big the hidden pool was

The MLC has described the problem as a black box: an unpaid pool of royalties that rightsholders could not see, search or quantify. It reported $426.9 million in unpaid historical unmatched royalties accrued by 21 digital services between 2007 and 2020.

The Matching Tool and the Claiming Tool exist to shrink that pool. Members can search unmatched data and propose matches to songs they have registered, or search for unclaimed shares and claim the ones they control.

For a songwriter with a handful of licensed songs, the lesson is not about huge sums. It is that small, steady streaming income depends on clean data, and clean data is something you can control today.

Sources

• The MLC: Resources for Songwriters
• The MLC: Play Your Part FAQs
• The MLC: Tools
• The MLC: Market Share Distributions
• Music Business Worldwide: The MLC has paid out more than $4.2bn and will begin market share distributions in April 2027
• Songtrust: Mechanical vs. Performance Royalties
• The MLC Help Center: New Member Checklist, Registering Works