The Music Modernization Act changed some of the machinery behind how music gets licensed and paid for in the United States.

It did not create streaming royalties, and it did not combine every music right into one system.

Instead, the law updated several parts of U.S. copyright law that had become increasingly awkward in a digital music business.

The Music Modernization Act (MMA), signed into law in 2018, contains three separate titles covering digital mechanical licensing, pre-1972 sound recordings and certain royalty payments to producers, mixers and engineers.

For most working songwriters and publishers, Title I and The Mechanical Licensing Collective are the pieces they will encounter most often.

First, remember that a song has more than one copyright

Before getting into the MMA, it helps to separate two things that frequently get lumped together.

The musical composition is the underlying music and lyrics written by the songwriter or songwriters.

The sound recording, sometimes called the master, is the particular recorded performance of that composition.

A stream can involve money associated with both copyrights.

For example, an interactive stream on Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music can generate money for the sound recording as well as mechanical and public-performance royalties associated with the composition.

The MMA did not create that distinction. Instead, it changed how some of those rights are licensed and administered.

Our guide to the six exclusive rights in copyright explains the underlying rights in more detail.

Title I: The Musical Works Modernization Act

Title I made the biggest operational change for today’s streaming business.

Before the MMA, digital music services generally had to obtain compulsory mechanical licenses for compositions on a song-by-song basis under Section 115 of the Copyright Act.

A mechanical license covers certain reproductions and distributions of a musical composition. In the digital world, that includes eligible interactive streams, limited downloads and permanent downloads.

Trying to license millions of songs individually created an obvious problem.

Digital services frequently had recordings but incomplete or inaccurate information connecting those recordings to the songwriters and publishers who owned the underlying compositions.

As a result, royalties could go unmatched when a service could not identify or locate the correct copyright owner, and licensing problems followed.

The MMA created a blanket mechanical license

Title I replaced that song-by-song process for eligible digital uses with a blanket license.

A blanket license allows a qualifying digital music provider to license a large catalog of musical works through one statutory system rather than obtaining a separate Section 115 license for every song.

The new system became available January 1, 2021.

Under that system, services operating under the blanket license report their usage and pay the mechanical royalties due to one central organization.

That organization is The Mechanical Licensing Collective.

What is The MLC?

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) is the nonprofit organization designated by the U.S. Copyright Office to administer the MMA’s blanket mechanical license.

The MLC:

• receives usage reports from participating digital music providers
• collects mechanical royalties paid under the blanket license
• matches recordings with the musical works contained in them
• identifies songwriters, publishers and other copyright owners
• distributes matched royalties
• maintains a public database of musical-work ownership information

In 2026, the U.S. Copyright Office completed its first periodic review of The MLC and continued its designation as the organization responsible for administering the blanket license.

Do songwriters need to join The MLC?

If you are a self-administered songwriter who controls your own publishing rights, you should make sure The MLC has accurate information about you and your songs so it can match and pay the mechanical royalties it administers.

On the other hand, if a publisher or publishing administrator handles those rights for you, that company may manage the registrations and collections instead.

The important part is not opening every account you hear somebody mention.

Instead, know who is responsible for registering your compositions and collecting each royalty stream.

The MLC does not replace your PRO

This is one of the easiest mistakes to make.

The MLC administers certain mechanical royalties for compositions.

A performing rights organization (PRO) such as ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, GMR or AllTrack administers certain public-performance rights and royalties for compositions.

Those are different rights.

However, an interactive stream can involve both.

So joining The MLC does not replace your PRO, and joining a PRO does not automatically collect the mechanical royalties The MLC administers.

Our guide to performing rights organizations explains that side of the system.

The MLC does not replace your distributor either

Your music distributor generally works on the sound-recording side of the business.

Syntax, for example, delivers master recordings and metadata to digital services and collects the recording revenue those uses generate under our distribution agreements.

The MLC operates on the composition side.

Therefore, if you wrote and recorded your own song, money associated with the same stream can travel through several different systems before reaching you.

That is normal.

Why accurate song data matters

Creating The MLC did not magically solve every ownership-data problem in music.

The system still depends on good information.

If songwriter names, publisher information, ownership shares or recording connections are missing or wrong, The MLC may not be able to match a use to the correct copyright owner immediately.

That creates unmatched royalties, money collected for musical works that has not yet been successfully connected to the party entitled to receive it.

The MLC works to identify those works and their owners during the statutory holding period.

For that reason, accurate metadata and registrations matter long after release day.

Title II: The Classics Protection and Access Act

The second part of the MMA deals with a very different problem.

Before 1972, sound recordings occupied an unusual place in U.S. copyright law because federal copyright protection for sound recordings did not begin until February 15, 1972.

That left older recordings governed largely by a patchwork of state laws.

Title II, the Classics Protection and Access Act, brought pre-1972 sound recordings partly into the federal copyright system and created federal remedies for certain unauthorized uses.

Consequently, the law became especially important as digital services increasingly used recordings made decades before federal sound-recording copyright protection existed.

Title III: The Allocation for Music Producers Act

Title III is commonly called the AMP Act, short for Allocation for Music Producers Act.

It addresses certain royalties for producers, mixers and sound engineers.

SoundExchange is the organization designated to collect and distribute statutory royalties generated by certain digital performances of sound recordings, including qualifying non-interactive services.

The AMP Act put into federal law a process that allows producers, mixers and engineers to receive an agreed share of those SoundExchange royalties through a letter of direction from the featured recording artist.

A letter of direction is an instruction authorizing SoundExchange to pay an agreed percentage of the artist’s royalties directly to another participant in the recording.

So Title III did not simply create a new royalty every time somebody produces a record.

Instead, it created a clearer statutory path for eligible producers, mixers and engineers to receive certain royalties when the required conditions are met.

What did the MMA change for streaming services?

For eligible interactive streaming and download services, the biggest change was efficiency.

Instead of obtaining Section 115 mechanical licenses song by song, qualifying digital music providers can operate under the blanket license administered by The MLC.

They report usage and pay the applicable mechanical royalties into that system.

Then The MLC works to match those uses with compositions and distribute the money to the appropriate copyright owners.

Again, this applies to mechanical licensing.

The MMA did not eliminate the separate public-performance licenses that streaming services may need for compositions, and it did not replace the agreements covering the master recordings delivered by labels and distributors.

What did the MMA change for songwriters?

For songwriters, the MMA created a centralized system for collecting U.S. digital mechanical royalties under the blanket license.

That can make it easier to identify and claim money that previously moved through a much more fragmented licensing process.

However, songwriters still need to pay attention to their catalog.

Make sure:

• your songs are registered with the appropriate parties
• songwriter names are accurate
• ownership splits are correct
• publisher information is current
• recordings are properly connected to the underlying compositions
• you know who is administering each right

If you control your own publishing, do not assume your distributor is automatically doing all of that for you.

One stream can still create several payments

The MMA makes more sense when you stop trying to turn a stream into one royalty.

Imagine someone chooses your song on an interactive streaming service.

Depending on the rights and agreements involved, that stream can contribute to:

• revenue for the sound recording
• mechanical royalties for the composition
• public-performance royalties for the composition

Different companies and organizations may administer each piece.

In other words, your distributor, publisher, publishing administrator, PRO and The MLC are not competing names for the same job.

They occupy different parts of the rights and royalty chain.

The Music Modernization Act modernized the plumbing

The MMA did not make music royalties simple.

That would have required a considerably more ambitious piece of legislation.

What it did was modernize several systems that had not kept pace with the way people were actually consuming music.

Most notably, the law created a blanket mechanical license for eligible digital services and established The MLC to administer it.

Title II also addressed federal protection for recordings made before 1972, while Title III created a statutory process for certain producers, mixers and engineers to receive SoundExchange royalties.

For songwriters, the practical lesson is still pretty simple.

Know what you own. Know who administers it. Register your music correctly. Then make sure every part of the royalty chain knows where to find you.

This article provides general information about U.S. copyright law and music royalties and is not legal advice. Rights, licensing and royalty obligations can depend on the work, use, agreements and territory involved. Consult a qualified attorney about specific legal questions.