On July 8, 2021, the U.S. Copyright Office released a public
report, Unclaimed Royalties: Best Practice Recommendations
for the Mechanical Licensing Collective, as required by the
Music Modernization Act (MMA). The passage of the MMA in 2018
created the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC), a nonprofit
governing agency tasked with establishing blanket royalty rates,
collecting royalties under a mechanical license and distributing
royalties to copyright owners when their works are streamed by
Digital Service Providers (DSPs).
While a copyright owner has exclusive rights to reproduction and
distribution under 17 U.S.C. §§ 106 (1) and (3), these
rights are subject to compulsory licensing requirements under 17
U.S.C. § 115. A compulsory mechanical license allows any party
to reproduce and distribute nondramatic musical works by simply
paying a set license fee determined by statute. Unlike most other
intellectual property licenses, the compulsory mechanical license
does
