Music Licensing in the Streaming Age: Mechanical Royalties the Mlc and Direct Deals

62 questions on music licensing in the streaming age, answered and cited by the UpLaw editorial team.

• Can a songwriter block a sync use after assigning her publishing?
• Did the bundling dispute end at dismissal?
• Does interactive streaming require a mechanical license?
• Does one PRO license clear a whole co-written song?
• How big is the music industry the licensing system serves?
• How did the court rule on the Spotify bundling suit?
• How do direct deals interact with the unmatched-royalty pool?
• How does a cover song illustrate the two-copyright structure?
• How does international sub-publishing work?
• How does SoundExchange split what it collects?
• How does the blanket mechanical license work?
• How does the Phonorecords IV streaming mechanical formula work?
• How does the Section 115 compulsory license work, and why was it created?
• How do the four PROs compare?
• How has the EU changed cross-border music licensing?
• How large was the historical black box, and what happens to unmatched money?
• How many licenses does one interactive stream require?
• Is the complexity of music licensing gratuitous?
• Is there a compulsory license for sound recordings in interactive streaming?
• Is there a compulsory sync license?
• What actually happens legally when someone taps play on a streaming service?
• What are the composition-side licenses?
• What are the Mechanical Licensing Collective's five core jobs?
• What are the sound-recording-side licenses?
• What are the statutory mechanical rates for physical copies and downloads?
• What are the three titles of the Music Modernization Act?
• What are the two copyrights in every piece of recorded music?
• What did digital services get in exchange for the blanket license?
• What did Spotify do in March 2024, and why did the MLC sue?
• What did the majors do about the bundle rate while the litigation ran?
• What did the Music Modernization Act fix, and what did it leave unfixed?
• What does a conventionally signed artist actually see from the master royalty?
• What does the bundling fight reveal about the limits of the compulsory framework?
• What do performing-rights organizations do, and why does a service need all four?
• What do the 1941 consent decrees require of ASCAP and BMI?
• What do the numbers on 100,000 streams actually look like?
• What happens to foreign royalties an independent artist never claims?
• What is a controlled composition clause, and why does it matter?
• What is the central practical truth of music licensing?
• What is the registration checklist for an independent artist?
• What is the Section 114 license and who qualifies for it?
• What is the termination-of-transfer right and why does it affect catalog prices?
• What litigation exposure did the pre-MMA breakdown produce?
• What must a digital streaming service do to be compliant?
• What must a music publisher do to capture what it is owed?
• What questions does generative AI pose for the music licensing system?
• Where does the consent-decree question stand?
• Where does the money go on a single interactive stream by a fully independent artist?
• Which royalties does each copyright generate, and who administers them?
• Why did licensees historically prefer voluntary mechanicals over the compulsory license?
• Why did the pre-MMA Notice of Intention system collapse at streaming scale?
• Why does AM/FM radio pay the songwriter but not the recording artist?
• Why does songwriter compensation remain the most human fight?
• Why does the interactive/non-interactive asymmetry matter so much to artists?
• Why does the market-share distribution of unmatched royalties disadvantage independents?
• Why do major publishers cut direct mechanical deals outside the MLC?
• Why do rate fights in music never end?
• Why do you sometimes hear an unfamiliar voice singing a familiar song in a commercial?
• Why is data and transparency the quiet bottleneck?
• Why is rate-setting perennially contentious?
• Why is the ISRC-to-ISWC matching problem conceptually hard?
• Why is the mechanical right called "mechanical"?