The Music Modernization Act in 10 minutes: what it fixed, and what it left broken

The Music Modernization Act became US law on 11 October 2018 as Public Law 115-264. It is widely misread. People credit it with fixes it never made, and they miss the parts that touch their own money. It has three titles. Here is what each one does, who it pays, and what it left alone.

Title I: one licence for streaming mechanicals

Before the MMA, a US streaming service used the compulsory mechanical licence song by song, filing notices of intention when it couldn't find the owner. The Copyright Office no longer accepts those notices for digital uses. Title I swapped them for a blanket licence. A service takes one licence covering every musical work, sends monthly usage data and royalties to one collective, and that collective matches the plays to songs and pays the owners. The Copyright Office designated The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) to run it, and the licence became available on 1 January 2021. The services themselves pay The MLC's running costs, through an administrative assessment set by the Copyright Royalty Judges.

Title I also changed how rates are set. For Section 115 rate proceedings starting on or after 11 October 2018, the judges use a market-based "willing buyer/willing seller" standard in place of the old policy test. The rates themselves come out of separate proceedings.

By its own count, The MLC has distributed more than $4.2 billion, has more than 100,000 members, and reports a match rate above 92% for royalties processed through its September 2026 distribution. In June 2026 the Register of Copyrights kept The MLC on as the designated collective after its first five-year review. Joining is free.

The catch for songwriters: registering a song with the Copyright Office doesn't put it in The MLC's system. The Office's FAQ says owners must register with The MLC as well.

Title II: pre-1972 recordings join federal law

Sound recordings fixed before 15 February 1972 sat outside federal copyright. The Classics Protection and Access Act (CLASSICS) brought them partly in, giving them federal remedies for unauthorised use and put them under a statutory licence for non-interactive digital radio, much like the one for newer recordings. The protection runs out on a sliding schedule. For recordings published before 1923 it ended on 31 December 2021. For most of the rest it lasts until 15 February 2067.

To claim statutory damages or legal fees, owners generally have to file schedules of their recordings with the Copyright Office first. Remedies only cover uses that happen more than 90 days after the schedule is indexed.

Title III: producers get a line in the statute

The Allocation for Music Producers (AMP) Act lets SoundExchange pay producers, mixers and engineers directly from digital performance royalties. Under 17 U.S.C. § 114(g), those royalties split 50% to the recording's owner, 45% to featured artists and 2.5% each to funds for non-featured musicians and vocalists. With a letter of direction, the artist or label tells SoundExchange to pay part of its share straight to a named producer.

Worked example (pre-1995 record). Say a producer made a record before 1 November 1995 and has a written contract giving them a share of the artist's royalties, but can't get the artist to sign a letter. The statute lets them certify, under penalty of perjury, that they spent at least 120 days trying to get one. SoundExchange then gets at least 120 days to notify the artist. If the artist hasn't objected in writing 10 business days before the first payout, SoundExchange takes 2% of the receipts out of the artist's share. On every $100 that record earns, the featured-artist pot drops from $45 to $43 and $2 goes to the producer, split equally if several people qualify. If the artist objects later, payments stop within 10 business days.

What the MMA didn't fix

Terrestrial radio. US law gives sound recordings a public performance right only "by means of a digital audio transmission". The right for songs in § 106(4) has no such limit. In practice, then, AM/FM airplay pays for the song but not for the recording or its performers. The Copyright Office FAQ says the MMA does not directly affect terrestrial radio. That gap is what the American Music Fairness Act is trying to close.

Where unmatched money ends up. The statute makes The MLC hold unmatched royalties for at least three years in an interest-bearing account. After that, it can pay them out to known owners in proportion to their market share. The law does build in safeguards: a public database where owners can claim works, at least 90 days' notice before any such payout, and a rule that a copyright owner (usually a publisher) receiving this money pays each of its songwriters at least 50% of what it received for that writer's works. The MLC says it will start monthly market-share distributions in April 2027, beginning with January 2021 usage. By then it will have held those royalties for more than six years, twice the legal minimum. It already publishes a dashboard of what remains.

Worked example (the unregistered writer). A self-released songwriter earns US streams in 2021 but never registers with The MLC, and the distributor's data has no ISWC or writer split. The royalties sit unmatched. If nobody claims them before that usage month is distributed, they go to publishers by market share, and the writer who earned them gets nothing. A writer at a publisher that does receive market-share money is guaranteed only half of their publisher's share.

What we think

The MMA worked best where it replaced chaos with plumbing. One licence, one collective and one public database beat the old song-by-song notices, and a 92% match rate is a real number. Title III is the quiet win: producers who used to rely on artists remembering to pay them can now be paid at the source.

Our reading, though, is that the law fixed collection more than fairness. Market-share distribution means that when matching fails, the money goes to whoever is already biggest. The safeguards (notice, a claiming portal, the 50% floor) only help people who know to look. Independent and non-US writers with messy metadata are the most likely to miss out, and they're the least likely to read a Federal Register notice. The MLC waiting twice the statutory minimum is good practice, not something the law requires.

Radio is the bigger omission, and it was a political trade-off, not an oversight. Every year it stays open, US performers earn nothing from airplay that their songwriters are paid for. Broadcasters win and session players and featured artists lose.

Your MMA checklist:

• Register every song with The MLC (it's free), even if it's already registered with the Copyright Office or a PRO.
• Make sure your splits, IPI and ISWC match what your co-writers registered.
• Before April 2027, search The MLC's database for your old 2021 releases and claim anything unmatched.
• Producers and mixers: get a letter of direction filed with SoundExchange at signing, not years later.
• Producers on pre-1995 records with a royalty contract: the 2% route is open to you even without the artist's signature.
• Own pre-1972 masters? File schedules with the Copyright Office before you need to enforce them.