The MLC is a non-profit organization designated by the U.S. Copyright Office pursuant to the historic Music Modernization Act of 2018. In January 2021, The MLC began administering blanket mechanical licenses to eligible streaming and download services in the United States. The MLC collects the royalties due under those licenses from the digital services and pays songwriters, music publishers & CMOs. Some Digital Services used an option given to them by the Music Modernization Act to transfer user data and associated unpaid royalties (approx. $427m) to The MLC so that they could attempt to match historical usage data to works in The MLC’s database and then pay rightsholders. Thus, The MLC is also currently distributing royalties associated with historical usage and previously unpaid royalties. Since its launch, The MLC has distributed $1 billion in royalties to its members. The MLC has built a publicly accessible musical works database, as well as a portal that allows its songwriter & publisher members to submit and maintain their musical works data. The MLC is free to join, it distributes monthly and distributes 100% of what it collects to Members.