Delivering on
The MLC''s Mission
An Update from CEO Kris Ahrend
August 2020
|
|
|
Friends:
I hope you all are well and healthy during these challenging times.
Over the past month, the team and I have been busy ramping up our outreach and engagement efforts, in order to reach as many music publishers, administrators, and self-administered songwriters as possible. As of this writing, I'm pleased to report that we've connected with more than 10,000 prospective Members and stakeholders! Through numerous webinars, this newsletter, and the information sheets and other materials we've published on our website, we've shared status updates on our progress building The MLC, answered hundreds of questions, and begun helping our prospective Members organize and review their musical works data. You can catch-up on anything you've missed by visiting the new Resources section of our website, where we've archived some of our webinars and video presentations and provided links to our information sheets and other helpful tools.
We've also been working hard to help our prospective Members begin organizing and reviewing their musical works data, to ensure that data is as accurate and complete as possible.
- For self-administered writers who have never registered their musical works with a collective management organization like The MLC before, we created our Music Data Organization Worksheet to help you better understand the information you will need to register your works with The MLC. We've seen hundreds of you download that form and begin organizing your data.
- For music publishers, administrators, foreign collective management organizations (CMOs), and more experienced self-administered songwriters who manage a larger number of musical works, we've launched our Data Quality Initiative (DQI) to help you identify and address discrepancies between your musical works data and ours. Hundreds of you have reached out to learn more about the DQI and those of you who have begun participating have already compared well over 10 million musical works.
As we look forward to beginning to welcome our first official Members later this year, our focus is squarely on how we can best serve the needs of our new Members. Service is one of The MLC's four Guiding Principles, and we are committed to providing a high-level of service to each of you. After all, The MLC was created by a broad coalition of songwriters, music publishers, and music industry advocacy organizations to serve songwriters, music publishers, and others who are entitled to receive digital audio mechanical royalties.
That's why this month we're using this issue of our Newsletter to introduce you to the leaders of our Customer Experience and Rights Management teams, Lindsey Major and Maurice Russell. Lindsey and Maurice are leading our efforts to design and build our core customer service offerings. They are each experienced professionals who are passionate about serving our new Members. I'm excited for you to get to know them and hear more about how their teams will be available to serve you.
We're also announcing a new series of webinars focused specifically on self-administered songwriters, composers and lyricists that will be led by our Head of Third-Party Partnerships, Dae Bogan, who is a long-time educator and an advocate for creators. In those webinars, Dae will provide updates on The MLC that are specifically tailored to self-administered creators and take your questions. If you're a self-administered creator, I'd encourage you to sign-up for one of those webinars, to hear more about how The MLC is planning to serve your needs.
Finally, as always, I want to encourage you to follow The MLC on social media and visit our website (www.themlc.com), so you can keep up with all of the latest updates on our progress. Please know that the entire team here at The MLC is working hard, day in and day out, to make sure that we are prepared to begin serving you this coming January, when we will begin administering the new blanket license for U.S. digital audio services, collecting mechanical royalties from those services and then distributing those royalties to you starting next Spring. I look forward to providing you with more exciting updates in the weeks to come.
All my best,
|
|
|
|
Kris Ahrend, CEO
The MLC
|
|
Save The Date! The MLC Presents: How Self-Administered Songwriters Can Get Started and Play Their Part
|
|
The MLC is a nonprofit organization designated by the U.S. Copyright Office pursuant to the historic Music Modernization Act of 2018. Starting in January 2021, The MLC will issue and administer blanket mechanical licenses to eligible streaming and download services (digital service providers or DSPs) in the United States. The MLC will then collect the royalties due under those licenses from the DSPs and pay music publishers, administrators, and self-administered songwriters, composers, and lyricists.
What will all of this mean for self-administered writers?
Next month, Dae Bogan, The MLC's Head of Third-Party Partnerships and a long-time educator and advocate for self-administered creators, will host a series of webinars specifically aimed at self-administered writers. Each webinar will include a recap of The MLC's activities to-date and our plans for the future. Dae will also explain what it means to be a "self-administered" writer and how self-administered writers can become Members of The MLC (or Connect to Collect) in order to ensure they receive the digital audio mechanical royalties they're owed. Finally, Dae will help guide self-administered writers through the process of organizing their musical works data now, ahead of the roll out of The MLC's new user portal for Members.
Why ?Play Your Part??
The answer is simple. No one is in a better position than you to provide the most definitive view of your musical works data, and making sure your data is accurate and complete is the single most important thing you can do to ensure you are paid properly once The MLC begins receiving digital audio mechanical royalties next year. If each self-administered writer does their part to ensure their musical works data is accurate, The MLC will be in the best possible position to ensure that?every?self-administered writer gets paid accurately. Remember: The MLC is a non-profit company, and it will distribute 100% of the digital audio mechanicals it receives without deducting any administration fees - so when your ensure your data is accurate, the only one who benefits is you.
The MLC has scheduled three webinars so you can pick the one that works best with your schedule. You can sign up by clicking the registration links below. We look forward to seeing you!
- September 3, 4pm CT: Register here
- September 17, 4pm CT: Register here
- October 1, 4pm CT: Register here
|
|
Meet & Greet
This month, we're excited to introduce you to two of our leaders whose primary responsibilities will involve making sure The MLC delivers a high level of service to our new Members. First up is Lindsey Major, our Head of Customer Experience, who has led the effort to build our new Customer Service team, which will serve all of our Members and prospective members. Second up is Maurice Russell, our Head of Rights Management, whose team will provide additional services specifically targeted toward our Members who are music publishers and administrators. Together, Lindsey and Maurice are committed to serving you!
|
|
Lindsey Major
Head of Customer Experience
Delivering on The MLC''s mission of exceptional customer service
|
|
|
Lindsey has helped a number of well-respected companies including Fairygodboss, SmileDirectClub and Lyft develop and enhance their customer experience operations. Although the term "customer experience" is not a common one the music business, it is used in a host of other industries to describe the teams of professionals who focus on ensuring that companies deliver the best possible "experience" for their customers when they contact the company.
Lindsey and the Customer Service team are committed to providing a high-level of service to all of The MLC's Members and prospective members. To do that, they have begun creating a brand-new "Knowledge Center" that contains answers to dozens of questions we anticipate our Members will have, both about the membership process and about how The MLC will ensure they receive their digital audio mechanicals properly. Each member of the Customer Team has undergone extensive training to ensure they are familiar with all of the information in our Knowledge Center.
Lindsey and the team also recognize that a key to providing good service is making sure they are available to answer your questions at times and in ways that are convenient to you. That's why The MLC's Customer Experience team will be offering extended service hours when they launch their operations next month (in September):
- Monday thru Friday from 8 am to 8 pm CT, and
- Saturdays from 8 am to 5pm CT.
Offering extended service hours during the week and service hours on Saturdays will help ensure The MLC is available when you want to contact us.
Finally, to make sure we make it easy for Members and prospective members to contact us, The MLC's Customer Experience team will be available via phone, email, and online chat. That way, you can use the method of communication you're most comfortable with.
Lindsey and the Customer Service team are committed to fulfilling The MLC's important mission and excited to begin serving you next month!
|
|
Maurice Russell
Head of Rights Management
Leading The MLC''s publisher relations efforts
|
|
|
Maurice is a recognized music publishing administration expert, most recently serving as the Founder and CEO of his own specialty consulting firm, Media Rights Management, through which he helped his clients understand and overcome the music industry's many licensing and data management challenges. Maurice has also served on advisory groups established by the U.S. Copyright Office and the U.S. Patent and Trade Office and been a long-time participant in the Digital Data Exchange (DDEX), the preeminent music industry standards-setting organization.
With more than 25 years of experience working in the music publishing side of the music industry, Maurice leads The MLC's Rights Management team, our internal team of music publishing subject-matter experts. As part of that role, Maurice will lead The MLC's publisher relations activities, which are intended to ensure that music publisher and administrator Members always have a direct line of communication with The MLC. Maurice and his team will also provide support and subject-matter expertise to each of The MLC's internal operational teams.
Maurice and his team have begun directly contacting individual music publishers and administrators to introduce them to The MLC and explain how the membership on-boarding process will work. They are intentionally targeting a diverse group of publishers and administrators, making sure they connect with prospective members from a variety of geographic areas, prospective members who specialize in different genres of music, and prospective members of all sizes.
|
|
The MLC in the News:
- Billboard: Executive Turntable: The MLC hires key players
- Variety: Mondo.NYC Conference Keynotes
- Yahoo! Finance: The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) Announces Roll Out of its Data Quality Initiative to Vistex, Inc. Customers
|
|
Stay in Touch!
As The MLC gets closer to launching its musical works database and portal in the months ahead, make sure you''re following us on social media to catch the latest news and updates.
Follow @mlc_us on Twitter and Instagram, @mlc.us on Facebook, and The Mechanical Licensing Collective on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date and in the know.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Text Box
dropdown
option
Arts and Entertainment
Business and Industry
Computer and Electronics
Games
Health
Internet and Telecom
Shopping
Sports
Travel
More