Apple has paid out US$163,338,890 in historical unmatched royalties for tracks played via Apple Music, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) announced Tuesday. Nineteen other major streaming services, including Spotify, Pandora, and Deezer, also paid out.
Apple Music And Spotify Top List of Historical Unmatched Royalty Payouts
In total, US$424,384,787 was transferred to the MLC from these service providers. Furthermore, the firms also delivered over 1,800 files containing over 1.3 terabytes of data. It is now the responsibility of the MLC to distribute this to copyright owners. Not surprisingly, Apple Music and Spotify were the biggest payers, the latter transferring US$152,226,039. It is all part of efforts to try and deal with a royalties black hole that the Music Modernization Act is seeking to help solve. Michelle Lewis, Executive Director, Songwriters of North America, told Variety:
SONA is pleased to see the Music Modernization Act begin to take effect. This money will now be matched and find its way to the rightful songwriters and publishers that earned these royalties.