On January 1, 2021, the newly-passed Music Modernization Act (MMA) took effect. The law was initially launched to take into account new technology and address how it affects the sale of music creations. However, text in the law leaves room for potential corruption in the way music creators may (or may not) be paid.

Specifically, an arm of the MMA -- the Mechanical Royalty Collective (MLC) -- is responsible for paying music creators mechanical royalties they are due. Among other things, mechanicals apply to many types of streaming music (the most-used method of listening to music these days).

One of the potential problem with the MLC paying out mechanical royalties lays in the database they will use to make payouts. The database with which the MLC will begin is one belonging to the Harry Fox Agency (HFA).

The database is known to be incomplete in the sense that many creators move without the database being updated. Also heirs of creators who have died often don't know how to keep information updated. The result has been that royalties due to creators/heirs often aren't paid out. Instead, the royalties are held in accounts until the correct people can be found and paid.

This is where another potential problem arises with the MLC. Rather than being required to make honest efforts to find these creators/heirs, the MLC will be allowed (after a time period) to take the royalties owed to unfound creators/heirs and split them up, on a market-share basis, to the big-money music interests that influenced the law to start. These are groups like the major streaming companies, major publishers and others. Essentially, the MLC can allow already-wealthy, big-monied music interests to profit from money owed to smaller creators and heirs simply by not seeking them out. Currently there is more than a billion dollars at stake that hasn't been paid out, so the stakes are high.

The Songwriters Guild of America urges all creators to educate themselves about the MLC. If music creators and their heirs hope to be paid what they're owed they must:

• Educate themselves about the MLC by visiting their YouTube channel and watching the videos there;
• Sign up for news sent out by the MLC and read notices when they land in email;
• Attend online events held by the MLC and ask the tough questions about how and if creators will be paid;
• Register all music creations with the MLC via their online portal;
• Ensure the latest contact information is always available to the MLC;
• Update information in the MLC database regularly so payments can be made; and
• Follow news of the MLC to make sure money owed to creators is actually finding its way to creators and not into the pockets of big-money music interests.