Are Songwriters and Publishers Really Still Due an Extra $400M? Breaking Down the Numbers

While the Mechanical Licensing Collective’s announcement last month about the “final final” Phonorecords III Copyright Royalty Board rate determination adjustment seemed to imply songwriters and publishers were due another roughly $400 million to, sources say the number likely overstates the coming financial windfall.

After a more than two year wait that included an appeal process, a remand, a new partial rate trial, and then the time to recalculate and resubmit adjusted play reports, sources say that number may correctly assess how much more money was earned and reported due to the CRB determination covering 2018 through 2022 — but it also likely includes payments that have already been made.

Within the total adjustment, about $250 million in net extra mechanical royalties will be paid out thanks to the adjustment, with practically all of that coming from the 2021-2022 period. Those royalties will be paid out beginning in May by the Mechanical Licensing Collective, the agency created by the Music Modernization Act to collect and disburse mechanical royalties from on-demand digital streaming services. This means adjusted monies paid out by the MLC will probably begin reaching songwriters from their publishers in the following quarter.

The rest of the roughly $400 million adjustment comes from performance royalties. But sources at the U.S. performance rights organizations say they are surprised by the MLC’s claim that another $138 million has been discovered in the resubmitted play reports required by the final rate determination.

The MLC may be the best positioned to understand this, though. Because the mechanical rate formula calls for the digital service providers to report how much they paid in performance royalties each month — or estimate how much they will pay — the MLC has insight into how much was reported collectively for mechanical and performance royalties for the period of 2018-2022 before the rate determination was finalized. It also has insight into how much performance royalties totaled after the play reports were resubmitted with the adjustments due to that final determination. The final determination happened in August 2023, eight months after the 2018-2022 term ended, with the resubmitted reports due Feb. 9, 2024.

In contrast, the PROs themselves only know what they each individually have been paid, and each digital service only knows what they individually have paid out to each PRO. Neither of those sides can see the whole performance revenue pool like the MLC can, unless they share information with competitors, which is unlikely but possible. Consequently, sources at PROs and digital services say they are surprised and puzzled by the MLC’s announcement that more performance royalties were found due to the adjusted reports. Others say the MLC’s announcement has caused consternation between songwriters and PROs. One source at a PRO suggests that the MLC including performance royalties in its report was a “marketing mishap.”

PRO sources insist that whatever performance royalties came in have largely already been paid out, and they don’t expect any new windfalls. And sources at the digital services say that, from what they can tell, the streamers have already paid out all the performance royalties that were due and they don’t expect to be making further payments.

Meanwhile, sources at PROs say the MLC’s announcement has caused significant confusion, leading songwriters to inquire about when they will get additional payouts for performance and why they were not made aware of this sooner.

Even if the performance royalties have already been paid, many executives in the music industry are speculating about what caused such a significant increase. The all-in mechanical formula that was determined by the CRB in Phonorecords III, by itself, doesn’t do anything to change performance royalties, which are typically decided by private negotiations between PROs and streaming services.

It’s possible digital services made mistakes when they reported the monthly performance royalties the first time around. The MLC could also have made a mistake either when it added up all the interim royalties paid while parties were awaiting a final determination or when it subsequently adjusted performance royalties for the period.

Alternatively, some of the PROs could have negotiated deals that tie their performance rates to the statutory mechanical rate. That would mean when digital services reverted to paying a lower mechanical rate while the 2018-2022 rate was still being determined, they wound up paying lower performance royalty rates, too — which later increased after the final CRB rate determination. But while some PRO sources concede that they try to negotiate for at least 50% of the statutory rate as a floor, they also say they don’t have any deal triggers specifically tied to the mechanicalrate.

Another theory is that one or two of the PROs might have been operating under an interim royalty rate with one or more streaming services while working through negotiations, which hypothetically weren’t finalized until recently. If those performance royalty rates have now been decided, the adjustments could be reflected in this total reported number. But several sources say they aren’t aware of any instances where this has happened.

It isn’t unusual for there to be streaming royalty adjustments after the fact, even without a new subsequent “final final” rate determination, sources point out. As it is, streaming services will sometimes need to make estimates on reporting monthly performance and mechanical royalty payments and then later adjust if necessary once the period has closed. At that time, the new payment would be made and the expense adjustment would be reported to the MLC — not two years later, sources say.

Performance and mechanical royalties have a see-saw effect where an increase in one will result in a decrease in the other. That’s because the formula for calculating the mechanical rate includes a first step in the formula that initially acts as a cap for an all-in publishing royalty pool that combines the two. This has publishers worried. If the services have already fulfilled all of their performance payments and the PROs have paid out all the received performance royalties, then how can the services now claim that $138 million as an additional deduction in the resubmitted reports? By claiming additional performance payouts, that would likely reduce the potential mechanical royalty payouts on the resubmitted report.

Aside from whether more money is coming, how these publishing royalties are paid — as performance or mechanicals — matters to publishers and songwriters.

For example, if that newfound $138 million in performance royalties needed to be paid out, it would likely mean that only about $120 million to $125 million of it would flow to songwriters and publishers because of the PROs’ overhead expenses.

If, instead, that $138 million was mechanical royalties, the songwriters and publishers would get all of that because the MLC has no overhead expense deduction since digital services finance the operation. But, instead of it getting paid out separately and directly split between publishers and songwriters, these royalties are paid to publishers, who then distribute royalties to their writers, but usually after recouping. So, the difference in where the payment comes through matters significantly to songwriters and publishers.

Overall, this adjustment seems to weigh more favorably for the mechanical royalty pool. Previously, during the interim period, the $2.77 billion in total publishing royalty payouts from digital services were weighted 50.93% to mechanical and 49.07% to performance. But after adjustments, including subtracting a slight overpayment in mechanicals for the years of 2018-2019, the $3.16 billion in total publishing royalties paid out by digital services to the PROs and the MLC works out to 52.63% paid in mechanical and 47.37% to performance, or nearly a two-percentage point increase for the former.

Eventually, when the MLC digs into the resubmissions and compares them to the earlier monthly play reports, it will likely be able to discern if the additional $138 million is coming across the board from all services or if a specific service or two accumulated the bulk of the new reported performance royalties. But if that doesn’t solve the mystery, another process is beginning that could bring in an answer. Last month, the MLC served notice on some 50 digital services that it is performing audits on them. If all else fails, that should bring some clarity to the mystery.