Copyright Office Releases Report on Best Practice Recommendations for the Mechanical Licensing Collective

Today the U.S. Copyright Office, in consultation with the Government Accountability Office, released a report entitled “Unclaimed Royalties: Best Practice Recommendations for the Mechanical Licensing Collective.” The report details the Office’s findings and recommendations on the best practices the MLC may implement to identify and locate musical work copyright owners with unclaimed accrued royalties held by the MLC, encourage musical work copyright owners to claim their royalties, and reduce the incidence of unclaimed royalties. The best practice recommendations were developed after careful consideration of the views and suggestions made by a wide variety of stakeholders.

Reflecting the broad diversity of opinions and perspectives expressed by commenters, the Office’s recommendations are meant to be comprehensive and range from high-level conceptual notions to detailed suggestions (particularly those relating to holding and distributing unclaimed accrued royalties). They relate to the MLC’s education and outreach activities, usability of the MLC’s public-facing systems and services, data quality, matching practices, holding and distributing unclaimed accrued royalties, measuring success, and transparency.

The full report is available on the Office’s website at copyright.gov/policy/unclaimed-royalties/.