Music industry veteran Melanie Santa Rosa and drummer and composer Nate Smith have been appointed to two advisory committee positions at The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC).
Santa Rosa – Senior Vice President, Global Administration at Spirit Music Group – has been appointed to The MLC’s Operations Advisory Committee.
Santa Rosa has more than twenty years of experience in performing rights, copyright, business affairs, cue sheets, licensing, royalty collections, catalog onboarding and global societies.
She is also a board member of the NY chapter of the Association of Independent Music Publishers.
Smith, meanwhile, has been appointed to The MLC’s Unclaimed Royalties Oversight Committee.
Smith’s debut album, KINFOLK: Postcards from Everywhere, garnered two Grammy nominations, and he also earned a pair of Grammy nominations for his composition Home Free (for Peter Joe).
According to the Music Modernization Act of 2018, The MLC’s Operations Advisory Committee said it “makes recommendations to the Board concerning the operations of the Collective, including the efficient investment in and deployment of information technology and data resources.”
It is comprised of six representatives of music publishers, and six representatives of digital music providers.
The Unclaimed Royalties Oversight Committee recommends policies and procedures to The MLC’s Board related to the distribution of unclaimed accrued royalties, and is comprised of five songwriters and five representatives of music publishers.
In February 2021, it was announced that a total of 20 DSPs had transferred a combined $424.38 million in accrued historical unmatched royalties to The MLC.
This was required in order for them to seek the Music Modernization Act‘s (MMA) limitation on liability for past infringement.
Of that $424.38m, $163.3m was received from Apple, $152.2m from Spotify, while Amazon and Google transferred $42.7m and $32.8m, respectively.Music Business Worldwide