CMRRA Expands To Collect International Mechanical Royalties

By External Source

The Canadian Mechanical Reproduction Rights Agency (CMRRA) is working with new global partners to provide music publishers and self-published songwriters an option to use the agency as a one-stop for international licensing and royalty collections.

Mandated by US congress via the Music Modernization Act, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) launched on January 1, 2021. Digital service providers will be paying mechanical royalties for streaming to the MLC, both for prior periods and on a going-forward basis. 

As a member of the MLC, CMRRA will work to ensure that, for those publishers who sign up for MLC collection, their repertoire will be properly registered so that past and future US digital mechanical royalties are flowing efficiently, in line with the same service levels provide to member orgs for Canadian royalties.

CMRRA is also  working in phases to implement international collections with IMPEL, and will begin with their Core Territories, which include the European Economic Area (including the UK and Switzerland) to Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.  In future phases we will expand to include additional IMPEL territories, with coverage for Latin America and India.

The CMRRA will be collecting digital mechanical royalties from the MLC and IMPEL. For the MLC, this includes streaming digital services and downloads. For IMPEL, the mandate is broader, and encompasses standard DSP streaming and digital downloads, as well as audio-visual uses by Facebook and YouTube. Upon receipt of distributions from the MLC & IMPEL, payments will be included in the regular flow of our quarterly cycles.

Members and interested parties can visit CMRRA’s  International Collections page and download the agreement.  A complete and detailed International Collections FAQ section exists to help anticipate your queries and guide you through this new service.

If you’re a songwriter without a publishing deal, you can become a client of CMRRA to collect your royalties. There is no fee to join and CMRRA only takes an administration fee once you earn royalties.