Songwriters! MCPS explained in simple terms by Musicians' Union
Blog by Musicians' Union under Music Publishing
It’s a long-running joke that our industry has too many acronyms and no one knows what they do. Near the top of the list, up there with PRS, ASCAP, PPL and BMI, is MCPS.
MCPS provides £140 million worth of income to songwriters, composers and publishers each year. It has well over 26,000 members, and has been around since 1911.
But what does MCPS actually do?
MCPS stands for Mechanical Copyright Protection Society. It distributes mechanical royalties, which are paid to songwriters, composers and publishers when copies have been made of pieces of music they have contributed to. Those copies can be a CD sale, syncronisation into a TV programme, a DVD or one download from a website such as iTunes.
Streaming services make various copies in the process of music being played via their platforms. Acts of copying include when a track is buffered on the internet or sent via satellite, or if someone saves a stream to their laptop for offline playback.
All of this applies regardless of who is singing your song – if someone else sings it and makes a copy, that’s another act of copying.
To make a copy of a song, whoever wants to make the copy needs to buy a mechanical licence. That money is paid back to MCPS members, whether through publishers or directly to songwriters / composers themselves.
Individual royalties can be really small, making them expensive for a publisher to collect. MCPS traces and collects all the tiny sums of money on publishers and songwriters’ behalves. It might sound like a small and trivial job, but those small payments add up to give MCPS that £140 million turnover.
For songwriters who don’t have publishers, MCPS licenses its members’ repertoire in one go via negotiated agreements with the record industry, digital services and broadcasters. You can join directly for £50. We can offer advice if you’re trying to decide between direct membership or working through a publisher.
If you’re thinking about it, or have questions about any other aspect of your career (including those pesky acronyms), get in touch with your Musicians’ Union Regional Office.
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mcps mechanical copyright protection society, music songwriting royalties revenue, music publishing publisher royalties, musicians union advice, unsigned emerging band artist songwriter advice tips
