MCPS announces record distribution to members in 2020

The Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) collects royalties for songwriter, composer and music publisher members, when their music is reproduced, in any format – including online, physical and synchronised.

The Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS), part of the MPA Group, is delighted to announce the highest per year distribution of royalties to songwriter, composer and publisher members since 2012. MCPS distributions for the year ended 31 December 2020 are £157.8m; a 10% increase of £14.4m from 2019. The organisation operates on a breakeven basis returning any excess commission to members.

MCPS' strong returns reflect the growing demand for entertainment streaming services, solid distributions from International receipts and from both major and indie record labels, as well as good results from broadcast revenues.

Continued improvement in the MCPS' Balance Sheet position has been driven through the implementation of new strategies, board oversight and focussed management. This has all been accomplished despite current Covid-19 restrictions and with all staff working remotely.

These strategies have enabled MCPS to reduce the effective blended commission rate to 7.7% (from 9.3% in 2019). This has allowed for the redistribution of £5.9m in commission savings across the membership who received a distribution in 2020.

MCPS is proud to be the mechanical collection society of choice for the music publishing and creator communities, with a sustained ambition for continued growth in support of its members.

We are pleased to report the distribution of such reassuring figures to our membership during this time of uncertainty for many. MCPS will continue to focus our efforts on offsetting the impact of Covid-19 with innovative planning and respond to the need for growth with new initiatives throughout 2021. On a personal note, I would like to thank the MCPS Board and our highly committed Management team for their hard work in delivering this great result for our members.

This is an exciting time for MCPS with our dedicated team in place and a significant milestone reached in terms of distributions. We continue to be committed to ensuring the best outcomes for our songwriter, composer and publisher members and aim to navigate MCPS to further success in 2021.

About MCPS 

The Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) collects royalties for songwriter, composer and music publisher members, when their music is reproduced, in any format – including online, physical and synchronised.

MCPS collects and pay royalties to members when their music is:

• copied and used as physical products (such as CDs and DVDs)
• streamed or downloaded on services such as Spotify, Apple Music, Netflix and Amazon
• synchronised into audio-visual entertainment including TV, film, video games and advertising
• on radio

The MPA Group owns and operates MCPS on behalf of over 30,000 music publisher, songwriter and composer members.