Answers/Comparisons/The MLC vs Songtrust vs a Publishing Admin Deal: Who Should Collect Your Publishing?

Comparisons

The MLC vs Songtrust vs a Publishing Admin Deal: Who Should Collect Your Publishing?

By Boboy Watson·Last verified August 31, 2026·1,894 words·Comparisons

Publishing is the part of this business where doing two sensible things at once produces a worse result than doing one. I registered a batch of songs directly with The MLC, then signed the same songs to an administrator a year later without unwinding the first registration, and the overlapping claims froze the payments on both sides for months.

That is the trap this page exists to explain, along with the more basic question underneath it: The MLC is free, so why would anyone pay a percentage to someone else?

What does The MLC actually collect?

The Mechanical Licensing Collective collects US digital mechanical royalties on compositions, under the Section 115 blanket licence created by the Music Modernization Act. When someone streams your song on Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music in the United States, that stream generates a mechanical royalty on the composition alongside the recording royalty your distributor pays. The MLC administers that mechanical royalty.

That is the entire scope. The MLC does not collect performance royalties — ASCAP and BMI do that. The MLC does not collect mechanicals from outside the United States. The MLC does not license sync. The MLC does not collect from physical sales or downloads outside the blanket licence, and it does not chase settlements.

Membership in The MLC is free, and The MLC takes no commission from what it pays you. Payments arrive about 75 days after the end of each monthly usage period, so January usage is typically paid in mid-April. US payout minimums are $5 by ACH, $100 by physical check and $250 by wire, which means small balances sit until they clear the threshold on your chosen method. Setting up ACH rather than a check is the single easiest thing an independent writer can do to stop money from sitting still.

What does a publishing administrator collect that The MLC does not?

A publishing administrator registers your compositions with collection societies worldwide and pursues income streams The MLC has no mandate over. Songtrust, DistroKid Publishing and CD Baby's publishing service are all administration services rather than traditional publishing deals — they collect on your behalf without taking ownership of your copyrights.

The categories an administrator reaches that The MLC does not include international mechanical royalties from societies outside the United States, digital performance income collected abroad, offline mechanicals from physical product, sync income, and settlement or enforcement payments from disputes and audits. For a US-only catalog these are small. For a catalog with meaningful listenership in Europe, Latin America or Asia, they are the majority of the composition money.

Administrators charge a percentage of what they collect, not a flat annual fee. That model matters: an administrator that collects nothing costs you nothing but your time, and one that unlocks foreign royalties you could not reach yourself has earned its commission on money you would otherwise never have seen. What it should not be doing is taking a percentage of US digital mechanicals that The MLC would have paid you in full for free.

What does DistroKid Publishing collect?

DistroKid Publishing is a paid add-on, separate from base DistroKid distribution, and DistroKid publishes its collection scope directly. Per DistroKid's help centre, DistroKid Publishing collects:

1. Global digital mechanicals — composition royalties from streams and downloads worldwide
2. US offline mechanicals — composition royalties from physical sales
3. Global digital public performance — non-interactive online radio and satellite radio
4. US offline public performance — venues and broadcasts
5. Worldwide sync income — on a non-exclusive basis
6. Settlements and enforcement payments

DistroKid frames these as "different from your usual streaming royalties, which DistroKid already collects for all members." That sentence is the clearest statement any distributor has published of the split between recording money and composition money: base distribution collects sound recording royalties only, and composition royalties require the Publishing add-on.

There is one nuance in DistroKid's documentation that changes the value of the product depending on who you are. If you are affiliated with a performing rights organization, DistroKid Publishing collects both the publisher share and the songwriter share. If you are not affiliated with a PRO, DistroKid Publishing collects the publisher share only.

Read that the right way round. Not joining ASCAP or BMI does not simplify your setup — it strands the songwriter share, roughly half of the performance royalty, with no collector at all. The free BMI songwriter affiliation is what makes the paid add-on collect its full scope.

What is the difference between an administration deal and a publishing deal?

A publishing administrator and a publisher are not the same thing, and the words get used interchangeably in a way that costs writers real ownership.

An administration deal — which is what Songtrust, DistroKid Publishing and CD Baby's publishing service offer — leaves the copyright in your compositions with you. The administrator gains the right to register your works with collection societies, license them in defined ways, collect the money, and deduct a commission before paying you. The term is finite. At the end of it, you take your catalog and go.

A traditional publishing deal transfers some or all of the publisher's share of your copyright to the publisher, typically for the life of copyright or a long term, usually in exchange for an advance and active song-plugging. That is a different transaction with a different economics, and it is not what any of the self-serve services on this page are selling.

The two questions to ask about any administration agreement are the term length and the post-term collection period — the window after the deal ends during which the administrator still collects on royalties earned during the term. A short term with a long collection tail is a longer commitment than the headline suggests.

What does a publishing administrator cost?

Administrators charge a commission on royalties collected, and some also charge a one-time signup fee per writer. Rates and structures differ between companies and change over time, so this page does not state a percentage for any specific service — check the current terms on the company's own site before signing, because that number is the entire economics of the decision.

What is worth understanding is the shape rather than the number. A commission on collections means the service costs you nothing when it collects nothing, which makes it low-risk to try and easy to leave running long after it has stopped earning its keep. The real cost is not the commission on foreign royalties you could never have reached — it is the commission on US digital mechanicals that The MLC would have paid you in full for free. Administrators generally collect that pot too, because it comes bundled with everything else.

So the calculation is: what fraction of your composition income comes from outside The MLC's scope? If it is most of it, an administrator is straightforwardly worth a percentage. If it is almost none of it, you are paying a percentage of the free thing to get access to a small thing.

What is the overlap trap, and how do you avoid it?

Registering the same composition in two places does not collect it twice. It creates conflicting claims, and the standard response of a collection society to a conflicting claim is to hold the disputed share rather than pay either party.

The specific mechanism at The MLC is straightforward. A work has a defined set of writer and publisher shares that must add to 100%. If you register directly as an unaffiliated self-published writer claiming 100%, and your administrator separately registers the same work claiming the publisher share on your behalf, the claims overlap. The MLC does not pay overlapping shares while they conflict. The money accrues; it does not arrive.

Untangling it means going back to whichever registration is wrong and withdrawing or amending it, then waiting for the correction to propagate through a usage period. In my case that cost several months of payments that would otherwise have landed on schedule.

The rule that prevents all of it: one route per work. Either you register directly with The MLC yourself, or your administrator registers on your behalf. Never both. If you sign to an administrator after registering directly, tell the administrator exactly what you registered and let them reconcile it before they submit anything.

Which route collects what?

The row that surprises people most is the last data row. Nothing in this table collects your Spotify and Apple Music recording royalties — that is your distributor's job, and it is a separate pot from everything above.

Who should use which route?

What order should you actually do this in?

1. Affiliate with ASCAP or BMI as a writer first. BMI is free. This determines whether an administrator can collect your songwriter share.
2. Decide your publishing route before you register anything. Direct with The MLC, or through an administrator — not both.
3. If going direct, register with The MLC. It is free, and set up ACH so the $5 minimum applies rather than the $100 check minimum.
4. If going with an administrator, hand them your catalog and let them register. Give them any existing MLC registrations so they can reconcile rather than collide.
5. Register with SoundExchange separately. SoundExchange registration is free and covers a different right entirely — digital sound recording royalties from Pandora radio and SiriusXM.
6. Keep your splits documented. Every conflicting claim I have ever seen started as an undocumented co-write.

The unglamorous conclusion is that for a US-focused artist at the start, the free route — The MLC plus BMI plus SoundExchange — collects most of what an administrator would, and costs nothing. The administrator earns its percentage when your audience stops being domestic or your catalog stops being simple.

I am an artist who has made the overlapping-registration mistake personally, not a lawyer or a publisher — terms, commissions and collection scopes differ between administrators, so read the actual agreement before you sign a catalog to one.