The MLC and Beatdapp join forces to combat streaming fraud

Established by the Music Modernization Act of 2018, the MLC manages mechanical royalty collection and distribution, ensuring registered artists worldwide receive all their entitled royalties when their music is streamed in the US. It has allocated over $2 billion to rightsholders since April 2021.

According to a statement, the partnership underscores the MLC’s commitment to protecting its members and ensuring songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers receive accurate and timely mechanical royalties from US streaming and download services.

“The MLC is uniquely positioned within the music industry to contribute significantly to addressing streaming fraud,” the MLC chief analytics and automation officer Andrew Mitchell said. “Building on our ongoing efforts, we are proud to be working with Beatdapp to further amplify the many ways the MLC serves its 43 000+ members.”

“The MLC plays a vital role in the music industry and we’re proud to collaborate with them and enhance their continuous efforts to combat streaming fraud,” Beatdapp co-CEOs Morgan Hayduk and Andrew Batey added. “Beatdapp has built its technology by learning from the best trust and safety solutions serving other online verticals and tailoring our technology to the unique attributes of music, to provide an unbiased, independent fraud detection solution capable of grappling with the persistent and ever-changing nature of fraud.”

Last year, several digital music companies and major services like Spotify and Amazon Music formed the Music Fights Fraud task force to combat streaming abuse, also collaborating with the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance to protect artists and disrupt cybercrime.

Meanwhile, the MLC has announced three webinars from 15 to 28 August covering areas like royalty statements, the importance of song registration, and notes for self-administered songwriters.