The MCPS Side of UK Royalties, Explained

PRS for Music is the umbrella; underneath it are two different societies collecting two different rights. Most UK writers know about PRS. Fewer understand MCPS, and it's a separate membership with a separate fee.

The two rights

• Performing right (PRS) — the song being performed or communicated to the public: broadcast, live performance, public playing, the performance element of streaming.

• Mechanical right (MCPS) — the song being reproduced or copied: physical formats, downloads, the mechanical element of streaming, and synchronisation into audio-visual work.

Same song, two rights, two collections. A CD pressing generates mechanicals. A radio play generates performance royalties. A stream generates a bit of both.

What MCPS covers

• Physical product — CDs, vinyl, DVDs.

• Downloads.

• The mechanical share of streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and similar.

• Sync into TV, film, games and advertising.

• Some broadcast copying — production music and broadcaster reproduction.

Cost

£100 one-off, on top of the £100 PRS writer membership. It can be added during your initial PRS application or later through the PRS for Music site.

MCPS has its own joining criteria, so it isn't automatic — it's aimed at writers whose work is actually being reproduced commercially.

Do you need it?

Genuinely worth thinking about rather than reflexively paying:

• Yes, probably, if you press physical product, license sync, or have meaningful streaming volume as the writer of your own songs.

• Yes, if other artists record your songs — covers on physical or download generate mechanicals that need collecting.

• Maybe not yet, if you have a handful of streams, no physical product and no sync activity. £100 against negligible mechanical income is a reasonable thing to defer.

One important nuance for self-releasing artists: if you write, record and distribute your own music, some of the mechanical income on your own streams may already be reaching you through your distributor rather than through MCPS, depending on the arrangement. Two routes to the same money is a recipe for confusion, and it's worth understanding which route your streams are taking before assuming a gap.

Where the mechanical money hides

The stream-mechanical share is small per play and adds up at volume. But the two situations where MCPS membership repays itself quickly are sync — where mechanical and synchronisation income can be substantial from a single placement — and other people recording your songs, which is invisible to you until it's collected.

If you're pitching songs to other artists, being outside MCPS means a cover version generates mechanicals that go uncollected.

Register the works, whichever societies you're in

As with PRS, membership alone collects nothing — works have to be registered with correct splits, and the same title and identifier discipline applies. See how to register with PRS.

Musavise's royalty hub tracks PRS, MCPS, PPL, distribution and publishing administration as separate registrations with their own status, per act — so "am I in MCPS, and do I need to be" is a recorded decision rather than an open question. The leak audit flags the gaps without an account.

All of it lives in one free Musavise account — free means free, within honest limits, and your data exports whenever you want it. Create your free account; it takes about two minutes.