MLC Overclaims 2026: Fix a Conflicting Claim Fast

Last updated: July 2026

If your song shows an overclaim at The MLC, your mechanical royalties are frozen — and they stay frozen until the ownership shares on that work add up to exactly 100%. An overclaim happens when the combined shares claimed by every party on a musical work exceed 100%. The MLC emails all claimants automatically, opens the work in the Overclaims Tool inside the Member Portal, and gives you a documentation window — 30 calendar days from the date of notice under The MLC's Musical Works Ownership Dispute Policy — to either reduce your share so the total balances, or upload substantiating documentation proving the share you claimed.

There are only four ways out: reduce your own share, get another claimant to reduce theirs, upload documentation (a signed split sheet, a publishing agreement, a work-for-hire contract), or let the claim be rejected. Claims not substantiated inside the documentation period may be rejected outright, though you can refile later with proper paperwork.

The stakes are higher in 2026 than they've ever been. Of the $397,196,646.86 in historical unmatched royalties The MLC collected, $195,779,461.26 remained unmatched and $74,473,413.08 remained unclaimed as of the Copyright Office's periodic review published June 3, 2026 (Federal Register). Starting in early 2027, The MLC plans to begin market-share distributions of remaining unmatched and unclaimed blanket royalties. Money stuck behind an unresolved overclaim is money that can end up redistributed to major publishers instead of you.

What is an MLC overclaim, and how is it different from a conflict?

An overclaim is an arithmetic problem. A conflict is a legal one. The two words get used interchangeably in forums, but The MLC treats them as distinct states, and the resolution path is different for each.

An overclaim exists when the total ownership shares submitted by all Members on a single musical work exceed 100%. Example: you register 50% of a co-write, your co-writer's administrator registers 60%, and the work now sits at 110%. Nobody is necessarily lying — one party simply used the wrong number, or a publisher registered a full 100% out of habit before splits were finalized.

A conflict exists when parties actively disagree about who owns what, and one of them raises a substantiated dispute. Here is the part most independent songwriters get wrong: The MLC will not decide who is right. Under the Music Modernization Act, The MLC holds royalties when a substantiated dispute is raised, but the parties themselves — or a court — determine ownership (The MLC). The MLC's Dispute Resolution Committee, composed of five songwriters and five musical work copyright owner representatives, oversees policy, not individual ownership adjudication.

The practical difference: an overclaim can usually be cleared in a week with an email and a PDF. A true ownership conflict can sit on hold for years.

Why did I get an overclaim notice when my splits are correct?

In most indie cases the splits agreed in the room were correct — and the registrations were not. Five causes account for the overwhelming majority of overclaim notices reaching independent songwriters and producers.

1. Your distributor or admin registered on your behalf, and so did you. If you registered your work directly in the MLC Portal and your publishing administrator also registered the same work, the shares stack. This is the single most common cause among self-released artists, and it is why knowing whether your distributor collects publishing matters before you sign.

2. A co-writer's publisher claimed 100% by default. Publishers frequently register a full 100% share as a placeholder while a deal is being papered. Your legitimate 25% pushes the work to 125%.

3. The producer's share was never documented. Producer publishing splits agreed by text message do not survive a registration dispute. If a producer registers 20% and the writers already registered 100% between them, the work overclaims immediately.

4. Duplicate work registrations. The same composition can exist twice in the database under slightly different titles or ISWCs, and the shares get split across both records. The MLC maintains a dedicated process for members to report duplicate work registrations, and it requires you to notice the duplicate first.

5. Fraudulent or speculative claiming. Digital Music News reported in September 2025 that works were being registered at 100% ownership despite already being attributed to legitimate writers, with limited audit trail and no automatic notice of conflict in some cases (Digital Music News). If you are not monitoring your catalog, you may not learn about a bad-faith claim until royalties stop arriving.

How do I resolve an MLC overclaim, step by step?

The Overclaims Tool lives inside the Member Portal and is the only supported path. Work through these seven steps in order.

1. Log in to the MLC Member Portal and open the Overclaims Tool from the left-side menu of the Member Hub. Every work currently in overclaim status appears here.
2. Click the work in question to open the Overclaim Detail page. This page shows every claimant, the share each has claimed, and the total percentage the work currently sits at.
3. Identify the arithmetic gap. If the work is at 130%, someone is claiming 30 points they should not have. Before you assume it is the other party, verify your own registration against your signed split sheet.
4. Contact the other claimants directly. The MLC provides claimant contact information for this exact reason. A short, non-accusatory email — "our split sheet from March shows 40/35/25, the work is registered at 130%, can you check your share?" — resolves more overclaims than any formal process.
5. Reduce your share if you were wrong. Correcting your own registration downward is instant and requires no documentation.
6. Upload substantiating documentation if you were right. On the Overclaim Detail page, scroll to "Option 4 — Upload Documents," click Upload Documents, and attach your evidence (MLC Help Center). Acceptable evidence includes signed split sheets, publishing agreements, administration agreements, work-for-hire contracts, and prior settlement agreements.
7. Calendar the 30-day deadline. Under The MLC's dispute policy, claimants have 30 calendar days from the date of notice to update claims and/or submit substantiating documentation. Miss it and your claim may be rejected — you can refile later with documentation, but you have handed the other party months of leverage in the meantime.

RoyaltyCoPilot.ai flags overclaims and held works across your entire catalog in one pass, which matters because the MLC notice email is easy to miss and the 30-day clock does not pause because you were on tour.

What documentation actually resolves an overclaim?

Not all evidence carries equal weight. Ranked by how reliably it settles a dispute:

1. A signed split sheet dated at the session — names, legal names, IPI numbers, PRO affiliations, percentages, signatures. This is the gold standard and the reason split sheets exist.
2. An executed publishing or co-publishing agreement specifying the exact share administered.
3. A work-for-hire or producer agreement stating whether the producer receives publishing and at what percentage.
4. A signed settlement or amendment resolving a prior dispute over the same work.
5. Prior consistent registrations at another society — an ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC work registration showing the same splits over time.
6. Contemporaneous written communication — a dated email or message thread where all parties agree to the splits. Weak on its own, useful as corroboration.

What does not work: a screenshot of a text message with no names attached, a DAW session file, a verbal agreement recalled from memory, or a Spotify credit. If your entire case rests on category six, settle by negotiation rather than by documentation.

What happens to my royalties while the overclaim is open?

The undisputed portion generally continues to pay. The disputed portion is held.

If a work sits at 120% and three of four claimants agree their shares total 80%, the 80% typically continues to distribute while the contested 40 points are held. This is why partial resolution is worth pursuing even when one party refuses to engage — getting a work from 140% down to 105% unlocks most of the money and shrinks the fight.

Held royalties do not disappear immediately. But they do not sit forever either. The MLC reported $568,945,432.36 in royalties held related to 2021–2024 usage, of which $243,856,456.84 related to unclaimed royalties, per the Copyright Office's June 2026 periodic review. The MLC's planned market-share distribution mechanism — monthly, per-song, on a pro rata basis for each digital music provider and offering, beginning in early 2027 — is what eventually happens to money nobody successfully claims. Once distributed on market share, it goes to rights holders in proportion to their overall market share, which in practice means large publishers.

Should I escalate to a formal dispute or settle privately?

Settle privately in almost every case. Formal escalation makes sense in a narrow set of circumstances.

Settle privately when: the disagreement is under roughly 20 percentage points, the other party is reachable and acting in good faith, you have documentation but the other side simply registered wrong, or the annual royalty value of the disputed share is under a few thousand dollars. Legal fees on a mechanical royalty dispute will exceed the disputed royalties on most indie catalogs within the first two billable hours.

Escalate when: a party has claimed 100% of a work they did not write, a party is unreachable or refuses to engage after documented attempts, the disputed share represents meaningful recurring income across a catalog, or you suspect coordinated fraudulent claiming across multiple works. In that last scenario, document everything, report the works, and get a music attorney involved — The MLC will hold the money, but it will not litigate ownership on your behalf.

Does the MLC's own litigation affect my held royalties?

Indirectly, and it is worth knowing where things stand in mid-2026.

The MLC's bundling lawsuit against Spotify — over Spotify's March 2024 reclassification of Premium as an audiobook bundle, which lowered the U.S. mechanical rate paid to publishers and songwriters — was dismissed by Judge Analisa Torres in January 2025 (Variety). The MLC was permitted to file an amended complaint, and the fight moved into an appeal phase in 2026. Separately, The MLC and Pandora filed competing summary judgment motions in their long-running royalties case in February 2026 (Digital Music News).

Neither case changes your overclaim process. Both are a reminder that the pool being fought over is finite, and that the mechanism which eventually sweeps unclaimed money is market share — a mechanism that structurally favors whoever is already large. Resolving your own overclaims is the part of this you actually control.

How do I prevent overclaims on future releases?

Prevention costs about ten minutes per song and eliminates most of this category of problem.

• Sign a split sheet before anyone leaves the session. Include legal names, IPI numbers, PRO affiliations, and percentages totaling exactly 100.
• Decide who registers. Pick one party — you, or your administrator, never both — to register each work with The MLC.
• Confirm what your distributor does. Many distributors collect master royalties only. Some offer publishing administration as a paid add-on. Assuming the wrong answer is how double registrations happen.
• Register the producer's share explicitly at the same time as the writers' shares, not months later.
• Audit your catalog quarterly. Search your works in The MLC's public database and confirm total shares equal 100% and every writer is listed with the correct IPI. RoyaltyCoPilot.ai automates this sweep across MLC, SoundExchange, and PRO data so conflicts surface within days instead of after a missing payment.
• Watch for duplicate registrations of the same composition under variant titles, and report them promptly.

Frequently asked questions

How long does an MLC overclaim take to resolve? A cooperative overclaim where one party simply reduces their share can clear in a few days. Overclaims requiring documentation review run several weeks. Genuine ownership conflicts, where parties disagree on the underlying facts, can remain on hold for months or years because The MLC does not adjudicate ownership.

Can The MLC decide who owns my song? No. Under the Music Modernization Act, The MLC holds royalties when a substantiated dispute is raised, but the parties or a court determine ownership. The MLC's Dispute Resolution Committee oversees policy, not individual ownership rulings.

What happens if I ignore an overclaim notice? Claims not substantiated within the documentation period may be rejected. Your royalties on the disputed share stay held, and if the work remains unclaimed long enough it becomes eligible for market-share distribution — meaning the money goes to other rights holders proportionally.

Can I refile a claim after mine was rejected? Yes. A claimant whose claim was rejected for failure to provide substantiating documentation may file a new claim with proper documentation at a later date. You lose time and any royalties distributed in the interim, so refiling is a recovery, not a reset.

Do I need a lawyer to resolve an overclaim? Usually not. Most overclaims are registration errors resolved by email and a split sheet upload. Involve a music attorney when someone has claimed a share of a work they did not contribute to, when the disputed income is substantial, or when the other party refuses to engage.

Does an overclaim at The MLC affect my PRO royalties? Not automatically — mechanical royalties at The MLC and performance royalties at ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, or GMR are administered separately. But the same underlying split error usually exists at both, so if you find an MLC overclaim, check your PRO registrations for the same work immediately.

What if my co-writer is unreachable? Document your outreach attempts, upload your substantiating documentation to the Overclaims Tool, and reduce the contested surface where you can. Partial resolution unlocks the undisputed portion of royalties while the remainder stays held.

How do I know if I have overclaims right now? Log into the MLC Member Portal and open the Overclaims Tool — it lists every affected work. For a catalog-wide view that also covers SoundExchange and PRO registration gaps, a full catalog audit through RoyaltyCoPilot.ai surfaces held works, missing registrations, and metadata mismatches in a single pass.

The bottom line

An overclaim is a solvable arithmetic problem wearing the costume of a legal dispute. The MLC gives you a tool, a contact list, and a 30-day window. Most indie songwriters lose the money not because they were wrong about their splits, but because the notification email got buried and the window closed.

With more than $195 million still sitting unmatched and market-share distribution of unclaimed blanket royalties scheduled to begin in early 2027, the cost of leaving a work in overclaim status is no longer theoretical. Check your catalog, fix your splits, upload your paperwork, and get the hold released while the money is still yours to claim.