Mechanical Copyright Protection Society

MCPS collects royalties on behalf of copyright owners from those who wish to record their music.

For each track recording an Application for Licence is submitted to MCPS. Within 7 days MCPS sends either;

a) an invoice for royalty payment due, or
b) a Notification of No Claim (if the works are in the Public Domain no payment is due).

After receipt of payment MCPS issue a licence.

The royalty rate is 8.5% of the published dealer price excluding VAT
eg: A CD selling at £10 on which every track is licenced by MCPS would require a royalty payment of 85p on each copy (8.5% of £10), therefore for 100 copies the invoice would show £85. In practise, CDs usually contain both 'MCPS Licenced' and 'No Claim' tracks.

Works are generally in the public domain if they were published before 1923 or if the composer died over 70 years ago.