Soft Launching My Latest Project at The MLC
I’m happy to share that my latest project/obsession at The Mechanical Licensing Collective soft launches today:
Over 750 entities around the world have access to The MLC’s data through one or more of our data programs.
Every day, team members at companies around the world are actively engaged in building products and services that leverage our data (e.g. Bulk Data Access / Public Search API), exploring and integrating our data into their analytics tools and administration processes (e.g. DURP), or addressing strategic business issues (e.g. Radar for CMOs).
The Data Access Hub (DAH) helps music, rightstech and digital media technologists navigate The MLC’s data program offerings. The DAH consolidates information about The MLC’s data programs, streamlines enrollment processes, simplifies account and user management across select data programs and features resources to add value to our global data access community.
Data Access Hub – www.dah.themlc.com
Dae Bogan Fall 2026: Mondo.NYC, Billboard Latin Music Week, Music Tectonics, Unplugged Music Conference, and BeatMix in Miami and Los Angeles
Tap in! Fall is in session! I’m thrilled to announce my Fall 2026 schedule of in-person engagements at select music industry conferences as well as hosting The MLC’s BeatMix events in Miami and Los Angeles.
Let’s connect to explore the many ways that the Mechanical Licensing Collective empowers and supports self-administered songwriters, rightsholders, and music rights/royalties technology companies.
RSVP for BeatMix: Miami at go.themlc.com/BeatMixMiami
RSVP for BeatMix: Los Angeles at go.themlc.com/BeatMixLA
Dae Bogan’s Introduction to Music Royalties Forensics Workshop Now FREE On YouTube
Today, I made available for FREE the recording of my 2019 workshop on music royalties forensics:
Introduction to Music Royalties Forensics – A Beginner’s Workshop for Uncovering Unpaid Music Royalties in North America (USA and CAN)
Make sure to expand the video description to see links to related resources, such as my free ebook “The DIY Musician’s Starter Guide to Being Your Own Label and Publisher” and a list of US and Canada “black boxes” of unclaimed royalties, and much more.
Watch Here: https://youtu.be/yDYJbFPuO68?si=BPRBrPd8ja431VuS.
The MLC presents BeatMix: Atlanta
The Mechanical Licensing Collective presents
BeatMix: Atlanta
🗓️ Friday, May 15th | 6pm-9pm
📍 Bravo Ocean Studios
1040 Boulevard SE, Suite I
Atlanta, GA 30312
ℹ️ Join Dae Bogan, Head of Third-Party Partnerships, at Bravo Ocean Studios for an upbeat night to get to know The MLC. Come mix and mingle with Atlanta-area music creators and leave with new connections and key information about your rights as a music creator in the United States.
🎟️ RSVP required at https://go.themlc.com/BeatMixAtl2026
The MLC presents BeatMix: Detroit
The Mechanical Licensing Collective presents
BeatMix: Detroit
Friday, May 1st | 6pm-9pm
Star Factory
13650 W. Eight Mile Road
Oak Park, MI 48237
Join Dae Bogan, Head of Third-Party Partnerships, at Star Factory for an upbeat night to get to know The MLC. Come mix and mingle with Detroit-area music creators and leave with new connections and key information about your rights as a music creator in the United States.
RSVP required at https://go.themlc.com/BeatMixDetroit2026
The MLC presents BeatMix: Chicago
The Mechanical Licensing Collective presents
BeatMix: Chicago
Friday, April 17th | 6pm-9pm
Narwhal Studios
1644 North Honore Street
Chicago, IL 60622
Join Dae Bogan, Head of Third-Party Partnerships, at Narwhal Studios for an upbeat night to get to know The MLC. Come mix and mingle with Chicago-area music creators and leave with new connections and key information about your rights as a music creator in the United States.
RSVP Required at https://go.themlc.com/RSVP-BeatMix-Chicago
Dae Bogan Talks The MLC for A2IM Indiescussion Conversation Series
Are you an independent label, distributor, or music company navigating the U.S. streaming landscape?
Join us on Thursday, April 9 at 1 PM EST for an online conversation with Dae Bogan of The MLC.
In this session, we’ll break down how The MLC supports your songwriter and publishing partners by collecting and distributing U.S. mechanical streaming royalties, and what your team needs to know to ensure your catalog is properly registered and monetized. Learn how The MLC fits into the broader royalty ecosystem and how A2IM members can help maximize earnings for their creators.
Register at https://a2im.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_U1PR5-QvSHiJTgxeu0QALw
Dae Bogan Joins Speakers List for Music Pro Conference in Los Angeles
Hey, Los Angeles Indie Artists! I will be speaking at Music Pro 2026…
🗓️ March 27-29
📍 Musicians Institute Hollywood
Friday, March 27th • ⏰ 4:30 PM
Panel: Understanding Your Royalty Streams: Making Sure You’re Getting Paid for Every Use of Your Music
(Moderator: Andrew Surmani, Panel: The MLC’s Dae Bogan, SoundExchange’s Doug Cohn, and Peer Music’s Steve Torres)
Saturday, March 28th • ⏰ 10:45 AM
Presentation: Understanding The Mechanical Licensing Collective, with Dae Bogan”
Learn more and register to attend at http://www.musicpro26.com
Infinite Licensing in AI Music
For a few years now, in private conversations with various technologists, music rightsholders and fellow data nerds, I’ve been using, and trying to coin, the term “infinite licensing” to describe the concept of real-time AI-powered dynamic licensing of rights in both generative-AI and single-source derivative AI music applications.
No, I am not talking about smart contracts, which are finite preset rules hardcoded in a file that is then minted to a blockchain, but rather the convergence of AI (conceptual/subjective/ecosystem) and blockchain (context/ownership) within the permission layer of applications that can generate an infinite ♾️ combination of licensing deal terms.
Infinite licensing would behave sort of like an oracle within applications to dynamically value and clear rights in machine-to-machine, business-to-business, and consumer-to-machine applications, going beyond the scope of human objectivity, individual experience in negotiation and valuation, and workload capacity in the licensing process.
It removes limiting royalty formulas and most favored nations models and replaces them with highly customized and more commercially accurate representations of value at a given point in time.
I imagine a future where an AI system built on an LLM that has learned from previous licensing deals (and the outcomes and missed opportunities of such deals), ingested airplay and streaming stats, interpreted correlations and trends, while calculating the lost value of undervalued deals, analyzed historical sync data, quantifies hype, ingested sales data, and consumer behavior and sentiment data, etc. would dynamically determine rates and terms for gen-AI and single-source derivative AI music outputs.
Infinite licensing, unlike smart contracts, could factor in variations in types of use, the real commercial value of the source music involved, the perceived cultural value of music creators involved, the market value of the opportunity, and much more.
The blockchain aspect, which has been in development across a variety of projects and startups for over 10 years now, would provide the architecture for transparent and immutable rights management while remuneration could be supported by cryptocurrency.
In 2019, when I presented my lecture “Music 2020: The Next Era of Innovation in the Music Industry” at the California Institute of The Arts and again at Music Biz Conference, I argued that artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cryptocurrency would be among the technologies that will transform the music industry in the 2020’s.
We’re halfway through the 2020’s and I think someone will figure out infinite licensing before 2030.
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