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PRS announces deal with music data platform Auddly
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 27 June 2018
UK collecting society PRS For Music yesterday announced it had signed a long-term licensing agreement with Auddly, the start-up business that has developed a platform that makes it easier for artists and songwriters to ensure that accurate data is pumped into the system each time they create some new music.
The lack of a decent one-stop global database documenting what songs are contained in what recordings, and who wrote and published those songs, and who recorded and released those records, has caused all sorts of issues over the years. More so as music consumption has switched from CDs to downloads and onto streams.
Various collecting societies, rights owners and start-ups are trying to tackle the problem of legacy music data. But Auddly – led by producer and songwriter Niclas Molinder and backed by Max Martin and ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus – recognised that there were also challenges around new works. Often the only people who really know who created a song and performed on a track are the artists, who aren’t necessarily very good at documenting who was involved and what was agreed in terms of how copyrights are being split.
The Auddly platform helps with that process. And under the new agreement, from next year PRS members will have access to a new Auddly-powered tool which, the two organisations say, will “enable earlier registration of more accurate and authoritative data, and in turn help PRS to improve the speed and accuracy of royalty distributions made to its members”.
We know for certain that at least one PRS member is very excited about the new arrangement. That being Ulvaeus himself, who said yesterday: “When I joined PRS For Music a few years ago, long before Auddly, I did so because I had the feeling that PRS were at the forefront of collecting societies. They seemed flexible and willing to adapt to future technologies and – as I am a bit of a tech geek – I like that. Well, I was right!”
On the new deal, he added: “I’m immensely grateful to PRS for sharing our vision. We share the goal to help songwriters get quick and fair payments, and get credits whenever and wherever their songs are played. Now’s the time for the world to realise that no one in the music industry is more important than us songwriters! It all starts with a song!”
Speaking for PRS itself, the society’s boss man Robert Ashcroft added: “Björn Ulvaeus is one of the industry’s leading visionaries. With today’s trillions of individual streams on the internet, early and authoritative song registration are vital if songwriters and composers are to be properly paid for their creative works. In founding and developing Auddly together with Niclas, Björn has made a massive contribution to all other songwriters, to add to his own legendary career as a creator himself. I would like to thank him, on behalf of all PRS members, for his vision and for his determination in developing Auddly”.
