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PRS, Stim and GEMA announce new alliance
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 17 June 2013
Three of Europe’s biggest music publishing collecting societies – the UK’s PRS, Sweden’s STIM and GEMA in Germany – have announced an alliance which they say will “simplify both national and pan-European music rights licensing and processing”.
As part of the agreement, GEMA will become a shareholder and customer of the International Copyright Enterprise, or ICE, an existing joint venture between PRS and STIM. The three societies will also establish a licensing hub that will combine the organisations’ repertories in order to – or so the three rights bodies say – provide publishers and songwriters with faster and more accurate accounting, while making it easier for pan-European digital services to licence their operations via fewer deals. ICE will also extend its services to cover the processing of transactional licences to digital music services.
Confirming all this, PRS boss Robert Ashcroft told CMU: “This partnership will enable dramatic improvements in licensing and rights management across Europe by reducing complexity and increasing efficiency. It will accelerate the growth and development of the digital music market, while ensuring that songwriters, composers and music publishers are paid the right amount of money, faster, more accurately and at lower cost. This is good news for everyone involved, from our members to the digital music service providers”.
STIM chief Kenth Muldin added: “I am confident that our partnership will create a modern and more cost-efficient management of music rights in Europe. This initiative is simply a response to market demand – music needs to be distributed anywhere, anytime and on any device, to the benefit of both consumers and creators. Our joint aim is to make music licensing and royalty payments more efficiently – in short to encourage market entry for legal services and allow music lovers to enjoy music”.
And ICE CEO Carsten Drachmann remarked: “The is a great step forward for the ‘one stop shop’ of online licensing in Europe, and ICE is proud to deliver the back office services, technology and solutions that enables this joint venture and helps reduce complexity and cost, and secures a fast and accurate return to rights holders”.
