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Digital
PRS enter into pan-European deal with iTunes
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 27 January 2010
PRS For Music has announced it has struck up a pan-European licensing deal with iTunes, which is another move towards achieving the ambitions of the European Commission, and some in the music publishing sector, whereby digital music providers operating in multiple European territories can do so with one licence from one collecting society, rather than having to do separate deals in every country.
As we reported yesterday, despite various moves towards pan-European licensing by both collecting societies and the major music publishers, such multi-territory licensing is, if anything, more confusing now than ever before, though some would argue much of the current confusion is as a result of the whole system being in flux.
Anyway, the iTunes deal. PRS For Music has licensed the performing rights of its entire catalogue to the Apple service for the whole of Europe (such rights are technically needed by a la carte download stores like iTunes, even though there isn’t an obvious performance of a song in a download). Perhaps more importantly, the deal also covers the mechanical rights (the ‘copying right’ at the heart of a la carte downloading) for two of the publishers PRS represents, Peermusic and Chrysalis Music. It’s hoped other independent publishers will also utilise this licensing arrangement through the Independent Music Publishers’ European Licensing group, a new alliance of indie publishers formed at the start of the month and officially announced at MIDEM on Monday.
Commenting on the new iTunes deal, PRS’s MD of Broadcast, Online & Recorded Media, Andrew Shaw told CMU: “We are delighted to have agreed this new pan-European deal with iTunes. In our view it demonstrates that PRS for Music provides a compelling pan-European offering and leads the market in enabling digital music growth, whilst delivering vital royalties to our members”.
Earlier this week PRS For Music announced it had entered into pan-European arrangements of one form or another with twelve digital service providers in the last year, including Amazon, eMusic, Napster, Nokia, Omnifone, Real Networks and Spotify.
