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Austrian collecting society AKM allies with licensing hub ICE
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 12 December 2022
Austrian song rights collecting society AKM has announced a new deal with licensing hub ICE, meaning it will directly participate in the ICE Core venture, which negotiates licensing deals with multi-territory digital music services on behalf of various music publishers and collecting societies.
The society was previously connected to ICE Core via a partnership with German collective management organisation GEMA, which is a co-owner of the licensing hub. But AKM is now participating directly.
Its CEO Gernot Graninger says: “The ICE Core reflects the best licensing solution for online music services, with the best value for our members”.
“We will receive services which combine market leading expertise and state-of-the-art technological systems, without our members needing to face the costs of large-scale investments”, he adds. “In these times more than ever, societies need to find the right services at the right value”.
ICE COO Ben McEwen adds: “We’re very happy to welcome AKM into the Core. The collaboration to make this happen reflects all parties working together in the interests of rightsholders, the very DNA of everyone who is part of the ICE hub”.
Noting that AKM initially worked with ICE via GEMA, McEwen goes on: “It’s a real strength of the ICE Core that you can join as a member of any scale; new rightsholders can come in through existing ICE Core members, getting the same ICE Core rates and also benefiting from additional value-add services to meet their needs. Or, in circumstances where systems, capabilities and volumes support it, rightsholders can come in directly”.
“In turn”, he concludes, “each new member enhances the collective, with the ICE Core repertoire benefiting greatly from the inclusion of additional society and publisher repertoires”.
Other collecting societies participating in the ICE Core venture include the three that own ICE – so the UK’s PRS and Sweden’s STIM as well as GEMA – plus Ireland’s IMRO and Belgium’s SABAM.
