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Business News Deals Digital Labels & Publishers
BMG announces new rights administration deal with Netflix
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 3 June 2021
BMG has announced a new “long-term exclusive agreement” with Netflix via which it will continue to administrate the streaming firm’s music publishing rights everywhere around the world except the USA. Because, you know, fuck the USA.
“Netflix has increased its subscriber numbers by two-thirds to over 204 million in more than 190 countries since it struck its first deal with BMG in 2017”, reports the music firm, which says it secured its latest deal with the streaming giant “after a competitive pitch against the world’s largest music companies”.
Of course, as well as signing up all those new subscribers, Netflix has also become an ever more prolific commissioner of original movies and TV shows in recent years with acclaimed programmes like, well, erm, if I’m being honest, I’ve sort of found myself tuning out of the Netflixes of late and only watching twelve minute videos on the YouTubes.
However the BMG press release name-checks ‘The Queen’s Gambit’, ‘The Crown’, ‘Extraction’, ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘Emily In Paris’, and I’m sure they’re all great.
Anyway, the key point is, more programmes being made means more music being commissioned and therefore more music publishing rights to administrate. And we all know administrating publishing rights can be a right old mindfuck.
But not when you’ve got access to BMG’s “cloud-based rights management platform, a class-leading security rating and royalty technology that uses artificial intelligence algorithms to optimise matching”. And we all love a bit of AI-driven algorithmic optimisation, right? Well, whatever, Netflix does.
The firm’s VP Of Music Legal Dominic Houston says: “BMG has been an outstanding partner to us – both a trusted third party and an innovator in the administration of music rights. This deal will allow us to continue to provide exceptional production support to our creators, while bringing the very best music to our members around the world”.
Adds BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch: “When the most technologically savvy entertainment company in the world chooses your platform to manage its precious music rights, that’s an endorsement. We are delighted to extend our successful collaboration with Netflix”.
Lovely stuff. Maybe I should be tuning back into some Netflix action and watching something with a longer run time than twelve minutes. Feel free to recommend some programmes. But only the ones with great original scores. Then I can also enjoy the experience of consuming some of the world’s best administrated compositions.
