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Business News Labels & Publishers
Dutch collecting society announces Europe-wide shop for indie labels securing mechanical rights
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 28 November 2011
The Dutch publishing rights collecting society BUMA/STEMRA has joined up with pan-European indie label trade body IMPALA to create what it is calling the “first ever European portal for mechanical rights licensing”.
Basically, under the new partnership any members of IMPALA and its affiliated trade bodies, which includes the UK’s Association Of Independent Music, will be able to licence the Europe-wide ‘mechanical publishing rights’ on physical releases (so, the licence that allows a record label to sell recordings of a song, and which pays a royalty to the publisher and/or songwriter which owns it) for songs represented by the collecting society via a one-stop-shop. Which is a very long sentence.
In the words of Hein van der Ree, CEO of BUMA/STEMRA: “This new structure creates the possibility of a European one-stop-shop, a single licence for all of Europe. At the same time, the arrangement will create improved transparency for rights owners through the aggregation of these European licences”.
Explaining why a one-stop-shop for mechanical rights would be useful for the labels IMPALA represents, the trade body’s Executive Chair Helen Smith told CMU: “Independents currently have agreements for mechanical licences in many European countries on many different conditions. We are confident that this will streamline the whole licensing process and add value for independent labels in helping them to sustain their position in the European music market, producing over 80% of all new releases”.
