Record industry collecting societies in India, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand have collaborated with each other - and with global trade group IFPI and audio ID company BMAT - on a new platform to help more efficiently manage and distribute public performance royalties. They've called that platform SoundSys.
Those societies, of course, issue licences and collect monies on behalf of labels and performers when recorded music is broadcast or performed in public within their home markets. IFPI notes that doing that accurately and efficiently requires "sophisticated IT systems" which are "costly to develop". The collaboration between the four societies saved them from "having to each build their own systems".
Confirming the use of the new system by Indonesia's society ASIRINDO, its director Jusak Sutiono says: "We are already greatly benefitting from the use of SoundSys in Indonesia. The SoundSys matching process is helping us to ensure we accurately identify the music content we are allocating revenues to, with the software improving the speed with which we can then process the revenue and distribute it to our right-holder community".
Meanwhile, commenting on the collaboration between the four Asian societies, IFPI boss Frances Moore adds: "SoundSys is truly transformative. It results from unprecedented cooperation internationally while exemplifying the strength and professionalism of the music industry in Asia to harness cutting edge music technology and deliver a globally significant advancement".
And as for future ambitions for the SoundSys platform, Moore confirms: "We will now be looking to roll it out in other regions that can benefit most from the software".