Bertelsmann have launched the all new BMG. As previously reported, the German media giant has now let go of all its old music assets, having sold BMG Music Publishing to Universal and its half of the SonyBMG record company to Sony Corp. But, at the time it confirmed it was bailing out of SonyBMG, Bertelsmann said the BMG name would live on through a new royalty and rights agency that they were planning on setting up.
Well, BMG Rights Management was officially launched yesterday. Bertelsmann say the new company will support songwriters and artists in "the creation, marketing and licensing, collection and accounting, as well as advance financing of their music repertoire". I think that means they will represent artists and songwriters looking to boost their income through sync-right deals and the like, and that they may even sign new artists who still need investment, but that they'd recoup their investment on a share of sync rights rather than getting into the messy business of releasing records.
BMG Rights Management launches with catalogue featuring about 200 artists - basically coming from a few European recording catalogues they held onto when selling their half of BMG to Sony. They will now look to sign new artists to the new venture, especially in Europe.
Confirming the new venture, the boss of BMG Rights Management, Hartwig Masuch, told reporters: "We are focusing precisely on that area of the music industry which promises growth. Music is being used more intensively and exploited more comprehensively than ever before - beyond the traditional distribution of recorded music: on a growing number of online and mobile platforms, in productions of movies, TV programmes and commercials, on radio and TV broadcast, in concerts and in video games. Today, a music writer or performer can derive significantly more income from the rights to his work than before. This is where we want to position ourselves with customized, flexible services as well as transparent accounting".
In related news, word has it that, having bought out BMG, Sony is hoping it will be able to push through more collaborations between Sony Music and Sony Electronics in the future. Attempts to foster more interaction between Sony companies through its Sony United programme didn't always gel so well at SonyBMG because of the joint ownership.