Music publisher Concord has announced a new deal with digital licensing hub ICE, with which it has been directly working since 2018.
Owned by European collecting societies PRS, GEMA and STIM, ICE - among other things - negotiates and manages multi-territory deals with streaming services on behalf of an assortment of societies and publishers. The licensing of song rights to streaming services is complex for various reasons, and - via its ICE Core licensing venture - ICE has sought to navigate those complexities on behalf of its clients, while expanding the number of countries in which its licences apply.
On announcing the renewal of its partnership with Concord, ICE states: "Having been a direct member of the ICE Core since 2018, Concord has seen significantly increasing royalties, with an average year-on-year rise of more than 34% since 2020. The footprint of the ICE Core has also significantly expanded in recent years, incorporating regions such as MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa, robustly delivering fast and accurate royalty flows to rightsholders from more territories".
Confirming the renewed partnership, Concord's Chief Publishing Officer Jim Selby says: "We continue to see tremendous performance as part of the ICE Core and are excited by the future opportunities. It's a genuinely customer-centric partnership that we enjoy with everyone at ICE, and that extends well beyond doing the initial deal. Backing up deep market understanding with systems that efficiently and effectively deliver actual royalties enables us to in turn deliver more to our writers".
ICE Chief Commercial Officer Ben McEwen adds: "It's wonderful to be able to build on our long-standing relationship with the team at Concord and to continue to collaborate together in the future. The ICE Core brings together and supports a wide variety of rightsholder customers to deliver shared benefits, including leading independent publishers such as Concord. We look forward to continuing to deliver royalties and enable our customers to provide new services for the songwriters and composers we all serve".