New digital music services mean new revenues to songwriters and music publishers. Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) announced that it has signed licensing agreements with both Spotify and turntable.fm covering more than 6.5 million music works with rights managed by BMI.
“We are pleased to confirm that we have reached agreements that guarantee fair compensation for the more than 475,000 songwriters, composers and copyright owners who entrust BMI with their public performance right,” said Richard Conlon, Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy/Communications & New Media for BMI. “Both agreements represent yet another step in our long tradition of breaking new ground in licensing music for digital distribution.”
Spotify and turntable.fm join Sony QRIOCITY, Cricket Wireless Muve music service and more in the growing roster of more than 9,000 digital properties licensed by BMI. The rights agency tracked 1.6 billion performances on BMI-licensed websites in the last quarter alone. “Thanks to this and other key revenue streams, BMI is paying more songwriters, composers and music publishers than ever before in its 71-year history,” BMI said.
In an exclusive outreach to music creators, Spotify offered BMI songwriters, composers and music publishers an invitation to experience its vast library of over 15 million songs. That was apparently well received in the music community, since BMI reports that its members claimed all of the invitations in only one hour.
RBR-TVBR observation: Songwriters and music publishers still get the biggest payments from radio airplay, but online royalties are certainly growing. The big difference is that online has multiple royalties, with a performance royalty for the record company and artists also being collected in addition to the fees collected for the composers and publishers. That’s made online a tough business proposition.
