Collaborating for good
PPL exists to give back to music. We aim to do that by being a global leader in the collective licensing of music, forming strategic partnerships, and driving improvements across the industry.
Working to improve data quality around the world
Accurate data is crucial to paying our members correctly, and on time. As well as constantly working to improve our own data management, we work with organisations around the world to help them improve the quality of their data, too.
We continued to work closely with the wider industry, particularly the IFPI and WIN, on the management and adoption of RDx – a data exchange service between CMOs and recording rightsholders to improve the timeliness, accuracy and efficiency of CMO revenue distributions to rightsholders worldwide. Our work with Warner Music in the second half of last year will see it fully integrated into RDx in 2024, completing the integration of all three majors. PPL continued to support and work with RDx partners to improve recording rightsholder data quality within the service. Data for over 11 million individual sound recordings have been submitted (and maintained) through RDx.
The Virtual Recordings Database (VRDB) – the system that delivers a more efficient exchange of recording and performer data between CMOs to support international payments to performers (to which PPL contributes significant effort) – continued to grow in 2023. It has almost 15 million sound recordings being shared among SCAPR members, and has facilitated close to 5 million requests to be made to add performers to line-ups. It is delivering a transformational level of change in establishing an authoritative and shared source of this important data.
We also remained a strong voice in a variety of DDEX forums, working to standardise the flow of metadata across the music industry. A number of PPL employees continued to attend its various working groups, sharing their expertise and experience with colleagues across the industry.
Sharing our expertise
As well as working closely with the wider industry to improve data accuracy, PPL also provides HR services to a number of organisations, covering both short-term needs and embedding longer-term infrastructure. This includes support with designing policies, recruitment activities and managing employee appraisal processes.
Welcoming fellow CMOs to London
In May, we were honoured to host the SCAPR General Assembly in London, welcoming delegates from other performer collective management organisations around the world to a three-day conference programme.
Throughout the agenda, guests heard from external experts alongside PPL staff on a range of topics facing the international CMO community. These included examining the economics of music streaming with Kevin Brennan MP, Chris Mills, Policy Director at the Intellectual Property Office, Helen Smith, Executive Chair at IMPALA and Tom Gray, Chair of the Ivors Academy, through to looking at changing consumption habits across music and audiovisual with senior representatives from Bauer, the BBC and Sky TV. Another panel focused on the use of music in the hospitality and late-night sectors, welcoming the chief executives from UKHospitality and LIVE UK, while the final panel covered the work done to date and the advantages to users and rightsholders of embedding performer identifiers into the digital supply chain at the point of creation, including speakers from SCAPR, Universal Music Group, Session and the ISNI Music Group.
Providing a space for others
Many smaller rightsholders, trade bodies and charities have difficulties finding spaces for large meetings, training, and events. Following a refurbishment of our office space, PPL has been able to provide a flexible space for numerous networking events, committee meetings and diversity discussions to our partners and the wider industry. The Ivors, Tomorrow’s Warriors, The Black Music Lawyers Network and The Cat’s Mother are just some of the organisations to have benefited.
