Author: Press Officer

Deezer has joined forces with a consortium of major music industry players, including Bardis Music Co. Ltd and LyricFind, to form BELEM. The consortium aims to build capacity for music publishers, songwriters, platforms, and labels to democratise and monetize access to lyrics. It will also strive to break down cultural barriers by making human translated lyrics accessible to all listeners.

BELEM is an EU-funded four year project that has been granted €2 million in funding through the Creative Europe Programme (CREA). It will drive new revenue streams to key players in the music industry by promoting European lyrics and the translations of these lyrics, alongside their monetisation. The project is also aiming to amplify the co-creation and co-production of European lyrics, adding new economic value to European musical and linguistic heritage.

In particular, the project is placing a strong focus on online and streaming lyric translations, as well as supporting publisher capacity building and the songwriters themselves on creation and translation. BELEM will also look to benefit labels and artists through providing better accessibility for lyric videos — including translated lyrics. It will also aim to impact the live sector, via both virtual and physical lyric translation exhibitions.

“In the digital age, it’s imperative for music to be localised, universal and accessible,” said Florian von Hoyer, COO at MusicHub and BELEM Lead on behalf of Zebralution. “Lyrics hold a vital function in understanding music. But language barriers present a major obstacle. Through human-translated lyrics, we can help bridge the gap of understanding, expose artists to entirely new audiences, and help those artists to monetise their lyrics and the translations better. This project has a grand ambition — to empower artists and connect cultures to transform European music revenues and understanding.”

The project has been formed in response to an increased understanding of the power of translated lyrics in helping break down cultural barriers and further support artists’ monetisation of their works. As a significant partner in BELEM, Deezer has already worked with LyricFind to translate over 10,000 lyrics in four languages, all displayed in-app. For Deezer subscribers, the on-demand multilingual translation has introduced a brand-new music experience based on innovation; with a simple click, music fans can view precise lyric translations of many of the most popular English songs in French, German, Spanish and Portuguese.

“Lyrics can be a truly powerful addition to a song, and as the home of music and a French-founded company operating worldwide, we understand how challenging language barriers can be for artists with international ambitions,” said Ludovic Pouilly, SVP Institutional and Music Industry Relations at Deezer. “BELEM offers an exhilarating prospect — to help artists reach more audiences and for the listeners to better and intuitively understand the music they are listening to. Our core mission is to help music fans on Deezer find new favourites and expand their horizons; our work with BELEM will greatly help achieve this goal for the benefit of all.”

Alongside Deezer, BELEM includes 14 EU music publishing, technology, distribution, labels, and academic partners. This consortium of music industry firms are working together to amplify the understanding, co-creation and co-production of European lyrics to add new economic value to European musical and linguistic heritage.

Companies involved in the BELEM project include German all-audio company Zebralution and .MUSIC domain name registry. They are joined by Canadian lyric solutions company, LyricFind, which has provided innovation in lyric licensing and data service to companies such as Amazon, Google, and Deezer.

“Lyrics are exceptionally important — they can move us, make us question our world, or conjure powerful memories and feelings. But for many artists, the language challenge means their art and their stories often don’t reach the audiences they deserve,” said Robert Singerman, SVP at LyricFind and EVP at .MUSIC. “But with the combined power of 15 committed partners and the resources of the EU, we can make dramatic strides towards improving the diversity and unity of artists and audiences both within the EU and beyond. We can help artists fully unleash the meaning of their songs.”

The full list of 15 companies participating in the BELEM Project include:

1. AMAEI
2. Bardis
3. Deezer
4. .MUSIC
5. Fleep’it
6. Independent Digital
7. Lusitanian Music
8. LyricFind
9. Mars Music
10. Metatron
11. Nord University
12. Broma 16
13. RUNDA
14. Unison Rights
15. Zebralution

The Ivors 2023 entries are now open. The awards are one of the most respected and prestigious prizes for songwriters and composers. Each winner will receive an Ivor Novello Award and join a roll call of greats that includes Hozier, Johnny McDaid, Adele, Stormzy, Cathy Dennis, Villagers, Annie Lennox, Amy Winehouse, Dave and Joan Armatrading.

Entries are open for seven categories to recognise British and Irish songwriters and composers – the Rising Star Award, Best Album, Best Contemporary Song, Best Song Musically and Lyrically, Best Original Film Score, Best Original Video Game Score and Best Television Soundtrack.

In its fourth year, the Rising Star Award discovers, supports, and accelerates the careers of under-25 songwriters. All nominees will receive support including mentoring from an acclaimed Academy member. Previous mentors include Nile Rodgers, Wayne Hector, Cathy Dennis, Shaznay Lewis and Jamie Hartman.

Entries are open until 20th January and anyone can enter, including songwriters or screen composers. To be eligible music must have been released or broadcast in the UK in 2022.

Enter and find out about the full eligibility criteria, rules and guidelines.

The RTÉ Choice Music Prize will return in 2023 and continue its principal role in championing Irish music.  Key dates for 2023’s event were announced today on RTÉ 2FM’s Tracy Clifford Show.

The RTÉ Choice Music Prize Live Event, one of the music industry’s biggest nights, will be back in Vicar St on Thursday 9^th March and celebrated in an exclusive live broadcast on RTÉ 2FM, along with a TV-special on RTÉ2 later that month.

Three new prizes have also been announced today – Irish Artist of the Year, Irish Breakthrough Artist and Classic Irish Album. RTÉ 2FM will broadcast a week of Choice Music Prize announcements, including further info on the new prizes, from 9^th – 13^th January, with All Irish All Day kicking things off on the station on 9^th.

RTÉ Choice Music Prize Key 2023 Dates include:

Irish Album of the Year 2022 Shortlist Announcement – Monday 9th January
Irish Song of the Year 2022 Shortlist Announcement – Friday 13^th January
Conversations – Thursday 9^th March
Live Event, Vicar St with an Exclusive RTÉ2FM Broadcast – Thursday 9^th March

“This has been another year of incredible music and performances from Irish artists and musicians which we have continued to celebrate across 2FM. We are looking forward to giving all this year’s RTÉ Choice Music Prize shortlisted songs and artists the support they truly deserve and to getting behind the three new categories which will make a welcome addition to this important celebration of the very best in Irish music.” Head of RTÉ 2FM Dan Healy.

RTÉ Choice Music Prize Conversations will take place at BIMM, Francis St, Dublin on Thursday 9^th March. Conversations is an international music forum designed to encourage frank exchanges amongst panellists and with the audiences to challenge and elucidate the biggest prevailing issues confronting artists and industry professionals.

RTÉ Choice Music Prize will once again celebrate the best in Irish recorded music.   The Prize has become one of the music-industry highlights of the year since its inception in 2005. The Irish Album of the Year only is chosen from a shortlist of ten albums by a panel of eleven Irish music media professionals and industry experts. The winning AOTY act will receive €10,000, a prize fund which has been provided by The Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) and The Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA).

“RTÉ Choice Music Prize recognises and champions some of our finest songwriters and IMRO is delighted to continue its longstanding association with this prestigious music prize. Irish music continues to push new boundaries and this prize provides an important platform for new music to connect so strongly with audiences in Ireland and important overseas markets”  Victor Finn, IMRO Chief Executive.

“IRMA are very pleased to continue their involvement in the Choice Music Prize. The search for extraordinary talent is always a rewarding task, and the Choice Music Prize shortlists, along with the new categories added this year, will help to further promote that new and up and coming Irish music talent.  IRMA are looking forward to the show on the 9^th of March next”.– Willie Kavanagh, Chairman of IRMA

All shortlisted acts will receive a specially commissioned award on the night.

RAAP, Culture Ireland, FMC and Minding Creative Minds are also official project partners of the RTE Choice Music Prize.

The Choice Music Prize website has published a list of Irish albums released to date in 2022. This list can be viewed via http://www.choicemusicprize.ie/2022-album-list and notified by email regarding any additions info@nullchoicemusicprize.com

Last year’s winners were:

For Those I Love – For Those I Love (AOTY)
Dermot Kennedy – “Better Days” (SOTY)

In order to inspire the next generation of Intellectual Property experts, GESAC and ALAI are launching the 5th edition of the ALAI European Authors’ Right Award in the 2022/2023 academic year.

The prize, which amounts €2,000 to the winner and €1,000 to the second winner (if awarded), is awarded annually to the best essay related to authors’ rights/copyright with a European dimension. The candidates must be under the age of 35, research master’s students, and they must submit the abstract of their work in English or French before November 15, 2022.

The winner will be announced in the first week of April 2023.

The jury for the 2023 edition of the award is chaired by Professor Frank Gotzen, President of ALAI and is comprised of two ALAI representatives:
• Paul Torremans, Professor of Intellectual Property Law, University of Nottingham
• Raquel Xalabarder, Catedràtica de Propietat Intel·lectual, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
and two representatives of GESAC:
• Caroline Bonin, Head of Legal Affairs, SACEM
• Gábor Faludi, outside Counsel for Artisjus, Associate Professor ELTE Law School Civil Law Department

More information on the ALAI Award can be found here: https://authorsocieties.eu/alai-award/

European songwriters and composers met with the Members of the European Parliament today to express their concerns about the growing phenomenon of buy-out and work-made-for-hire contracts imposed on them by the major non-EU based VOD platforms.

Buy-out contracts force creators to waive their copyright/authors’ rights in full or in part, effectively eliminating the possibility of receiving future royalties for the use of their work. Coercive practices imposed directly or indirectly by giant non-EU VOD platforms deprive audiovisual (or screen) composers from an appropriate and proportionate remuneration, as well as the exercise of their moral rights. They severely undermine creators’ ability to earn a living through their artistic work. Authors even lose ownership of their work in the case of work-made-for-hire contracts.

Eleanor McEvoy, IMRO Chairperson and renowned Irish singer-songwriter, said: “We celebrated together when Europe adopted the new Copyright Directive in 2019 and provided harmonised rules for authors’ protection. As European authors, we cannot accept that those rules are not being applied by the market’s dominant players simply because it does not fit to their business model. Today, we need Europe on our side once more”.

Helienne Lindvall, President of ECSA, said: “The issue is about fairness, since refusing such buy-out provisions is very difficult for composers due to the risk of being blacklisted. The options are either accepting the terms of a contract, however damaging, and thereby giving away the royalties they should be entitled to receive or losing the opportunity to work in a project handled by a very popular and dominant VOD platform and taking the risk of never working again for them.” She added “We need EU-wide rules to ensure fairness and create real choices for creators”.

Véronique Desbrosses, General Manager of GESAC said: “Buy-outs imposed on creators by VOD platforms have become a growing phenomenon, with the dominance of US-based services in the market importing only the most harmful part of their national practices into Europe. To circumvent fair compensation requirement in Europe, US-based VOD platforms rely on the US laws and the jurisdiction of US courts. The intervention of EU decision makers is needed to end this unfairness and ensure that internal market rules are applied to all players!”

Manel Santisteban, award-winning Spanish Screen composer, said: “My fellow screen composers and I are witnessing every day the buy-out contracts imposed by US based VOD platforms to deprive us from our rights and the royalties we deserve. In a global audiovisual market, royalties from different countries are increasingly important to get a fair share from the successes of our works. European policy makers have a duty to prevent buy-out contracts and ensure that appropriate and proportionate remuneration is a reality for European composers”.

Anselm Kreuzer, German composer, and Board member of ECSA, said: “No one can ever predict the full range of exploitation for a piece of music at the moment of its creation. Therefore, it’s not possible to ensure proportionate remuneration through buy-out with one-time payment. That’s why collective rights management is the most effective and fairest way to ensure an author’s participation based on the economic benefit that his or her work brings”.

Global royalty collections for creators of all repertoires returned to growth in 2021, rising 5.8% to EUR9.6 billion but remaining well below pre-pandemic levels.

Despite a 27.9% rise in digital royalties helped by the growth of subscription streaming, total worldwide collections in 2021 were still 5.3% lower than in 2019.

The result illuminates the disastrous impact of the two-year lockdown on live and public performance income, the potential for further digital growth and the urgent need for actions to unlock more value for creators in the streaming market.

These are among the key highlights of the 2022 Global Collections Report published by CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers). The report provides comprehensive data and analysis of collections across all repertoires including music, audiovisual, visual arts, literature, and drama.

Key numbers:

• New and extended digital licensing deals by CISAC member societies, coupled with streaming and subscription growth, helped digital collections to increase by 27.9%. However, despite the shift to streaming, which accelerated under COVID, digital still makes up only 32.6% of all royalty collections – less than half the share accounted for by digital in the recording industry.
• Revenues from live and background uses stayed flat in 2021 at EUR1.6 billion but were still 45.8% below their pre-pandemic total of EUR2.9 billion in 2019. 
• Income from TV and Radio, creators’ largest royalty stream, remained relatively robust through the pandemic but saw a slight decline of 1.8% in 2021.
• Music was the only repertoire reporting increased royalties in 2021, with growth of 7.2%.  The drama sector, most vulnerable to lockdowns, saw royalties down 13.8%. Audiovisual collections declined by 2.8%, literature by 3.9% and visual arts by 1.2%.
• Europe and Africa saw the largest collections growth, up 7.5% and 17.1% respectively. Latin America was the only region to decline in 2021, with a 44% fall in live and public performance collections.

CISAC Director General Gadi Oron: “After the 10% fall experienced in 2020, our societies’ return to growth last year is an impressive achievement. Bearing in mind that income from live concerts and public venues was largely non-existent, the acceleration of digital licensing by many of our members to offset the decline in other areas is a real success story. The recovery is only half done, though. There is, without a doubt, much more room for growth, and to achieve that, we need to bring more value to creative works in the digital market and promote a fairer ecosystem for creators.”

CISAC President Björn Ulvaeus: “Digital royalties collected by CISAC societies are growing impressively, but the streaming world is still unfinished business when it comes to ensuring a fair environment to earn a living. Too much of the data needed to identify and remunerate creators is incomplete or missing when works are ingested on streaming services. The result is a lot of money that is left on the table when it should be going into creators’ pockets.”

CISAC Board Chair, Marcelo Castello Branco: “We need to see this year not just as a return to normality, but as a bridge to the next phase. In the near term, we face the prospect of economic slowdown ahead and the risks that come with the unusual combination of inflation and recession. Subscription prices are already undervalued and need to be raised, with prices having barely changed since the early days of the streaming model. Fair value and fair terms are essential so as not to compromise the remuneration of rightsholders.”

Download the Key Highlights of the Global Collections Report here.

Download 2021 Market Analysis here. The COVID crisis has transformed the shares of live/public performance and digital.

Download Society case studies: Reporting on how CISAC societies in 8 countries are serving creators and maximising remuneration via technology services, lobbying and licensing.

Download the full Report.