The UK’s Association of Independent Music (AIM) is celebrating the one-year anniversary of a groundbreaking licensing deal with The BBC and BBC Worldwide.
AIM members have released dozens of new commercial projects under the agreement, which allows AIM members to use BBC content for TV sales, streaming and downloads, sync licensing and physical audio & DVD releases under a single licensing structure.
The deal covers live sessions and recordings of popular music performances on the BBC’s TV, radio and online platforms and allows commercial exploitation of this material by AIM member labels and BBC/BBC Worldwide soon after broadcast.
It also applies retrospectively to past recordings, enabling the parties to exploit recordings from the BBC archives under the same terms. The ‘bundling’ of assets to create compilation and anthology releases is also permitted.
Since this new licensing agreement was signed in May 2014 a wide range of independent labels including Beggars, Bella Union, Cherry Red, Domino, Full Time Hobby, Ninja Tune and [PIAS] among others have released albums that include tracks licensed under this agreement.
“12 months on from signing this groundbreaking agreement, we are delighted that so many members have used it to liberate great music from the BBC vaults.”
Alison Wenham, AIM
Just some of the featured artists include The Fall, Kylie Minogue, Todd Rungren, The Lemonheads and Enter Shikari.
Alison Wenham, CEO of AIM said, “12 months on from the signing of this groundbreaking agreement, which offers such commercially attractive licensing rates to independent labels, we are delighted that so many of our members have already used it to liberate great music from the BBC vaults.”
Charlie Phillips, Head of Legal and Commercial Affairs at AIM said, “Since we implemented this agreement a year ago one of the most satisfying benefits has been a real strengthening of the relationship between AIM and the BBC. We have gone beyond a purely commercial arrangement to reach a dynamic and collaborative understanding, which has been of real value to both parties.”
Simon Gurney, Licensing & Synchronisation Manager, BBC Worldwide said, “As the person responsible for licensing BBC content to all record labels I know that the vast majority of releases that have occurred under the auspices of the AIM/BBC/BBCW deal would not have happened without it in place. I anticipate much more to come over the next 12 months.”
Dominic Walker, The BBC’s Director, Radio and Music said, “One year on and BBCW are delighted to say that since the framework deal has been signed we have processed numerous deals with AIM members including The Fall (Beggars), Kylie Minogue (Cherry Red), The Lemonheads (Fire Records), The Moody Blues (Cherry Red), The Pixies (Beggars), Super Furry Animals (Domino) & Wall Of Sound compilation (PIAS). We are looking forward to this working relationship continuing and increasing numbers this year.”
Lesley Bleakley, Beggars Group said, “The AIM/BBC agreement concluded a long and hard fought deal. Having access to this vast and gorgeous wealth of material in the BBC archives has ignited the catalogue department here at the Beggars Group.”
Simon Raymonde, Bella Union said, “The AIM/BBC agreement has been of great help to Bella Union this past year. We worked on a wonderful project with the BBC for our artist John Grant with the BBC Philharmonic and thanks to the agreement were able to have the album in the shops within a month of the recording.”Music Business Worldwide
