UK music licensing company PPL has paid out £43.2 million ($52.5m) to more than 148,000 performers and recording rightsholders in its Q4 distribution.
Those payouts made to performers and recording rightsholders will be either as direct members of PPL or indirectly through other collective management organizations (CMOs).
These monies were collected by PPL for the use of recorded music in the UK and internationally.
PPL says that this distribution includes payments for the highest number of performers and recording rightsholders ever paid in a quarterly distribution by the music licensing company.
The company adds that “this record total reflects the important technological and operational investments made by PPL and the neighboring rights industry over the last decade”.
PPL claims to have “one of the most comprehensive repertoire databases in the world”, which holds performer and recording rightsholder information on more than 20 million recordings.
The company also says that the Virtual Recording Database (VRDB) from performer CMO trade body SCAPR “is helping make recorded music performer line-up data around the world more accurate, supporting more accurate royalty distributions for performers from CMOs like PPL”.
RDx, the global recorded music data portal commissioned by IFPI and WIN and built and run by PPL, allows recording rightsholders to directly share track metadata with CMOs around the world.
This is also the eighth year that non-featured performers have received supplementary remuneration administered by PPL for Copyright Term Extension.
PPL says that more than 9,500 performers from the UK and around the world received supplementary remuneration payments in this distribution from recordings released between 1963 and 1970.
Finally, included in this Q4 payment is revenue from PPL’s sister company VPL which licenses music videos when they are played in public or broadcast on TV.
Elsewhere at PPL, the company recently appointed Titania Altius as Head of Member Services and Dan Millington as SVP/Head of Client Services.
In her new role as Head of Member Services, Altius will oversee the delivery of the Member Services team’s operational activity, ensuring royalty income for PPL’s 130,000-plus performer and recording rightsholder members is maximized.
Altius joined PPL in October 2021 from Help Musicians where, as Creative Programme Manager, she headed up the development, management and delivery of its creative program, including overseeing the charity’s grants schemes with the MOBO Trust.
Altius also spent several years at MCPS and PRS for Music working as a consultant on its pan-European online and mobile music licensing model.
Millington has been at PPL since 2009. As SVP/Head of Client Services, Millington will lead on PPL’s member relationship management and, in particular, on recruitment to its international collections service.
PPL claims to collect more international neighboring rights revenue than any other company and Millington will work to expand the roster of performers and recording rightsholders who benefit from this service.
PPL’s roster already includes the artists like Anderson .Paak, Björn Ulvaeus, George Ezra, Rita Ora and Steve Angello.
“The importance of this work can be seen in today’s distribution as we deliver a valuable source of income for tens of thousands of artists, session musicians and independent and major labels.”
Peter Leathem, PPL
Peter Leathem, PPL Chief Executive Officer, said: “It is fantastic to see out the year with such a positive result for PPL and the many performers and recording rightsholders who benefit from our work.
“We are able to pay more direct and indirect members than ever before because of the neighbouring rights and technology expertise we have across our business, which helps us to maximise the revenue coming in to and going out of PPL.
“Thank you to each and every member of staff at PPL, and also to our many industry partners for working to drive technological and operational improvements in our industry over the years.
“The importance of this work can be seen in today’s distribution as we deliver a valuable source of income for tens of thousands of artists, session musicians and independent and major labels.”Music Business Worldwide
