Global music publisher Warner Chappell Music (WCM) and ICE, a music rights administration company, have announced an expansion of their long-standing partnership.
Following a comprehensive 10-month review process, WCM has decided to entrust ICE with handling all its online licensing and royalty administration across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
WCM previously collaborated with multiple partners for digital licensing, since launching its multi-territory digital licensing initiative in 2006. The new agreement with ICE will see WCM moving all its online processing from European digital licensing administration partners to ICE.
Consolidating with a single provider streamlines operations and grants greater control over licensing across various territories, WCM said Tuesday (April 16).
ICE is a pan-European hub for music licensing created by three collection societies: the UK’s PRS for Music, Sweden’s STIM and Germany’s GEMA. The company, founded in 2016, says it seeks to provide accurate and transparent royalty payments to songwriters while streamlining the process for music streaming services. It offers licensing, processing, and copyright services to publishers and collective management organizations (CMOs).
“In today’s digital music market, there are vast volumes of data to process, and we need to work with a reliable partner to ensure we’re delivering best-in-class service.”
Guy Moot, Warner Chappell Music
Representing over 330,000 rightsholders, ICE says it has processed trillions of online music uses and distributed over €4.3 billion back to rightsholders. Their copyright database houses more than 53 million musical works. ICE operates offices in the UK, Germany, and Sweden.
“At Warner Chappell, we’re always striving to ensure that our songwriters, composers and producers are paid accurately and quickly. In today’s digital music market, there are vast volumes of data to process, and we need to work with a reliable partner to ensure we’re delivering best-in-class service,” said Guy Moot, Co-Chair and CEO of Warner Chappell Music.
“ICE has always proved to be an innovative and flexible partner, so we’re delighted to expand our relationship with them.”
Daniel Lang, VP, International Digital Licensing & Society Relations, Warner Chappell Music, said, “We’ve decided to expand our partnership with ICE after conducting a comprehensive review of service providers on the market. Based both on its existing track record and its future plans, it was clear that ICE should be our partner of choice.”
“We’ve decided to expand our partnership with ICE after conducting a comprehensive review of service providers on the market. Based both on its existing track record and its future plans, it was clear that ICE should be our partner of choice.”
Daniel Lang, Warner Chappell Music
“There are huge technology demands with constantly evolving and fast-moving online uses of music, so it’s vital to have a partner that is agile, leads with industry-first solutions, and operates on a large scale. I’d also like to thank the stellar account management team at ICE, who have worked tirelessly on our business, and been crucial to the success of our partnership to date.“
ICE Chief Commercial Office Ben McEwen said, “We’re delighted that Warner Chappell has selected ICE as its sole PEDL partner, and the recognition that represents the superior service levels and innovation ICE offers. We are focused on ensuring the greatest songwriter returns on the market in everything we do.
“We’re delighted that Warner Chappell has selected ICE as its sole PEDL partner, and the recognition that represents the superior service levels and innovation ICE offers.”
Ben McEwen, ICE
“We continue to invest to ensure we have the most accurate data and most effective systems. Specifically in the area of online processing, we have led the way with initiatives such as multi-stage invoicing to maximize claims, alongside many other innovations in matching, reporting and quality assurance.
“It’s a significant decision and we’re committed to continuing to deliver the best services on the market.”
WCM joins a growing list of music companies that have struck pan-European licensing deals with ICE. The latter’s past and current clients include Concord, Peermusic, gaming and metaverse startup STYNGR, Facebook, as well as TikTok and it US rival Triller.
Music Business Worldwide
