PACE Rights Management assists Platforms / Promoters to license rights globally in a cost effective, efficient and transparent way.
CURRENT PROBLEM
While there have been recent rapid technological and production advances as the music industry embraces Streamed Concerts, the traditional licensing structure for rights used during a Streamed Concert has remained unchanged, and is often misunderstood. Every Streamed Concert will use Public Performance & Communication to the public Rights (usually defined as Online rights and Making Available rights) and Reproduction & Distribution Rights (usually defined as Synchronisation rights), on both the publishing side and the master side for every Work performed.
Public Performance & Communication Rights - The Public Performance & Communication of the right happens in the location the public experiences the performance. If a ticket for a Streamed Concert has been sold in a particular territory, that territory is where the Public Performance happens, and therefore where the licences are required. Traditionally, Rightsholders (Writers, Publishers, Performers, Record companies) have mandated their global Public Performance & Communication Rights to their domestic Performing Rights Organisation (PRO). In turn, their domestic PRO mandates affiliated PROs around the world through reciprocal/representational agreements (the PRO Network). Those agreements mandate the affiliated PRO with the rights for their territory. Thus for a Platform/Promoter to obtain the required licenses for the relevant Public Performance & Communication Rights for the world - and therefore sell tickets throughout the world - they need to obtain such licenses from every PRO in the world, both on the publishing side and the master side for every Work performed. There are currently 150 PROs on the publishing side, and 84 PROs on the master side around the world, as well as numerous private Neighbouring rights companies. This means that a Platform/Promoter may need to conclude as many as 250 separate licensing deals, as well as undertaking the administration to report the rights used and account license fees (calculated on a territory-by-territory basis) to all those licensors. Additionally, many of those licensors haven’t finalised their Tariff rate and structure for licensing the relevant rights yet. Which means that Platforms/Promoters currently have no certainty as to the license fees that are or will be required to undertake a Streamed Concert, and are therefore unable to conclude Artiste settlements with any certainty.
Reproduction & Distribution Rights - The Reproduction & Distribution Rights are generally maintained by the Rightsholders. Therefore the Platform/Promoter will need to obtain a license from every Songwriter and Publisher of every Work performed (including from Co-writers and their Publishers, and Writers and Publishers of any covers), as well as all the Performers and potentially their Record company. Additionally, the Platform/Promoter will need to undertake the administration to report the rights used and account license fees to each individual Rightsholder.
To recap, for a Platform/Promoter of a Streamed Concert to be compliant with all the Copyright laws around the world, they will need to go through the complicated and time-consuming processes of obtaining licenses for all the:
(i) Public Performance Rights they are using in every territory where they sell tickets, from both the publishing side and the master side for every Work performed.
(ii) Reproduction/Distribution Rights they are using from all the Rightsholders for every Work performed.
SOLUTION
PACE Rights Management assists Platforms/Promoters to create a bespoke licensing solution through Direct Licensing and PRO Licensing, that enables them to obtain licenses for all the rights used, and become compliant with Copyright laws in an efficient and cost effective way that provides both legal and financial peace of mind, and enables Artiste settlements to be concluded with certainty.
'Direct Licencing' refers to the Rightsholder (Writer, Publisher, Performer, Record company) withdrawing their rights for certain Works (e.g. a setlist) for a certain performance (e.g. a Streamed Concert) from the PRO that the Rightsholder has mandated, and then licensing those rights directly to the User of those rights, the Platform/Promoter. When the Rightsholder withdraws their rights from their domestic PRO, that PRO no longer has the rights for the performance, and can't grant those rights to any affiliated PROs. At which point those affiliated PROs don’t have the rights to license to the User. The Rightsholder withdrawing their rights cuts the flow of rights at source, so the rights don’t enter the PRO Network, and the PRO Network no longer has the rights and can’t license them.
When the Rightsholder withdraws their rights, those rights revert back to the Rightsholder, and they are then able to conclude any Direct Licenses they wish. Direct Licensing enables each Rightsholder to grant one license with one license fee for their Public Performance Rights and Reproduction/Distribution Rights, to the Platform/Promoter for the world. This hugely simplifies the licensing process for the Platform/Promoter, and makes it efficient and cost-effective.
Therefore the Platform/Promoter will only need a license from each Rightsholder for all their relevant rights, as opposed to needing a license from every PRO on both the publishing side and the master side in the world, and each Rightsholder.
PROCESS
We help manage the entire process from end-to-end:
