Leading independent music publisher Peermusic today used the platform of Midem to unveil a pan-European online and mobile licensing accord with Britain’s MCPS-PRS Alliance and Spanish society SGAE.
Through the agreement, SGAE will represent Peermusic’s Latin American repertoire, and the Alliance will represent its Anglo-American repertoire, effective from Jan. 1.
Peermusic CEO Ralph Peer, who was flanked at a launch gathering by the Alliance’s CEO Steve Porter and SGAE CEO Eduardo Bautista, said the partnership represented a major step forward in the licensing of music rights across Europe.
“We had welcome expressions of interest from several very competent societies,” he said, adding “but we decided to align our initial online licensing agreements with two of the best along cultural lines for these two very important segments of our repertoire.”
Porter, who described Peer’s contribution to the partnership as that of a “bold and courageous leader,” concluded: “This is not the end. This is the end of the beginning of the process.”
