The U.K.’s neighboring rights society PPL has joined with other international societies in a new partnership with GVL in Germany.
ADAMI (France), AIE (Spain), RAAP (Ireland) and SENA (Holland) have also reached an agreement with the German society over payments to performers in Germany.
The societies have previously had reciprocal arrangements with GVL, but the German society will now introduce a new tracking and payment system.
In a statement, PPL said it ensures fairer levels of payments to performers in relation to the use of their respective members’ sound recordings in Germany on radio and television as well as in pubs, bars and public venues.
PPL said the deal will result in a substantial increase in international exchange of revenue by flexible handling of reciprocal claiming procedures. Performers represented by the five international societies will no longer have to go through the burdensome GVL claims process.
There will also be an alignment of allocation systems to one based upon the actual use of sound recordings for broadcast and public performance. The five companies will continue to make payments to performers represented by GVL.
“PPL’s simple objective throughout this dialogue was to ensure that all the rights-holders we represent are properly paid for the use of their recorded music, wherever this use takes place,” said Fran Nevrkla, Chairman and CEO of PPL, in a statement.
“We will continue to pursue this simple objective as a key principle globally. We appreciate our German colleagues’ willingness to address and resolve some of these long standing issues.”
Historically GVL has allocated revenue to performers based upon their income in Germany in the prior year. This method resulted in very low administration costs and had been approved by the German Patent Office (the supervisory body for collective management organizations in Germany), but it is less accurate than the new system.
“Germany is the largest European music market and we believe that the structural development within GVL will enable us to compete more effectively on a global stage,” said Tilo Gerlach, managing director, GVL, in a statement. “By changing the distribution system to the international established standard allocation system based upon the actual use of sound recordings, we facilitate the access to income from international markets for our performers.”
“AIE is delighted with this agreement,” said Luis Cobos, the conductor and president of AIE, in a statement. It is the starting point for GVL to join the rest of the signatories to the policy of signing reciprocal representation agreements which ensure that the remuneration due to performers is collected and distributed individually and proportionally to them, on the basis of the uses of their performances.
“With GVL now agreeing to a track based distribution system, it is clear that it will benefit all European and international performers in the future.”
The six societies co-operate on strategic projects to benefit their members, and to increase efficiencies in the flow of remuneration across borders both within and outside of the European Union.
