Richard Paine (Faber Music)
Proposed for appointment by: Bucks Music Group Limited, Chester Music Limited, Concord Music Publishing LLC, Kassner Associated Publishers Limited, Oxford University Press Limited, Peermusic (UK) Limited, Reservoir Media Management (UK) Limited, Schott Music Limited, Universal Music Publishing Limited, Warner Chappell Music Limited
Biography
Having studied composition, obtained a music PhD and performed widely as a jazz violinist, I entered the music publishing industry in 1986, initially with Peters Edition Ltd. After four years with Music Sales in Sydney, Australia, I joined Faber Music Ltd in 1993, becoming a board director in 1996. Responsible both for our rights business in total and for building up our commercial rights activities in particular, I established our Media Music department in 1996, representing (as agent) and publishing some of the country’s leading film and television composers. This side of our business enjoyed a hugely satisfying expansion in 2023, when we bought Manners McDade Music Publishing and Manners McDade Artist Management.
Another achievement is the establishment of our Faber Alt strand, representing non-classical and alternative artists and songwriters. In addition to my music background I have legal training, and my current role at Faber is Director of Rights and Business Affairs. I continue to oversee our commercial rights activities and copyright and royalty departments, while being responsible for contractual and legal issues across all of the company’s many activities, from print publishing and distribution to digital and rights. When not doing all that I play the piano!
Current and recent directorships: Faber Music Limited, Manners McDade Music Publishing Limited, and Music Publishers Association Limited
Members’ Council attendance since last appointment: 12 out of 12 meetings.
Manifesto
As a hands-on senior executive of a well-respected independent publisher, with nearly 40 years’ publishing experience, I work very closely with composers in a variety of genres - classical, media, alternative and non-classical. Their concerns are ours.
Our publisher/writer community is confronting unprecedented challenges: AI; continual undermining of the value of our repertoire; ever-growing threats to collective licensing. I feel passionately about these issues and believe I have the experience to contribute constructively to debates about them.
It has been an honour to serve on the PRS Members’ Council for the last three years, learning a great deal about this very complex organisation. Its excellent current management, supported by the Council, is very commercially driven: to increase revenue, reduce costs and thereby maximise distributions to members. That is as it should be. But alongside this commercial agenda there needs to be adequate attention to the needs and concerns of an extremely diverse membership. The setting of policies that serve the whole membership is vital. In this regard, representation of the independent publishing sector and the composer/writer constituencies we serve is my abiding concern.
In facing the challenges that beset us, it is imperative that the publishing/writing community, via PRS, speaks as one voice - but a voice that needs to be sensitive to the often more quietly expressed concerns of independent publishers and their writers. I hope to be given the opportunity to fight their corner for a further term.
IMPORTANT: Publication of this statement, or any subsequent communication of it, does not constitute endorsement or the promotion of the candidate by the Society, or any member of its management or staff.
The statement has been written by the candidate and has not been altered in any way. The views and/or opinions expressed are the candidate’s own.
