ICE unveils new music copyright transformation project
ICE Operations has announced plans to transform its copyright processing
ICE Operations, based in Berlin, has today announced plans to transform its copyright processing.
This project will harness cloud computing and machine learning technologies to deliver a highly automated copyright system, which will increase the speed, accuracy and transparency with which ICE consolidates multi-territorial copyright data. It will also dramatically increase both the speed and capacity of its data processing capabilities and enable the fast onboarding of new customers through the implementation of highly automated and scalable data policy rules.
ICE was established to solve the problems the industry experienced in moving from national, blanket licensing to multi-territory, repertoire-specific licensing in the online market. With this project, we will leverage the latest technologies to increase automation and take our copyright processing performance to the next level. It will enable us to process the higher volumes required by customers and their members, in the most accurate and transparent way. It will also allow for accelerated customer onboarding, enabling us to continue to grow and remain the industry’s most authoritative copyright database.
ICE customers and their rightsholders will be provided with increased transparency of data and new tools to support necessary interactions to resolve data discrepancies. This enables data quality management to be undertaken closer to the original source of the data.
GEMA will be the first customer to benefit from the new approach to customer onboarding as it completes the migration of its copyright data and processing activity to ICE.
Migrating GEMA’s copyright data to ICE is a major challenge. Our members expect a first-class service for their copyrights and I am glad that, together with our partners at ICE, we have turned the challenge into an opportunity, by investing in a solution that will benefit all current and future ICE customers.
This investment in new technologies means ICE copyright customers will see continuing improvements in service. Meeting the data challenge is our most pressing issue across the industry and the work with ICE to deliver an authoritative database with state of the art processing capabilities is vital to solving these issues.
We wish to make copyright processing vastly more efficient, transparent and able to meet the increasingly complex needs of our rightsholders. This investment achieves this by making use of ICE's unique industry expertise.
ICE already processes and consolidates music copyright for eight collecting societies and its copyright database contains over 31 million musical works, with 3 million registrations received, so far, this year.
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Notes to Editors:
Technical Overview
The project will deliver highly automated cloud copyright applications, connected to the main ICE Core System. One will implement scalable matching and data policy rules to facilitate the merging of Works to deliver a consolidated multi-territory picture, another will provide ICE customers with fast and accurate work share pictures in real time and another will dramatically increase ICE usage processing speed and capacity.
About ICE
ICE is based in London and Berlin. A flexible suite of services is offered for Digital Service Providers, Publishers, Collection Management Organisations (CMOs) and Rightsholders to deliver unparalleled economies of scale, speed, accuracy and business intelligence reporting. It is the fruition of a partnership between GEMA, STIM and PRS that harnesses decades of combined experience in collective management and servicing and aims to shape the future of the industry.
Services:
ICE Licensing: consolidated licensing of PRS for Music, GEMA and STIM’s multi-territory online rights
ICE Services: invoicing, legal support and business intelligence analysis to both rights owners and digital service customers
ICE Operations: online matching and processing services, together with authoritative multi-territorial copyright processing services
About STIM
STIM is a Swedish collective management organization for music creators and publishers. On their behalf, STIM administers and licenses performing and mechanical rights to music and lyrics. STIM is a non-profit organization representing 84,000 songwriters, composers, text authors and music publishers worldwide.
About GEMA
GEMA represents in Germany the copyrights of more than 69,000 members (composers, text authors and music publishers), as well as over two million copyright holders from all over the world. It is one of the largest societies for authors of works of music in the world.
About PRS for Music
PRS for Music is a world-leading music collective management organisation representing the rights of more than 165,000 talented songwriters, composers and music publishers around the globe. Headquartered in the UK, it works diligently on behalf of its members to grow and protect the value of their rights. With a focus on innovation and integrity, PRS for Music is redefining the global standard for music royalties to ensure creators are paid whenever their musical compositions and songs are streamed, downloaded, broadcast, performed and played in public. In 2022, PRS for Music collected £964m and paid out £836.2m in royalties. prsformusic.com
