PRS for Music & PPL partner with music tech company Audoo
The partnership aims to improve music royalty distribution for over 300,000 artists, recording rightsholders, music publishers, writers and composers
PRS for Music, a world leading music rights management organisations for songwriters, composers, and music publishers, and PPL, the world’s largest collector of international royalties for performers and recording rightsholders, have announced a partnership with Audoo, the music technology company on a mission to revolutionise public performance royalty distributions.
The installation of Audoo’s unique Audoo Audio Meters™, in businesses including cafés, bars, hair salons, restaurants, and retail locations across Great Britain, aims to help drive forward and accelerate accurate and transparent royalty distribution to music creators, by identifying the background music being played and reporting this usage back to PPL and PRS for Music.
This initiative will help PRS for Music and PPL to continue to define the global standard of music royalties, enhancing distribution efficiency and delivering optimum payments for their 300,000 collective members.
The Audoo Audio Meters™ are designed to be GDPR-compliant and use smart plug-in technology to securely track and report the music being played in quasi real-time, without capturing any non-music audio, whether that’s the weather report or private conversations.
We are continually investing in new technologies and services to ensure we can pay out royalties more quickly and accurately, delivering the best possible service to members. We have been working with music recognition technology for many years and are excited to see how this collaboration with Audoo can support our ambition to pay out over £1 billion annually in the next few years. Helping businesses across the UK to report the music they play through smart data capture will be integral to reaching this milestone and maximising our members’ public performance royalties.
At PPL, we’re always working to ensure that performers, record labels and self-releasing artists are fairly and accurately paid for the music they create. This initiative with Audoo will complement our existing suite of advanced technological tools and public performance music usage data, offering us a further way to check that our distributions are as accurate as possible. We look forward to working with the Audoo team over the coming months.
This collaboration with PRS and PPL is a milestone in the evolution of the public performance royalty space, for creators, performers and rights holders, as well as licensees delivering an enhanced experience for customers through the joy of music played in public spaces. Audoo is a proud British business that has designed, developed and continues to manufacture all products in the UK, so it is particularly poignant to launch Audoo at home with global leaders PRS for Music and PPL following the successful impact in other territories.
About PRS for Music
Here for music since 1914, PRS for Music is a world-leading music collective management organisation representing the rights of more than 175,000 talented songwriters, composers and music publishers. Redefining the global standard for music royalties, PRS for Music ensures songwriters and composers are paid whenever their musical compositions and songs are streamed, downloaded, broadcast, performed and played in public.
For 110 years it has grown and protected the rights of the music creator community, paying out royalties with more accuracy, transparency and speed. In 2023, PRS for Music paid out £943.6m in royalties and collected a record £1.08 billion in revenues. prsformusic.com
About PPL
Founded in 1934, PPL is the UK music industry’s collective management organisation (CMO) for performers and recording rightsholders. We licence recorded music in the UK when it is played in public (shops, bars, nightclubs, offices etc.) or broadcast (BBC, commercial radio, commercial TV etc.) and ensure that revenue flows back to our members. These include both independent and major record companies, together with performers ranging from emerging grassroots artists to established session musicians and globally renowned artists. PPL’s public performance licensing is carried out on PPL’s behalf by PPL PRS Ltd, the joint venture between PPL and PRS for Music.
We also collect performance rights internationally when music is played overseas in public and used on TV, radio and some online streaming services, as well as for private copying. International royalties are an increasingly important revenue stream for performers and recording rightsholders. In 2022, in total, we collected £272.6 million across all of our revenue streams, while also distributing money to more than 165,000 performers and recording rightsholders. For more information please visit PPLuk.com
About Audoo
Founded in 2018 by former musician and FinTech executive Ryan Edwards, Audoo is the music technology company revolutionising public performance royalties. Serving songwriters, performers, PROs, CMOs, and more parties invested in the industry of music, Audoo is supplying an improved, accurate and transparent data for all. Its affordable state-of-the-art Audoo Audio Meter™ and unique insights platform make it easy for everyone in the data chain to recognise in quasi real-time where and when music is played, in detail, and how it should be paid. AudooIts Audio Meters™ are now in more than ten countries across four continents. Headquartered in London, Audoo has international experts employed across the UK, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Africa.
Audoo is an alumnus of the Abbey Road Red incubator. It is selected as ‘one to watch’ by UK Creative Industries Council (CIC) and FEBE Growth 100, and has accolades from CEBIT, Midemlab, Techround, Investor Allstars, and BusinessCloud’s 100 MediaTech Innovators. For more information please visit: Audoo.com
