New International Partnerships Bode Well for Future Growth
The establishment of mutually beneficial partnerships with other performing rights societies around the world is one of BMI’s core initiatives. These agreements ensure that when musical works BMI represents are performed publically in participating countries outside of the United States, the performances are tracked and incorporated into BMI’s royalty payment system. Thus, as the catalogs of BMI songwriters, composers, and publishers reach unprecedented levels of global popularity, the creators and copyright owners of musical works are compensated for public performances, in both bourgeoning and booming markets across the globe.
Over the last decade, BMI’s international revenues have risen sharply. While the majority of public performance income continues to flow from Western Europe, other regions, including the Asia-Pacific area, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean have also added more to BMI’s international revenue pie. Emerging markets such as Eastern Europe, as well as parts of Africa and Asia, have also begun to contribute more substantially.
During 2009 and the first six months of 2010, new agreements have been reached with a broad assortment of international sister organizations. As a result, BMI currently maintains active partnerships with 87 performing right societies in 84 different countries.
While many new and emerging societies yield limited amounts of performing right income at the outset, the fostering of mutually beneficial relationships holds the promise of increased revenues as they grow and prosper.
In 2009, new deals were confirmed with societies in areas as diverse as Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean. BMI cemented partnerships with Guatemala’s AEI, Vietnam’s VCPMC, Moldova’s ASDAC, and ECCO, which represents Anguilla, Antigua, Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts, Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Eastern Caribbean. Last year, BMI made arrangements to extend its representation of the BMI catalog to the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
2010 is already off to an auspicious start as well, yielding new BMI agreements with BSCAP in Belize, ZAMCOPS in Zambia, and MRCSN in Nepal, in addition to a pact with Turkish society MSG that allows BMI to represent MSG’s members in the U.S. A second Turkish PRO, MESAM, continues to represent BMI’s works in Turkey
BMI is hoping to further accelerate growth this year by fostering international relationships and continuing to deploy industry-leading technology, thereby ensuring more accurate identification of performed repertoire and more efficient collection methods.
As world culture becomes increasingly interconnected, the demand for BMI’s deep catalog, which includes the most popular new music and timeless classics, promises only to increase. BMI will diligently remain on the technological and geopolitical forefront, safeguarding the rights of musical creators while constantly seeking additional sources of performing right income.
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