In a world where we openly trade with European and Asian markets (not forgetting South America) why has it become so difficult to collect Public Performance and Broadcast revenue from overseas? There has never been a stronger case for a global rights database which would go a long way to helping the average rights holder realistically manage their rights throughout the world. This is made abundantly clear following the amount of agents falling over themselves offering their services on your behalf. All because they know the ‘rules’ in certain territories and owning the rights to recordings is obviously not enough to collect revenue that is rightfully yours. At present you potentially have to complete up to 15 different application forms and supply metadata in 15 different ways.

What about mandating your existing territory organisation to do it on your behalf I hear you say? Well the first thing you should ask yourself is this. Does my territorial organisation have good relations with their overseas counterparts? Do they have access to ‘all’ the potential revenue available for their rights holder members? Are they able to claim back further than a direct member? These are all valid questions that will receive different answers each time you ask and depending on who you speak to.

Going back to my initial point regarding a Global Rights Database, each country/territory has a different system and a different set of rules to collect the same revenue from airplay…why? Surely a Global Rights database would be infinitely more powerful than the existing bolted on or copied databases that do not support the complex rights matrix of labels and companies in the modern world. Depending on how that territory remunerates their members they could potentially extract the relevant data they need from a single global source. Unfortunately we all know the issue with having a Global rights system don’t we. It would lead to an inevitable power struggle. The larger territories would want to control it and the smaller territories would fear getting swept up into it with little representation of their territory or data going forward. Therefore, everyone scrambles to hold on to their little piece of sovereignty as opposed to contributing to a single practical source. Even if the relevant organisations/territories did come to an agreement on a global database being the best way forward, who would manage the database? Which territory would the data be held in? Who would pay to build it?

A lot of easy questions leading to difficult answers, we live in hope! But until then it appears that the agents will continue to make money from the smokescreen of complex rules and mixed regulations while we sit back and feel grateful to receive a fraction of what is rightfully ours.

Hello and welcome to the first entry on our new PMI Blog. The modern era of communication has given us a platform to communicate with vast amounts of people across numerous different platforms. Exciting times even though we tread with caution as reaching a wider audience will have its pros and cons. PMI is a unique company in many ways and anonymity has been a loyal friend for many years (not that we were hiding), but we have not been self promoting as many labels do across the industry. Effectively we are a catalogue company and we face many of the near and present dangers of operating in an unchartered competitive digital environment.

Midem 2012 has the pleasure of kick starting the new year and often determines the pace at which emerging equitable streams reveal themselves with a view to becoming a lifeline to a vulnerable industry. We are already seeing the changes in the digital horizon in time to make informed decisions on the direction of our focus this year. As always it will be a challenging year for the company even with a rich and varied back catalogue.

Needless to say you will be hearing and seeing a lot more from us in the next 12 months. Our blog aims to stay true to our business principles whilst engaging in an open and honest dialogue covering, industry topics, news items, music current affairs and our thoughts on emerging markets. Watch this space…

Last thought: We support the campaign to keep Ministry of Sound as a club open, it’s a no brainer isn’t it?