20 June 2014, Brussels – ICMP reiterates its commitment to creating a global repertoire database (GRD), and rumours of the death of GRD are premature. Considering the extensive costs currently lost to duplication in data management, the failure of current solutions to provide comprehensive accurate repertoire ownership information, and the urgent requirement for such data to ensure the efficient administration of rights, in particular, in the evolving online licensing environment, a GRD is needed now more than ever. While the establishment of the database faced huge challenges since its inception, including the most recent difficulty of various collecting societies failing to reach agreement on funding the initiative, ICMP is committed to what it sees as an achievable goal; that of establishing an authoritative and accurate representation of the global ownership and control of musical works.
“We remain convinced that a single authoritative database of all rights is the most efficient and cost effective solution, and we would ask collecting societies to bear this in mind before using income, generated from the rights of music publishers and creators, to embark on the costly creation of multiple data aggregation points, which at best would still only present an incomplete picture of music publisher and creator rights” said Andrew Jenkins, Chair of ICMP Board of Directors. “We are working with our technology partner, ICE, and with our other partners, to deliver a GRD, which is as close as possible to the Classic GRD solution, as defined through the hard work, time, money and expertise of recent years, that of a single authoritative database of all rights controlled by music publishers and creators” he added.
ICMP is the world trade association representing the interests of the music publishing community internationally.
The constituent members of ICMP are music publishers’ associations from Europe, Middle East, North and South America, Africa and Asia-Pacific. Included are the leading independent multinational and international companies and regional and national music publishers, mainly SMEs, throughout the world.
