ICE has lured another independent publisher away from IMPEL.
The pan-European digital licensing body has signed a deal with Peermusic, a 90-year-old independent publisher which represents songs by the likes of Buddy Holly, Hoagy Carmichael, David Foster and Tricky Stewart.
The news comes three weeks after Music Week revealed Concord Music had also moved its rights from IMPEL to ICE, and three months after another IMPEL member, Downtown Music Publishing, also signed an ICE deal, via its royalty collection platform, Songtrust.
Under the terms of the new agreement, ICE will provide Peermusic with a range of digital licensing and back-office royalty processing for the pan-European territories, covering a catalogue of over 300,000 works.
“As the online business evolves, we continue to evaluate our digital strategy and review our service providers around the world to ensure that our songwriters and composers receive the best service and achieve the most competitive rates possible,” said Nigel Elderton, Peermusic European president and also chairman of PRS For Music, one of the partners in the ICE joint venture. “We chose to partner with ICE directly in Europe as they offer a tailored service with the business intelligence tools necessary to effectively track and police our royalties. ICE has continued to demonstrate that they are at the forefront of the pan-European licensing business having negotiated deals with all of the major digital service providers across Europe and beyond.”
We chose to partner with ICE directly in Europe as they offer a tailored service with the business intelligence tools necessary to effectively track and police our royalties.
Nigel Elderton, Peermusic/PRS For Music
Ben McEwen, commercial director at ICE Services added: “Peermusic were one of the first publishers to embrace the opportunity of licensing on a multi-territorial basis when they centralised the administration of their rights via PRS in 2008, and we are delighted to now welcome them as a direct customer of ICE in 2018. We look forward to working with the fantastic team at Peer to continue to grow their business via the growing range and scope of ICE Core licences.”
Music Week recently revealed plans for the rights represented by IMPEL members to be taken out of MCPS when the indie publishers body goes fully independent later in the year.
IMPEL will then develop its own strategy and leadership team. At the moment, it is part of the MPA Group Of Companies, currently being restructured by CEO Jane Dyball.
“That group of publishers always wanted to be fully independent, and have their own entity,” Dyball told Music Week.
ICE CEO Robert Ashcroft recently told Music Week that ICE has now done 44 licensing deals with digital music services. It subsequently also sealed a deal with Facebook. Yesterday, ICE announced it would merge its companies and appointed a new joint CEO, Thorsten Sauer.
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