IBM and collective management organisation Sacem, have announced a 10-year strategic partnership to develop URights, a new copyright platform on IBM Cloud designed to track music copyrights for both creators and publishers.
To handle the ever-growing volume of online music transactions, URights is designed to allow Sacem to offer additional value to rights owners with increased data analysis. This will provide ‘greater transparency and a more efficient identification of online works’ to help make sure creators and publishers are fairly compensated.
In 2015, Sacem distributed royalties to 293,000 creators and publishers in France and around the world, to credit two million works.
The URights platform is open by design to enable other partners to integrate, such as other collective management organisations across the world, helping to save cost duplication. It will also provide customised services tailored to local markets.
Furthermore, the service will also offer creators and publishers new ways to access and analyse market analytics, as well as to provide a better understanding of cultural goods consumption.
"Sacem is thrilled to partner with IBM, a global technology leader,” said Jean-Noël Tronc, CEO, Sacem “We work constantly to improve our effectiveness and build on our leading position. We are pioneers in a rapidly evolving global marketplace, committed to maximising the value of our members’ rights in a fragmented online world – not just for music rights but also for audio-visual works.We are passionate about ensuring a sustainable creative future by using the latest technology to enhance efficiency in identifying the usage of our members’ works – in any digital media, on any web platform. URights will enable us to better optimize collections and distributions to our members and for all the repertoires we are mandated to protect, in the most transparent way.”
“The music and media industries face many complex challenges in the management of copyright materials from music to visual creation,” added Steve Canepa, general manager, global telecommunications, media and entertainment industry, IBM. “The combination of our digital skills, and advanced analytics running on IBM's global, secure hybrid cloud can help Sacem lead the industry to track and capture the value of online music. Responding to a marketplace that is changing every day, Sacem's expertise combined with IBM's advanced solutions enable us to deploy an agile platform that will deliver more transparency and efficiency in the protection and monetization of artists’ copyrights.”
