ASCAP and SACEM Announce New Alliance

ASCAP and SACEM are expanding their existing relationship into an alliance that will allow them to invest together in data technology and collect directly from streaming services in more foreign markets, plus launch an AI task force and encourage collaboration among songwriters.

Since 2022, SACEM has collected money from online services in foreign markets for ASCAP members that don’t have direct deals in those places, and their respective, leaders, ASCAP CEO Elizabeth Matthews and SACEM CEO Cécile Rap-Veber, have become friends. That deal, which is most important in Europe, but also functions in the Middle East and Africa, has been extended. It will also expand into Asia.

Collective management organizations began competing to represent online public performing rights for compositions in Europe the last decade. But this competition is heating up in other parts of the world as well. (The U.S. is among the exceptions, where local societies license online rights as well as traditional rights.) So, ICE (a joint venture hub run by Germany’s GEMA, Sweden’s STIM and the UK’s PRS for Music and SACEM now compete with others for the rights to license repertoire they don’t represent in their home markets. Although many of the markets outside Europe are fairly small, they will be the source of important growth over the course of the next decade.

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The new deal between ASCAP and SACEM will also allow the two organizations to share investments and expertise, a real advantage given the expense and complexity of licensing a growing number of compositions in an increasing number of markets. The resources required has given SACEM and ICE an advantage over other European societies.

The AI task force will help build composer understanding and legislative support for policies that will result in better compensation for rightsholders. While some of the issues are the same on both sides of the Atlantic, others are not. The European Union has already taken some steps toward regulating AI, in both AI legislation and a provision of the Copyright Directive that lets rightsholders opt out of having their work ingested for AI training purposes. The announcement says that the deal will also provide composers ways to work together, including in songwriting camps.

The announcement of the deal comes at a time when ASCAP’s traditional U.S. rival, BMI, now operating as a for-profit company, has expressed some interest in expanding into foreign markets.