MBW Views is a series of exclusive columns written by notable music industry figures…who have something to say. here, Tony Barton, Writer Relations Director at PRS For Music UK, explains initiatives from teaching networking events to process-smoothing technology that are making it easier for songwriters and composers to understand and manage their careers and finances…
The speed and volume of new music being created is astronomical. Nearly 40,000 new songwriters and composers have joined PRS in the past five years, bringing the total to 175,000.
In just one year in 2023, our catalog grew by a record 3 million titles to over 41 million titles; a clear sign that the craft of songwriting and songwriting continues to inspire.
There are fewer barriers to entry, and more tools and services are available than ever before to facilitate the creation of your work. At the same time, music streaming simplifies the distribution of music and immediately opens up a potential global market for music creators.
However, that doesn’t mean it’s easier to be a successful music creator. Songwriters and composers are working in an unprecedented competitive environment.
It is therefore critical that those organizations representing music creators adapt to the new challenges, needs and expectations of those they are privileged to represent. This means that the songwriters and composers behind the music set the direction of change and how the collective management business is shaped.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was an African-British classical composer of mixed-race descent who composed some of the most popular manuscripts of his time, which were performed and shared around the world. He was the Ed Sheeran of his time. In 1914, he ran into financial difficulties due to a lack of copyright protection for his works and died at the age of 37.
That same year, the Performing Rights Association was formed to ensure that songwriters or composers and their rights were no longer unprotected. This sentiment on behalf of composers and composers remains at the heart of what PRS does 110 years later.
PRS for Music is listening to and learning from its members, actively promoting meaningful two-way open dialogue to reshape its priorities and investments for the future. From governance, to advocacy, education, networking, to collaboration and celebration, members are an integral part of everything we do. We exist and thrive because they exist and thrive.
Yes, the core role and focus of today’s CMO remains on paying royalties to members as quickly, accurately and efficiently as possible. But members need and demand more. They want a society that nurtures, collaborates, builds community and provides a gateway for them to enter the industry.
Historically, CMOs were defined and viewed solely as systems and infrastructure providers, but modern CMOs must be equally defined as support systems that bring a sense of belonging to a common cause to their members. That’s why education, building a strong membership network and global collaboration are as core to any modern CMO as generating royalties.
We’ve seen firsthand the power of cultivating this sense of community, and when we learn by osmosis, through our colleagues’ inspiration and admiration for the challenges our members face, we can be their first port of call to help solve those challenges.
“This is the first major step in more than a decade that will improve economic infrastructure and the flow of royalties, as well as the experience of our members.”
We host more than 250 education and outreach events each year, and we know that bringing the music community together and connecting music creators with experts fosters knowledge exchange and safe spaces where music can be taught and better understood business, further empowering
Our members.
We launched PRS Members Day to expand our reach and impact, promoting PRS across the UK and beyond London; to have real face-to-face interactions, hands-on experience, and encourage a cycle of feedback, investigation and improvement. It’s working.
In addition to Members Day, we have identified gaps in certain niche areas where our members would like specific learning and networking opportunities. Building on this foundation, we created PRS Connects – an opportunity for like-minded creators to meet face-to-face, share experiences and learn. From classes for musical mothers to learning how to create in sync, Connects has been selling out since launch.
The holistic service provided by the PRS Foundation (the UK’s leading grassroots funder plus the PRS Membership Fund) means we can meet our members’ needs at any given time.
Make data simple
Increasingly, being a successful music creator means being a successful data manager.
Luminate said in its year-end music report that on-demand streaming (including audio and video) will grow from 5.3 MB to approximately 7.1 MB by 2023. When key metadata attached to a musical work is missing or only partial, it takes longer to pay these royalties.
We have identified three areas for developing new products that will greatly assist our members: making copyright registration easier; providing detailed access to royalty information; and helping to link copyright and record information to aid in number matching.
Earlier this year, we launched Register My Music, a new production registration tool that simplifies the collection of new production materials. It’s often said, but always true, that “bad data in means bad data out” and we make sure our members can give us the best information about their work as quickly and easily as possible.
What started as a sandbox exercise for our innovation leadership team has evolved into an insights tool that allows members to view and interrogate their data. This is evolving into an even more ambitious breakthrough product where our members can view their data before royalties are distributed to help with planning, royalty assurance and error identification before there is a financial impact.
To guide the industry in solving the challenge of matching metadata associated with copyrighted works and sound recordings, we launched Project Nexus. This is a project initiated by PRS, which unites PROs, publishers, record companies and DSPs around the world to link unique song identification codes (ISWC and ISRC) to the digital files of new records before release. In addition, we release data on more than three million works to our members, giving them a clearer understanding of the data we hold.
We’ve launched a guide to getting paid, called the Meta Creator Guide. The guidance, launched globally earlier this year, addresses the other side of the long-standing problem of clean data. We know that by reaching out to our songwriter community and educating them on the importance of access to accurate data, both sides of this coin—launching technological innovation and educational work—can make a powerful difference.
With thousands of visits to the site, we’ve seen metadata education permeate social media platforms, and our members, confident in their new understanding, are sharing learning peer-to-peer, on our own terms Spread our message.
PRS for Music helped open doors and (hugely) drive global collaboration to make Nexus a reality. This is the first major step in more than a decade that will improve economic infrastructure and the flow of royalties and the experience of our members.
These improvements put power back into the hands of music creators and rights holders. They are given more autonomy and control over how their rights are managed, giving them direct access to music hosts like never before.
Without songwriters and composers, music as we know it would simply not exist. Without Samuel Coleridge-Tyler’s recognition and the unfair ecosystem of his time, music-making today might not generate a viable income.
110 years ago, Coleridge-Taylor famously said: “I wish to be no one in the world but myself – a musician.” PRS for Music continues to make this more achievable.
global music business
