BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch stated last month that the company’s “fairness agenda… isn’t some kind of hobby, separate from our business strategy – it’s integral to it”. As a result, BMG appears stepping their royalty payment processing up by a whole month for all songwriters and copyright holders. Although the company said that they are executing a program “to ensure changes in the industry do not leave behind established clients,” they believe that this move will help “make the music industry work better for artists and songwriters.”
Sebastian Hentzschel, BMG CIO, who is responsible for BMG’s global royalty processing, said: “With 60 day terms the new standard in music publishing, we are delighted to extend them to our acquired catalogues.
“This service update reaffirms BMG’s commitment to deliver 21st century levels of fairness, transparency and service to songwriters and artists whenever they signed their deals.”
BMG says that the move forms part of a “program to modernize industry practices,” which has seen BMG abandon packaging deductions on digital formats (benefiting recording artists) and removing the controlled composition clauses from its contracts (which helps songwriters).
Prospectively, BMG’s pledge to pay songwriters faster won’t just benefit songwriters, either – but also those song rightsholders who’ve acquired catalogs and rely on BMG as a service provider.
– Excerpt from an article for BMG for MURRAY STASSEN. Read the full article here.
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