When BMG Rights Management opened for business in 2008, two of its key founding ideas were: 1) that the job of a 21st century music company is to work for the artist; and 2) that in the digital age administering master recording rights is not fundamentally different to managing publishing rights and therefore you should do both. Fast forward three-and-a-half years and we
now represent over one million publishing copyrights and over 23,000 master recordings using state-of-the-art technology. Having achieved scale in publishing, we are
In the last year or so EMI Music Services has
led or played significant parts in UK and global campaigns from artists such as Noel Gallagher, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Gaz Coombes, Neil Finn, Motorhead, I Am Kloot, Feeder and we’re always on the look out for new partners who like our approach and with whom we feel we can really add value to their careers.
Services include:
Creative Product management and online marketing, consumer insight and research, design, video commissioning etc
Promotional Radio, TV, online PR, press
Commercial
Physical & digital sales, brand partnerships, sync, merchandise, D2C
Supply chain Distribution, copyright admin, manufacture etc.
now increasingly turning our attention to developing our masters business with a unique proposition to artists – a model based on partnership with a 75/25 split of revenue, something simply unachievable in a typical recording contract. Already we have had success with UK rock
band Deaf Havana (above) and Danish pop act The Asteroids Galaxy Tour, but this month BMG Chrysalis UK launched its most high profile release to date, the first new album from Dexys (below) for 27 years, One Day I’m Going To Soar. Its chart performance supports our claim that
the BMG masters model can more than match a traditional record label, but with the bonus that the rewards for artists are that much greater. So how does it work? First principle is that as a rights management
company, BMG should have access not just to the master rights, but to publishing too. In contrast to other models (e.g. the 360 degree deal) in which artists give up some of their live performance and/or merchandise revenue, this is best described as a 180 degree deal. BMG does not pay traditional cash advances
for the master rights. Instead we bankroll the release of the record – everything from manufacturing to marketing – with one proviso – that every single item of expenditure is signed off by the artist or their management. We insist on total transparency. BMG is a lot more than just an investor. Our
close-knit international masters team working from offices around the world offers administration and coordination of all key functions in an artist’s campaign. We believe our model is a great alternative for
today’s motivated, creatively confident and business-aware artists.