MIXCLOUD
“GIVEN THE MORE FAVOURABLE TERMS, AMERICA WOULD SEEM THE OBVIOUS MARKET FOR EXPANSION, AND PEREZ CONFIRMS THAT MIXCLOUD HAS A GROWING PRESENCE THERE.”
WIPR editor Peter Scott (left) with Mixcloud co-founder Nico Perez
the various challenges of securing licences. Perez explains the basic figures: “For us, it’s about a tenth of a penny per stream, per listen, of a song to the PRS and about the same to the PPL [Phonographic Performance Limited], so we pay it twice, but that’s just for the UK. In America, it’s a tenth of a cent, which is 30 percent less on the sound recording side, where you pay the labels. And on the publishers’ side it’s far less than that—sub 5 percent of your revenue.
“Te UK and Germany are some of the most expensive places to operate in, so we’ve chosen a difficult place to start up, but the good news is
that we are making the economic model work, so we’re pretty hopeful about what we can do.”
Given the more favourable terms, America would seem the obvious market for expansion, and Perez confirms that Mixcloud has a growing presence there. Te US also offers a good model as to how rights can usefully be administered. “We’re in the process of signing up to the equivalent deals in America, with something called the Sound Exchange, which is the equivalent of the PPL, but not exactly. Te interesting thing about the Sound Exchange is that basically the government said, ‘we’re going
to create this entity that you can get statutory licences from, and the record labels can never refuse you a licence’.”
Te Sound Exchange exists as the result of a historical negotiation between labels and the national broadcasters’ association, and replaced a system that required licences to be negotiated by state. Mixcloud has been guided in the US by Bobby Rosenbloum, a shareholder at GT Law in Atlanta, who has experience with leading online brands and copyright issues and understands better than most how to get the best from the systems.
The Europe problem
Te EU has brought down trade barriers and allowed most types of businesses a level of
freedom to operate that would have been
unthinkable a few decades ago. But in the digital environment, it’s lagging behind. Te US Sound Exchange has no European equivalent. “It’s ridiculous that you have to go through almost every different collecting society when it’s meant to be a single digital market,” Perez says. “Te digital commissioner (Neelie Kroes) completely understands and knows this, but the problem is, there are so many different rights holders in so many different countries—you’ve got the artists, the publishers, the labels, the digital music services, and that’s just music, then you’ve got film and books too.” Te solution is clear, and that’s a competitive European-wide market for collecting societies, or a version of the Sound Exchange, but it might not happen soon. “I think it will happen, but because it’s a government level thing, it takes a long time,” Perez says.
22 World Intellectual Property Review July/August 2012
www.worldipreview.com
Photo: Ksenija Nikolic
Photo: Ksenija Nikolic
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