SoundExchange Hits New High In Royalty Distributions

SoundExchange Tuesday announced that royalty distributions in 2016 hit a new high. Year-end royalty payments reached approximately $884 million, an increase of more than $80 million versus 2015.

“We distributed record-setting royalties to artists and labels in 2016 and broadened our charter beyond our original role of administering statutory licenses. In 2016, besides processing digital radio payments, we also launched new data validation services, managed the distribution of royalties for over a dozen direct licenses and administered some critical industry settlements. These are significant milestones,” SoundExchange President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Huppe said. “Looking ahead, we will continue to increase services to our artists, labels, digital service providers and the entire music industry in 2017.”

SoundExchange manages royalties for more than 130,000 recording artists and rights owners. More than 2,800 non-interactive Internet radio, satellite radio and cable television services pay digital performance royalties to music creators through the company. In addition to a record year for distributions, SoundExchange reached many other important milestones in 2016 including:

• Bestowing our SoundExchange Digital Radio Award, celebrating more than 1 billion plays on digital radio, to country music star Garth Brooks, Latin recording artist Pitbull and contemporary Christian recording artist Chris Tomlin.
• Implementing a new end-to-end business platform to manage rights, repertoire and royalties
• Managing and distributing artist royalties from record label direct deals with Pandora
• Launching a new Spanish-language registration module to service our Latin artists and labels
• Launching the industry’s first public International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) database  in cooperation with IFPI, providing instant access to information about 30 million sound recording.