IMRO, the Irish Music Rights Organisation, has announced a new partnership with ICE, a company whose services include copyright administration, multi-territory online licensing and processing.

Under the new partnership arrangement, IMRO has become a direct customer of ICE’s Core Licence (see below). Under the terms of the new deal, ICE will provide IMRO with a full suite of licensing and administration services for online usage.

“Partnering with ICE directly ensures that IMRO stays at the forefront of the growing digital marketplace at a crucial time,” Seán Donegan, IMRO Commercial Director for Media Licensing explained. “This partnership will expedite the payment of digital royalties to IMRO members, at the most competitive rates possible, thus shortening and simplifying the digital royalty chain.

"The use of ICE’s cutting-edge business intelligence tools will enhance IMROs online monitoring,” Seán Donegan added, "providing additional insight into how often, on what platforms, and in which countries, consumers are enjoying an ever popular and growing IMRO repertoire.”

What is ICE?
ICE is a joint venture between three collection agencies – the PRS (UK), STIM (Sweden) and GEMA (Germany) – which aims to actively encourage collaboration between other CMOs, music publishers and digital service providers, to ensure that composers and songwriters are compensated accurately and fairly for the use of their works.

“We are very pleased to welcome IMRO as a direct customer for ICE’s core licence,” said Ben McEwen, VP Commercial at ICE. “It is validation for the expertise and focus we have put into our licensing services, which are enabling our rights-holders to access online income from a broader range of multi-territorial services and for a broader range of territories than ever before.”

Under the new arrangements, IMRO will continue the practice of flowing their matching performing right alongside those of major publishers, such as Sony ATV and Warner/Chappell, enabling improved transparency and speed of payment for the IMRO writers involved.

The ICE Core License
Launched in 2016, the ICE 'core license' brings together the work of members from GEMA, STIM, PRS, Concord, Downtown, Peer music – and now IMRO. ICE has a nine-strong licensing team, including what they describe as "dedicated resource focussing on data analysis and insight to ensure we are delivering ‘best in class’ commercial outcomes and market data for our growing customer base." Licensed to more than 50 services, across a scope of more than 130 territories the core license is regarded as a key component for today’s DSPs.

The current issue of Hot Press, with Snow Patrol on the cover, contains a 16-page special on IMRO’s activities, and the numerous different ways in which the organisation nurtures and supports the work of Irish songwriters and composers. It includes interviews with IMRO chair, Eleanor McEvoy and IMRO CEO, Victor Finn, as well as a numver of hte artists who have collaborated on or benefitted from, IMRO events

What ICE Say About Themselves
ICE offers a flexible suite of services for Publishers, Collective Management Organisations (CMOs) and Rights-holders. Services include; copyright administration, multi-territorial online licensing processing and licensing solutions for Digital Service Providers. ICE was created by PRS, STIM and GEMA and represents over 290,000 rights-holders alone through this partnership. ICE has processed trillions of online music uses from music streaming services and paid over €930 million back to rights-holders since March 2016. The ICE copyright database holds over 35 million musical works. ICE is based in the UK, Germany and Sweden.