UK music licensing company PPL paid out £48.7 million (approx. $61.9m) to over 137,000 performers and recording rightsholders in its final quarterly distribution of the year – a new high for its December payment.
PPL reports that the £48.7 million represents a 13% rise from the £43.2 million paid out in December 2022. This includes collections from the use of recorded music in the UK and overseas.
PPL says that this December distribution reflects the further expansion of its network of international CMO partners.
Revenue is being newly allocated to PPL members from 63 different CMOs – the highest ever in a single distribution – including first-time payments for performers from AMANAT (Kazakhstan) and for recording rightsholders from SELMI (Indonesia), and significant payments from France, Germany and the USA.
PPL now has 113 agreements with overseas counterparts, with new partnerships signed recently with RAYS (Azerbaijan) and ISAMRA (India).
More than 12,500 non-featured performers from the UK and around the world also received supplementary remuneration for Copyright Term Extension, from recordings released between 1963 and 1971 – the ninth year PPL has administered such payments.
Also included in this Q4 payment is revenue from PPL’s sister company VPL, which licenses music videos when they are played in public or broadcast on TV.
“Administering our highest ever December payment, particularly from more of our international counterparts than ever before, is the perfect way to end 2023.”
Peter Leathem OBE, PPL
PPL CEO Peter Leathem OBE said: “Administering our highest ever December payment, particularly from more of our international counterparts than ever before, is the perfect way to end 2023.
“All year the PPL team works hard to maximise the income for our members and pay them what they are owed for the creativity and investment they make into the music we enjoy all around us.”
Added Leathem: “Knowing that we are supporting the livelihoods of thousands of people who make a living from music, particularly with a payment at this time of year, is a great motivator for everyone.
“I’m delighted that this payment includes revenue from more CMOs than ever – a real demonstration of the impact of our collaborative nature, our increasing network of neighbouring rights agreements, and the investment in our world-leading technology to process the millions of lines of data required to pay our thousands of members for the use of their recorded music.”Music Business Worldwide
