Pan-European licensing hub, ICE Services, has entered into a deal with gaming and metaverse startup STYNGR covering the multi-territory use of ICE’s reportoire.
The partnership will see STYNGR, a platform offering pre-cleared music for games and the metaverse, licensing ICE Core’s music repertoire that players can use in online games, according to a statement.
The STYNGR platform offers players the option to choose in-game music channels and event-driven short musical clips that they can personalize according to their preferred in-game experience.
Game developers are also supported by STYNGR’s SDK (Software Development Kit), allowing them to deploy in-game monetization options.
Last year, STYNGR partnered with Warner Music Group, which saw the latter supplying game developers with access to pre-licensed tracks from portions of its music catalog.
Through the latest alliance between ICE and STYNGR, ICE Core members will start to receive royalties from new apps developed by game developers via STYNGR. This provides a new revenue stream for members of ICE Core, the company said.
ICE claims to represent more than 330,000 rightsholders, and has to date processed “trillions of online music uses” from music streaming services and has so far paid out over €3 billion to rightsholders since March 2016.
ICE, based in the UK, Germany and Sweden, said its ICE Core license includes the reportoire of collection societies like PRS, STIM, GEMA, IMRO, BMI, Sabam, AKM and independent publishers Concord, Songtrust and peermusic, ICE said.
“Licensing such a massive and unique aggregation of musical repertoire as that represented by the ICE Core Societies and Publishers is a great opportunity and we’re delighted to get this deal in place.”
Alex Tarrand, STYNGR
ICE says its copyright database holds more than 48 million musical works.
“Licensing such a massive and unique aggregation of musical repertoire as that represented by the ICE Core Societies and Publishers is a great opportunity and we’re delighted to get this deal in place,” said STYNGR co-founder Alex Tarrand.
“STYNGR is a bridge for game developers, allowing them to easily incorporate music into all of their experiences. Being able to cover so many important works on a broad multi-territory basis is a boost for our service.”
The partnership with a metaverse company comes as ICE seeks for new ways to maximize rightsholders’ revenue collection.
“As the next generation of web applications start to be realized, we’re constantly assessing new services, understanding their models, and supporting innovation with deals that also reflect the value of songwriting,” said ICE’s Vice President for Licensing Tim Rawlinson.
“We’re pleased to be able to work with STYNGR to provide songwriters with new, incremental sources of income as new opportunities for people to experience music emerge.”
Tim Rawlinson, ICE SERVICES
“We’re pleased to be able to work with STYNGR to provide songwriters with new, incremental sources of income as new opportunities for people to experience music emerge.”
In addition to the ICE partnership, STYNGR also announced that songwriters and composers can now apply directly to access the STYNGR Creator Fund, which aims to boost bespoke musical experiences for game developers and the metaverse.
Songwriting camps will roll out this year, STYNGR said.
ICE, formed by three collection societies — PRS for Music (UK), STIM (Sweden) and GEMA (Germany) — has struck similar multi-territory licensing deals with Facebook, TikTok and US rival Triller.
In 2020, ICE launched an online self-service tool called Licensr that allows smaller online music services to get multi-territory coverage for use of the ICE Core repertoire.
In December, Austrian collection society AKM (together with its subsidiary austro mechana), joined the ICE Core’s licensing representation for online music services.Music Business Worldwide
