From BMI to the ILBA:
For quite some time now, there has been a call for transparency from the music licensing companies (aka performing rights organizations) when it comes to the songs, songwriters, and publishers they represent. BMI has taken that input to heart– and even though we had already provided a free, publicly searchable database of our repertoire on our website for years–3 years ago, in partnership with ASCAP, we created Songview, a database that provides easily searchable, transparent, and authoritative performing rights data on songwriters, composers, music publishers, and copyright ownership shares for nearly 28 million works, amounting to over 90% of U.S. music.
Unfortunately, despite the lengths we have gone to provide free, comprehensive access to our repertoire, we continue to receive criticism about our transparency efforts. More recently, we have found ourselves being lumped in with some of the recent entries in the performing rights space that, to our knowledge, have not provided anywhere near the level of transparency on who and what they represent.
With that in mind, BMI and ASCAP recently took the opportunity of a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property hearing on music licensing to submit a joint letter for the hearing record to address some of these unfair, and in some cases inaccurate, criticisms. You can read the letter in its entirety here.
As always, BMI truly appreciates the long-standing relationship with you and your organization.