Campaign to ensure creators are paid quickly and accurately for their work reflects SoundExchange’s mission to build a fairer, simpler, and more efficient industry
WASHINGTON, D.C. — November 17, 2022 — SoundExchange, the premier music tech organization powering the future of music, today announced support for Credits Due, a global campaign bringing the music industry together to ensure that complete and accurate song metadata is attached to all recordings at the point of creation.
“Creators deserve fair and accurate compensation for their work, and this starts with ensuring complete and accurate metadata for all recordings at the time of creation,” said Michael Huppe, President and CEO of SoundExchange. “Crediting all contributors early in the process will result in accelerated royalty distributions for the millions of sound recordings processed every month by SoundExchange. We applaud Credits Due for their worldwide efforts to improve our industry, and we are thrilled to lend our support as we advocate for technical advancements that will lead to accurate compensation for creators and rightsholders.”
The Ivors Academy of Music Creators and The Music Rights Awareness Foundation established the Credits Due campaign in 2021 to increase knowledge of the importance of quality music metadata through education and enable music creators to be credited fairly for the music they share with the world.
SoundExchange’s support for Credits Due is consistent with the organization’s use of technology, data, and advocacy to ensure creators are paid for their work. Additionally, partnerships with music tech companies VEVA Sound and Sound Credit are optimizing the quality of SoundExchange’s performer lineups to ensure more accurate and efficient royalty payments.
“It’s great that an organization as proactive as SoundExchange has joined the more than seventy stakeholders from across the music industry supporting Credits Due,” said Niclas Molinder, founder at Session and The Music Rights Awareness Foundation. “It is only through pan-industry collaboration that we can truly solve the metadata challenge and ensure that all creators are accurately compensated for their work. We hope that this commitment will encourage other organizations to step forward as well as further adoption of new technology platforms, like Session Studio, that enable creators to get the reward and recognition they deserve.”
Creators can be properly credited and paid more efficiently by linking accurate metadata to music recordings as soon as they are in the studio. Doing so minimizes the need for manual claiming, whereby a contributor to a recording must register and submit their credits after a recording is out in the world in order to receive payment.
SoundExchange is the only organization designated to administer the non-interactive streaming sound recording license in the U.S. and is a critical source of revenue for more than 570,000 music creators. During Q3 2022, SoundExchange distributed more than $239.8 million in digital royalties directly to music creators. To date, SoundExchange has distributed more than $9 billion in digital royalties.
In addition, SoundExchange also:
- Pays out monthly, with 90% of royalties distributed within 45 days of receipt
- Operates and matches in the largest music market in the world across 3,600 licensees, 570,000 creators, and a database of more than 60 million unique sound recordings.
- Collects internationally in more than 50 countries across the globe
- Recently launched a new, industry-leading effort allowing creators to easily and immediately receive royalty payments via mobile payment apps, starting with Cash App and Zelle®.
About SoundExchange:
SoundExchange is the premier music tech organization on a mission to power the future of music. It was independently formed in 2003 to build a fairer, simpler, and more efficient music industry through technology, data, and advocacy. The only organization designated by the U.S. government to administer the Section 114 sound recording license, SoundExchange collects and distributes digital performance royalties on behalf of 570,000 music creators and growing. Through proprietary music tech solutions that turn data into accurate revenue, SoundExchange has paid more than $9 billion in distributions to date. For more information, visit soundexchange.com.
About Credits Due:
Credits due is an open global initiative focused on bringing the music industry together to ensure that complete and accurate song metadata is attached to all recordings at the point of creation. The Ivors Academy of Music Creators and The Music Rights Awareness Foundation are working together to increase knowledge of music rights through education and support. Their mission is to enable music creators to be credited fairly for the music they share with the world. Music released without the right data results in a very large and difficult task of identifying, crediting and paying creators and contributors to songs and recordings. Credits Due both highlights this issue and encourages everyone in the industry to get on board with resolving it. All have a part to play. For more information and to support the Credits Due pledge, please visit www.creditsdue.org.