MRI added 20m recordings and compositions to its Songdex database in 2020

 

 

By Emmanuel Legrand

Music rights administration platform Music Reports Inc. (MRI) has disclosed that it has administered over $400 million in music royalties in 2020, with music publishing royalties paid out by the Woodland Hills, CA company increasing by 50% over 2019, and individual royalty payment transactions increasing by 16%, to more than 212,000 individual payments. 

  MRI also operates the Songdex database, described as the largest independent registry of music copyright information in the world. In 2020, MRI added over 20 million distinct sound recordings and musical compositions to Songdex, bringing the total number of unique sound recordings and musical compositions in the database to 160 million. 

  "Music Reports delivered tremendous value to the music ecosystem in 2020, processing over $400 million in music royalties that flowed through our trusted technology and payments platform to recording artists, songwriters, and their representatives – at a fraction of the cost of comparable administration services," said Dhruv Prasad, President and CEO of MRI. 

Transparent and accurate reporting

  Added Prasad: "The growth in payments from the previous year is also notable, representing the rapid expansion of our services in new international territories; our best-in-class content matching, which enable a high proportion of publishing royalties to be matched and paid out quickly; and finally the gravitational pull of our Songdex Marketplace, where songwriters and music publishers can register their works, opt-in to direct licenses with global rights users, and receive timely payment of royalties, along with transparent and accurate reporting."

  Music Reports administers royalties for over 500 customers, including Spotify, Netflix, Peloton and TikTok. MRI was acquired from ABRY Partners and its co-founders Ronald Gertz and Douglas Brainin in August 2020 by New York-based asset management firm MidOcean Partners.