For small business owners who use fully licensed music for small businesses, understanding copyright can be a headache. You need to know which Performing Rights Organization (PRO)—ASCAP, BMI, GMR, or SESAC—represents the music you play. Without this clarity, ensuring your business stays compliant is difficult.
The good news is that the four major US PROs have just expanded a platform called Songview, making the process of finding music ownership information simpler than ever before. This collaboration provides a single, comprehensive source of data that is set to revolutionize music licensing for everyone.
What is the New Songview Expansion?
Songview is a comprehensive US public performance copyright data resource. It was originally launched by ASCAP and BMI, but its landmark expansion now includes musical works information from GMR and SESAC.
This partnership means that Songview now offers information for over 38 million musical works, offering the industry the most authoritative view of public performance copyright ownership and administration shares from a single source.
The entire purpose of this expansion is to provide even more transparency for the industry.
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How Songview Impacts Your Small Business
The most critical impact of Songview is clarity. This tool addresses the long-standing problem of fragmented and opaque music ownership data.
- Informed Licensing Decisions: As a licensee, your business needs information to make informed licensing decisions. Songview gives you that information upfront.
- Predictability and Compliance: The expanded database ensures that licensees have the predictability needed to be certain they are properly licensed. This reduces the risk of confusion when trying to determine which PRO represents which part of a song.
- Comprehensive View: It addresses the requests from licensees for a comprehensive view of their PRO licensing obligations. By displaying key information like songwriters, publishers, and ownership agreements, Songview removes much of the guesswork.
The information displayed on Songview is free to the public and currently accessible on the ASCAP and BMI websites.
Does Songview Affect Bundled Music for Business Providers?
Services like Soundtrack Your Brand, Sound-Machine, and other music for business providers offering curated licensed music for small businesses will also benefit greatly from the clarity that Songview provides.
These services specialize in simplifying licensing for businesses, often handling the complexities of tracking and reporting usage to all relevant PROs. While they already simplify the process for you, they rely on accurate data to ensure proper royalty distribution.
The expansion of Songview gives these providers cleaner, reconciled data. When all four major PROs agree on who owns what, the bundled music services have a more reliable foundation for tracking usage, strengthening their guarantee of full compliance for their business clients.
You can read the original press release about the expansion of Songview here: Songview Expansion Announcement.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about Soundview
Q: What is Songview and what is its main function?
A: Songview is the US music industry’s comprehensive public performance copyright data resource. Its main function is to provide a single, authoritative source of information on the public performance copyright ownership and administration shares for millions of songs licensed in the United States.
Q: Which music licensing organizations contribute data to Songview?
A: The expanded Songview platform features data from all four major US Performing Rights Organizations (PROs): ASCAP, BMI, GMR, and SESAC. (More information about music licensing here.)
Q: How does Songview help me make informed licensing decisions for my business?
A: Songview helps businesses by providing a single, unified view of song ownership shares, which has historically been fragmented. This clarity gives you the predictability needed to know which PRO (or PROs) you need to license from to legally play the music, ensuring compliance.
Q: Does using Songview replace the need for me to purchase a public performance license?
A: No. Songview is a free data tool that provides transparency about who owns a song. It does not eliminate the legal requirement for your business to purchase a public performance license from the appropriate PRO(s) to play music in public.
Q: Does Songview display data for all the songs licensed in the US?
A: Songview now features information for over 38 million musical works, representing the repertoire licensed by the four major US PROs. This covers the majority of music licensed for public performance.
Q: How does Songview benefit music for business providers?
A: Songview provides these services with cleaner, reconciled data directly from the PROs. This improved data integrity makes their systems for tracking and reporting music usage more reliable, strengthening their guarantee of full legal compliance for your business.