Tresona and Orchestras Announce Landmark Industry Agreement covering Custom Arrangements and Sheet Music Rentals

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Mar 26, 2018, 12:00 ET

PHOENIX, March 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Tresona and an Ad-Hoc Committee of Orchestra executives, convened with the assistance of the League of American Orchestras, chaired by Alan Valentine, The President and CEO of the Nashville Symphony, representing some of the largest Orchestras in the United States and Canada, announced a landmark opt-in agreement that will assist in ensuring that composers and songwriters will be correctly compensated when custom arrangements and orchestrations are created from their compositions. The agreement establishes a better path forward for making it easier for Orchestras to obtain the necessary licensing and for publishers to administer their rights.

For years, the issue of "unlicensed charts" -- the lack of obtaining proper licensing to create the orchestration and the lack of paying rental fees or "usage fees" for these charts -- has created difficulties in making sure that proper royalties were paid to writers and publishers. Not only does the agreement address these problems, it also facilitates the ability of Orchestras to properly compensate publishers and songwriters. The deal will allow Orchestras to identify charts that are in their possession and may have inadvertently gone unlicensed so that the rights holders can be alerted to the location of their intellectual property. It will allow the entire industry to benefit by removing a cloud of uncertainty surrounding these charts. This agreement also will allow royalties to be promptly paid to their rightful owners in the future.

The agreement is a key step in improving transparency in the music community and ensuring that music's creators receive royalties when their music is used. This agreement addresses the needs of the Orchestras, who are the primary users of these charts, and the artist community, such as conductors, performers, packagers and talent agencies, who are the most frequent suppliers of these charts.

National Music Publishers' Association President and CEO David Israelite praised the agreement, saying, "NMPA's goal has always been to ensure publishers and songwriters receive the money they deserve. I am thrilled that through this agreement both independent and major publishers and songwriters will be able to get what is owed to them. We must continue to push all performing ensembles and producers of orchestrations to pay for the musical works that fuel their businesses and after much work together, we have found a way for orchestras to quickly obtain the rights they need and to get royalties to the right people. I look forward to all songwriters and composers being paid what they are owed, and I am excited about the creation of a better process moving forward."

Tresona Co-President Larry Mills said, "As we have said many times, we are committed to making sure that songwriters and publishers are properly compensated for the use of their music and making sure that all proper licenses are obtained. We are appreciative of the hard work of every Publisher and Songwriter whose input into this Agreement has been invaluable. I would like to thank Alan Valentine and his Ad-Hoc Committee for extending their hand in friendship to the songwriting community."

Committee Chair Alan Valentine said, "America's orchestras have long been champions of the work of composers, songwriters and arrangers, and we are pleased to be involved in addressing these issues and working to find a path forward, including better education as it relates to copyright issues within the field. We are all part of the greater creative community and it's important that we work together in a positive manner whenever possible."

The agreement: Includes a mechanism for all musical charts in the possession of the orchestras and those who create these charts to be accounted for and properly assigned to the correct right holder(s).

Includes a path forward to making sure that all applicable licensing revenues are paid promptly to the rights holders.
Provides a path to direct licensing between Orchestras and publishers, with the goal of strengthening business relationships.

About Tresona: Founded in 2009, Tresona is the world's largest issuer of derivative works licensing on behalf of music publishers. Tresona's proprietary technology allows publishers the comprehensive ability to administer their rights while offering licensees unprecedented access to their catalogues. Tresona is a member of the NMPA and AIMP and the Tresona Licensing platform is located at www.tresonamusic.com.

Advisors
Tresona was advised by lead counsel Jay Rosenthal, Esq. at Mitchell, Silberberg and Katz, and Kent Marcus, Esq. of Marcus & Colvin, LLP, Brad Denton, Esq. of Denton Peterson, PLC, Andrew Pacheco, Esq. of Ryan Rapp & Underwood, Grant Woods, Esq. of Grant Woods Law and Jann-Michael Greenburg.
The Committee was advised by Lynn Morrow, Esq. at Adams and Reese LLP