This year, SoundExchange changed its approach to the payment of royalties owed to members of foreign companies with which it has a representation agreement. In fact, it asked sister companies to submit their full repertoire in order to proceed itself to matches between the repertoire submitted and the usage data it receives. It of course gave notice that this new way of proceeding would cause a delay in the payment of royalties. But that delay has meant that rather than continuing to receive a quarterly payment, Artisti has had to wait virtually six months between SoundExchange’s next-to-last royalty payment and the last one it has received to date.

The good news is that this payment did eventually reach the Artisti coffers, but the bad news is that it represents only 7 to 10% of the amounts which Artisti could reasonably expect for two quarters…

It would appear that the Artisti repertoire transmitted to SoundExchange has not been fully taken into account for the purposes of this distribution. Artisti has expressed its displeasure and has learned from a reliable source that it is not the only company going through a similar situation. Likewise, the collective society for producers, SOPROQ (of which many members of Artisti are also members for the collection of their royalties as makers), is experimenting a similar situation and has recently made an announcement about it to its members through its September newsletter. In addition, many companies around the world have made the same point and will join forces to ask SoundExchange to quickly remedy the situation.

Meanwhile, Artisti will continue to demand that the full amount owed to its members be received within a time frame we have been accustomed to expect from SoundExchange in the past. Moreover, rest assured that we will send you the money recently received at the next fall distribution.