A new music licensing body covering all of Europe have signed their first agreement with tech giant Google’s music streamer Google Play Music.

ICE represent around 250,000 rights-holders across Europe and hope with this agreement that they can help streamline licensing, resulting in growth and more profit for artists and rights-holders.

ICE Services CEO, Robert Ashcroft said: “We are proud to have been able to work together with Google Play Music to launch the first ICE Services online music license. ICE will make a major contribution to the Digital Single Market by simplifying pan-European licensing for digital music service providers and maximising value for rights-holders. We are delighted to mark the beginning of a revolution in the online market.”

music licensing Europe Google Play Music
Robert Ashcroft is CEO of ICE and was instrumental in its inception

Ice is a collaboration between 3 different music licensing organisations: PRS for Music from the UK, STIM from Sweden, and GEMA in Germany. They came together in 2010, initially as a joint database for copyrights, then rebranded in 2015 as a licensing body across Europe and a royalty processing service.

Google Play Music is one of the more respected streaming services amongst labels and artists as it’s royalty rates are higher – and by default fairer. In fact going by the latest reports Google Play Music has an even higher payout than the Hi-Res, artist-focussed Tidal.

Google Play Music’s head of international music publishing partner operations, Victoria Campoamor said: “We are honoured to have been selected as the pilot digital service and are pleased to be the first licensee to sign an agreement with ICE. We look forward to building a constructive relationship with ICE and to the realisation of operational efficiencies from the new platform and its benefits to composers and publishers.”