SESAC Holdings and SUISA have come together from across the ocean to launch Mint Digital Licensing, a collaborative rights collecting organisation.

It seems an unlikely match, Swiss collecting society SUISA and US music rights managers SESAC Holdings, but the companies are coming together as Mint Digital Licensing. MDL immediately marks it’s place as the first transatlantic organisation working to protect music for publishers, songwriters and composers.

The company will officially start their work in January 2017 where they will work together to protect the rights of music and administer rights for the use of music online. SUISA and SESAC hope that by joining forces they can “strengthen the competitive position and value of the music entrusted to SUISA and SESAC by copyright owners in the international online music market.”

With Mint Digital Licensing the process that digital music services need to go through to obtain music licenses will be streamlined. Licenses for reproduction, distribution and performance rights for any artists covered under SUISA and SESAC can be purchased from one place, as well as artists signed to publishers that are looking to license their catalogs across Europe. Mint will provide licenses to major services like YouTube, Apple, Spotify and more.

The alliance will also bring together the two company’s assets for improvements in music licensing worldwide, such as:

  • Increased Song Matching: Continuous matching improvements and increased matching rates ensure that rights holders will be identified and properly paid in a timely manner.
  • Greater Transparency: Easy access for rights holders to review and manage their catalogs, licenses and royalty reports.
  • Faster Payment and Reporting: Substantially reduced file processing times will allow for even faster usage processing and royalty payment to copyright owners.

SESAC Holdings’ chairman and CEO, John Josephson said: “Mint Digital Licensing represents the first step in SESAC Holdings’ plan to build a multi-regional licensing platform at scale. The key to our success will be an unrelenting focus on our customer’s needs, access to the most comprehensive and accurate data available in the market and a best breed of technology solution. Like SESAC, SUISA is a leader in technology as well as a dependable and experienced partner. Together we will significantly improve online licensing for creators, copyright owners and DSPs.”

Roughly 11.5 million works are documented by SESAC and an additional 4.5 million by SUISA, and a massive 96 million sound recordings between the two of them will make the majority of their offering as MDL.

SUISA CEO, Andreas Wegelin added: “This partnership allows SUISA to expand its position in the online arena and remain autonomous in the long term in this competitive market. Furthermore, we will benefit from significant economies of scale in terms of data and IT infrastructure. In recent years, SUISA has invested heavily in updating its IT infrastructure. In recent years, SUISA has invested heavily in updating its IT infrastructure to be better positioned for the challenges of copyright licensing for the distribution of online music.”

SESAC said in a statement on their website:

SUISA and SESAC believe the cooperation, combination of data and pooling of repertoires embodied by the joint venture is consistent with the European Commission’s expressed wish for cooperation among music rights organizations to enable users to negotiate licenses with as few companies as possible. This new, multi-territorial platform will maximise efficiency for music users, music publishers, songwriters, composers and other rights owners while vastly improving transactional transparency.