PRS for Music & PPL partner with music tech company Audoo to enhance public performance royalty distributions

09 August 2023 - Press release

The partnership aims to improve music royalty distribution for over 300,000 artists, recording rightsholders, music publishers, writers and composers.

PRS for Music, a world-leading music rights management organisation for songwriters, composers, and music publishers, and PPL, the world's largest collector of international royalties for performers and recording rightsholders, have announced a partnership with Audoo, the music technology company on a mission to revolutionise public performance royalty distributions. 

The installation of Audoo's unique Audoo Audio Meters™, in businesses including cafés, bars, hair salons, restaurants, and retail locations across Great Britain, aims to help drive forward and accelerate accurate and transparent royalty distribution to music creators, by identifying the background music being played and reporting this usage back to PRS for Music and PPL.

This initiative will help PRS for Music and PPL to continue to define the global standard of music royalties, enhancing distribution efficiency and delivering optimum payments for their 300,000 collective members.

The Audoo Audio Meters™ are designed to be GDPR-compliant and use smart plug-in technology to securely track and report the music being played in quasi-real-time, without capturing any non-music audio, whether that's the weather report or private conversations. 

Tim Arber, PRS for Music's Director of Operational Improvement, said: "We are continually investing in new technologies and services to ensure we can pay out royalties more quickly and accurately, delivering the best possible service to members. We have been working with music recognition technology for many years and are excited to see how this collaboration with Audoo can support our ambition to pay out over £1 billion annually in the next few years. Helping businesses across the UK to report the music they play through smart data capture will be integral to reaching this milestone and maximising our members' public performance royalties." 

Russell Chant, PPL's Head of Distribution, said: "At PPL, we're always working to ensure that performers, record labels and self-releasing artists are fairly and accurately paid for the music they create. This initiative with Audoo will complement our existing suite of advanced technological tools and public performance music usage data, offering us a further way to check that our distributions are as accurate as possible. We look forward to working with the Audoo team over the coming months."    

Ryan Edwards, Audoo's founder and CEO, said: "This collaboration with PRS and PPL is a milestone in the evolution of the public performance royalty space, for creators, performers and rights holders, as well as licensees delivering an enhanced experience for customers through the joy of music played in public spaces. Audoo is a proud British business that has designed, developed and continues to manufacture all products in the UK, so it is particularly poignant to launch Audoo at home with global leaders PRS for Music and PPL following the successful impact in other territories."