Artisjus strengthens its relationship with Europe's largest rights management organization, Sacem in France

Hungarian music collective management organization Artisjus mandated French Sacem, the first music CMO founded in the world and currently the largest in Europe, to represent the Hungarian music repertoire in licenses with the major online streaming service providers from January 2023. Through this cooperation, Hungarian songwriters represented by Artisjus will receive their royalties for music streaming faster, and at a higher value.

As an expert of the management of digital rights, Sacem licenses on a multi territorial scale and uses innovative technological tools to process gigantic amounts of usage data from streaming services. In addition to Artisjus, Collectives Management Organisations (CMOs) from the United States (ASCAP), South Korea (KOMCA) and Canada (SOCAN), as well as global music publishers such as Universal Music Publishing, Warner Chappell, IMPEL (a group of independent music publishers), and many others have entrusted  Sacem with the task of licensing and processing online performances of the musical works they represent.

Through the agreement, Hungarian composers and lyricists represented by Artisjus will be placed on an equal footing with the songwriters of the world's most successful music repertoires: with royalty rates among the highest ones quarterly distribution and access to transparent data related to the streaming of their compositions.  

"So far, Artisjus has done all the rights management tasks independently, from collecting royalties to distributions. Due to the growing number of international streaming service providers, their global power and the amount of data they provide, it is now more efficient and sustainable to entrust a major part of this task to a partner, that has become one of the best in the world over the years.  Meanwhile, the registration, documentation and identification of the Hungarian music repertoire remains the responsibility of Artisjus. I am sure that the licensing of our repertoire for online performances will be in the best hands at Sacem," said dr. András Szinger, Director General of Artisjus, in connection with the agreement.

"This partnership illustrates the power of the collective management of rights: joining forces and sharing efforts, tools and best practices to the benefit of the rights holders. Artisjus will benefit from Sacem’s licenses with multi territorial DSPs, and technological expertise, especially through its URights platform, which will give Artisjus a total transparency on the royalties collected for its repertoire. We are thrilled to partner with one of the most committed CMOs in Europe and to represent the Hungarian repertoire in many territories of the world.”  said Cécile Rap-Veber, CEO of Sacem.

Artisjus will continue to be an active participant in the process, with the pre-2023 performances still to be processed by the Hungarian society. For the future, Artisjus staff familiar with the Hungarian repertoire will ensure accurate and detailed records of the data of Hungarian works, to allow automatic matching of the usages.

In addition to faster, more accurate distributions and the expected higher royalty revenue, this move does not mean any practical change for Hungarian authors represented by Artisjus. Artisjus will remain their own rights management organization, their new songs will also be registered with Artisjus as usual, and they will get all the information about online royalties in one place, on the Artisjus online portal.

For more information, see:

Zsófia Deme / Artisjus / email: zsdeme@artisjus.com / mobile: +36 20 572 6947

Anthony Rival / Sacem / email: anthony.rival@sacem.fr / mobile: +33 6 07 31 43 95

Klára Fanni Tóth / Probako Communication / e-mail: artisjus@probako.hu/ mobile: +36 20 519 9341

About Artisjus

Society Artisjus Hungarian Bureau for the Protection of Authors’ Rights is an association of composers, lyricists, music publishers and literary authors. The creators have tasked it with managing some of their copyrights, so that they can earn income from their work. It collects royalties from those who use musical and literary works in the public and pays the collected royalties to the authors whose works were played. It is the intention of Artisjus to make the relationship between creators and users as simple as possible to the satisfaction of both sides.

The predecessor of Artisjus was founded in 1907 by Hungarian composers, lyricists and music publishers. Today, it manages the rights of about 22 thousand Hungarian authors by direct membership or representation agreement, for around 530 thousand works, and also manages the rights of millions of musical and literary authors in Hungary on the basis of contracts with similar foreign organizations as a collective management organization registered with the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office. www.artisjus.hu

About SACEM

In a constantly changing environment, Sacem is committed to creating ever more value for over 196,000 authors, composers and publishers who have chosen it to manage their authors’ rights. Thanks to its territorial network, its technological expertise, its ability to innovate and negotiate agreements with all broadcasters and digital platforms, and its unique social and solidarity-based model, Sacem has become one of the world leaders in collective management and in particular in the digital environment. Thus, it collects royalties from streaming platforms in nearly 200 territories on behalf of its members: fifty international publishers (Universal Music Publishing, Warner Chappell, Wixen Music Publishing, etc.) and foreign collective management organizations (Socan, Komca, Ascap, Artisjus...).