New Milestone Achieved By Music Licensing Organizations In Latin America

New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ IFPI) - During 2009, public performance collecting societies in Latin America experienced a growth in revenue of 22 per cent to US$114 million. This impressive accomplishment was made possible by important deals that had been reached with key players in the region, such as Grupo Wong in Peru (Hipermercados Metro and Supermercados Wong), and DirecTV and Intercable in Venezuela. In Mexico, local record producer's society, SOMEXFON, reached an agreement with Alsea Group (Burger King, Chili's, Domino's Pizza, and California Pizza Kitchen) that enabled the Latin American country to increase its revenues by 60 per cent from 2008.

During 2009, collecting management organizations in the region licensed more than 40,000 new businesses. These make a total of 275,000 establishments that are now licensed to play recorded music and take advantage of the exceptional value afforded by recorded music to attract and retain customers.

IFPI's aggressive campaign reaches out to induce businesses to adequately remunerate copyright holders for the use of their works in public places. It is conducted in 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries, including Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

During the same period, global performance rights revenues grew by 7.6 % to US$0.8 billion, reflecting steady growth since 2003. Public performance rights revenues now account for 4.6% of record companies' trade revenues.