Music Industry Terminology Series; (Part 1) Music Industry Role Players

Advertising agency: A business which provides ideas and which manages an advertisement or an advertising campaign on behalf of a product, brand or service.

Aggregator: A Digital Music Aggregator (DMA) is a person or business licensing and receiving income from a number of digital music retailers on behalf of an artist or a phonogram producer.

A&R: Artist and Repertoire. An A&R person in a phonogram producer’s business is the one with responsibility for finding new artists and offering them recording agreements and who supervises the recordings of artists on behalf of the phonogram producer.

Artist: A performer who may or may not also be an author.

Author: The person or entity who creates a work. This can be the creator of the musical composition, the musical arrangement or the lyrics, or a combination of any of them. In some countries, interpreters of lyrics may also qualify as an author.

BIEM: The international umbrella organization representing mechanical rights CMOs on behalf of publishers and authors.

BMI: Broadcast Music Incorporated. One of three US public performance right CMOs, collecting license fees on behalf of its author and publisher members. BMI distributes license fee income as royalties to those of its members whose works have been performed in public.

Booking agent: Someone who interfaces with promoters and venues on behalf of an artist in order to secure live performance bookings.

Bootlegger: Someone who illegally manufactures and/or sells copyright and related right protected recordings and works, or copyright-protected merchandise without a license and who makes no payment to the legitimate copyright or related rights holders.

Choreographer: The person responsible for creating and arranging the movements of a dance routine.

CISAC: International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers. The international umbrella organization representing authors and publishers public performance CMOs, who in turn represent their author and publisher members.

CMO: Collective Management Organization

Cyberlocker: A cyberlocker is a third-party online service that provides file-storing and filesharing services for media files and other data. Cyberlockers can be accessed globally over the Internet and are online data hosting services that provide secure remote storage.

Distributor: A business that distributes sound recordings and/or audiovisual recordings on behalf of owners or licensees of sound recordings and audiovisual recordings.

ECSA: The European Composer and Songwriter Alliance. The umbrella European organization representing professional music authors in 22 European countries.

FIA: The International Federation of Actors.

FIM: The International Federation of Musicians (Fédération Internationale des Musiciens). The international umbrella organization representing national musicians’ unions.

Front-of-house engineer: The engineer responsible for mixing the sound that the audience will hear through the PA system.

GESAC: The European umbrella organization representing the largest European authors and publishers CMOs.

Gracenote: A commercial internet-accessible database containing information about audio recordings. It provides software and metadata to businesses such as iTunes that enables their customers to manage and search digital media.

Harry Fox Agency: The US CMO responsible for mechanical licensing, collection and distribution for music publishers.

ICMP: International Confederation of Music Publishers. The umbrella trade organization representing music publishers worldwide.

IFPI: The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. The international umbrella trade body representing phonogram producers and affiliated industry organizations.

IMMF: The International Music Managers Forum. The international umbrella trade body representing Music Managers’ Forums (MMFs) worldwide.

IMPALA: The Independent Music Companies Association. The international umbrella trade body representing independent phonogram producers worldwide.

JASRAC: Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers. The sole CMO in Japan responsible for authors’ and publishers’ public performance right income and mechanical income.

MCPS: The Mechanical Copyright Protection Society. The sole UK CMO that issues mechanical licenses and collects mechanical royalties and other income on behalf of authors and publishers.

Merchandiser: A person or business who sells an artist’s merchandising products to the public on behalf of the artist.

Mixing engineer: The engineer responsible for mixing the separate tracks of a recording in a studio, resulting in a master recording.

Monitor engineer: An engineer who ensures that performing artists can adequately hear their stage performance and the stage performances of others playing with them, by way of on-stage monitor speakers or in-ear radio monitoring systems.

Music supervisor: A person who has the responsibility to find and clear suitable music and manage the music for a film, television production, video game or an advertisement.

Performer: An entertainer who plays musical instruments and/or sings and/or dances or performs a dramatic work.

Phonogram producer: An entity that holds the related rights in a recording and exploits that recording by way of advertising, promotion and distribution for sale to the public, sometimes referred to as a record company or record label.

Production company: A business that offers a recording agreement to an artist, makes and pays for recordings, and then licenses them to other phonogram producers or distributors.

Production manager: A person who supervises the provision of all the stage equipment, sound equipment and lighting and special effects equipment associated with a concert or tour.

Promoter: Someone who engages an artist to appear live at a venue and is responsible for organizing, advertising and selling tickets for the event as well as paying the artist for such a performance.

PRS: Performing Right Society. The sole UK CMO that collects public performance income on behalf of authors and publishers, latterly rebranded as ‘PRSforMusic’.

Publisher: A person or business that commercially exploits the works created by authors.

RIAA: The Recording Industry Association of America. The trade association that represents most US phonogram producers.

Roadie: Someone who sets up and takes down an artist or band’s equipment on stage and supervises the stage equipment during the performance.

SACEM: (Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique) The sole CMO representing authors and publishers in France.

SCAPR: The Societies’ Council for the collective management of performers’ rights. The international umbrella body for CMOs responsible for collecting income from public performance licenses on behalf of performers.

SESAC: One of three US public performance right collection societies, collecting license fees on behalf of its author and publisher members. SESAC distributes them as royalties to those SESAC members whose works have been performed.

Sound Exchange: The sole US related rights CMO responsible for licensing and collecting digital income (where such rights exist) on behalf of performers and phonogram producers from the public performance of sound recordings in the US.

STIM: (Svenska Tonsättares Internationella Musikbyrå) The sole CMO for authors and publishers in Sweden.

Studio producer: The person who is responsible for supervising the creation of a sound recording in a recording studio, also sometimes referred to as a record producer.

Sub-publisher: A publisher in a foreign territory which represents the interests and collects income on behalf of the domestic publisher and pays through that income to the domestic publisher after taking an agreed commission.

Tour manager: Someone who manages an artist’s live performance work on behalf of the artist’s manager and/or the artist.

UNESCO: The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, which encourages international peace and universal respect by promoting collaboration among nations.

Webmaster: Someone who builds and/or supervises an artist’s website.

WOMAD: The World of Music Arts and Dance. An international organization that promotes festivals featuring artists from all over the world.

WOMEX: World Music Expo. An organization promoting artist showcases and networking opportunity events for artists from all over the world.

WIPO: The World Intellectual Property Organization, an agency of the United Nations, based in Geneva, dedicated to developing a balanced and accessible international intellectual property (IP) system which rewards creativity, stimulates innovation and contributes to economic development while safeguarding the public interest.

SAMRO (Southern African Music Rights Organisation) is the most important Southern African body controlling music performing rights on behalf of composers, and is Africa's leading performing rights collection society

POSA (Performers Organisation of South Africa) a trust set up by SAMRO to administer the performers' share of needletime income

DALRO (Dramatic, Artistic and Literary Rights Organisation) is a division of SAMRO

CAPASSO (Composers', Authors' and Publishers' Association) a mechanical rights CMO in South Africa

SAMPRA (South African Music Performance Rights Association) largely is there to recover needletime royalties for the major record companies and independent companies that are RiSA members

RiSA (Recording Industry of South Africa) is a voluntary, non-profit company, incorporated to represent South African record companies which range from the majors to small, independent companies

RAV (RiSA Audio Visual) is the licensing body set up by RiSA to grant licenses to users of music videos. These users include broadcasters, programme-makers and video jukebox system suppliers

AIRCO (Association of Independent Record Companies) a national association for South African record companies. Function is to proactively serve and represent the interests and developnent of independent South African labels

CASA (Composers Association of South Africa)

SAMPA (South African Music Promoters Organisation)

MMFSA (Music Managers Forum of South Africa) represents all music managers in South Africa, speaks for them with one voice by lobbying government for support, interact with other music institutions and bodies, be representative at trade fairs