BMI and ASCAP Establish Joint Task Force to Combat Fraud in the Music Sector

BMI and ASCAP have formed today a joint task force for highlighting suspicious registrations linked to the music sector. It is estimated that ASCAP and BMI collectively have 25 million + musical compositions.

Elizabeth Matthews, the CEO of ASCAP shared her views in this regard.
“Fraud is a global challenge that is confronted by all organizations and DSPs with a haunting rise. As we progress with our Songview partnership by leveraging our expertise in developing an interlinked database, ASCAP & BMI can take advantage of leading the proactive approach towards data integrity in the music industry. This will help in protecting the copyrights and royalties of music composers.”

BMI’s CEO and President, Mike O’Neill agreed and added that,
“The integrity of our data is our most important and we spend a lot of time and effort for its protection. Now that musical data is easily available online digitally and we recognize the speed of database interconnectivity globally, we now have decided to join forces with ASCAP to address this concern. Fraudsters and other Bad actors will not target just one company or location. We shall collaborate with each other more to protect everyone in the music industry.”

A diverse and experienced team of industry professionals from both companies are participating and representing different fields of expertise including technical, distribution, legal, copyright, business, and product fields. They are all focused on the mitigation and prevention of fraudulent activities linked with musical works and the registrations that can cause financial losses and operational difficulties.
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BMI and ASCAP are primarily focused on data integrity and protection of the rights of musicians and this partnership is a positive sign towards enhancement in the efforts of data protection. They are also aiming towards improving identity verification and validation and creating awareness about suspicious activity and schemes in the music sector. This will evidently lead to improving data security in the music industry and tightening the grip of law enforcement on fraudsters.

Source: BMI and ASCAP Announce Joint Task Force to Address Fraud