Soundmouse by Orfium appointed official music reporting partner for South Korean broadcast industry

26 March 2024 - Press release

Soundmouse by Orfium will enable music creators and rights holders in the world’s seventh largest music market to receive accurate and transparent royalty payments for the use of their music on radio and television 

 

Soundmouse by Orfium (“the Company”) has been selected by the South Korean Broadcast Music Identifying System (BROMIS) – a consortium led by major broadcasters, such as KBS, MBC, SBS, and four collecting societies (KOMCA, KOSCAP, FKMP, KEPA) – as the official music reporting partner for broadcasters in the world’s seventh largest music market.      

Following a competitive selection process and a rigorous testing and audit period, Soundmouse by Orfium will see its best-in-class music cue sheet reporting and pioneering audio recognition fingerprinting technology used by 36 broadcasters to track music usage across 175 TV channels and radio stations in the country.  

Supported by the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korean Copyright Commission, the three-year agreement will ultimately bring greater transparency to music reporting processes and greater accuracy to the payment of royalties from the country’s collection societies to creators and rights holders. As part of the agreement, Soundmouse by Orfium will be one of the first third-party companies to be granted access to the Korean Music Database, to match the music reported from broadcasters against a database of 17.3 million Korean music tracks. 

South Korean collecting societies will use Soundmouse by Orfium’s reports to inform royalty distributions to their songwriter, recording artist, phonogram producer and rights holder members this year.  The new process will enable broadcasters to meet the cue sheet requirements of collecting societies and will streamline their reporting processes, facilitating more efficient negotiations with collecting societies for the use of their members’ music.

Orfium CEO, Rob Wells, said: “To be selected to manage and deliver such a significant project for South Korean broadcasters and music creators is a real validation of Orfium’s technology, the quality of our team, and our track record as a company. We are excited to be growing our presence in the Asian market to support local creators and rights holders and look forward to working with all of BROMIS’ stakeholders to strengthen the transparency and accuracy of music reporting processes in the multi-billion dollar broadcast industry.”

Bonna Choi, Head of Soundmouse by Orfium Korea, added: “After such a rigorous consultation and trial process, we are excited to have been selected and accredited by BROMIS to work on behalf of creators, rights holders, broadcasters and collecting societies. We will bring extensive industry experience from an expert team, the highest standards in cue sheet reporting, and the most advanced technology in audio recognition fingerprinting to strengthen the process of music reporting in such an important market.”

Steve Choi, Secretary General, Steering Committee of BROMIS, said: “The sharing of clear, transparent, and granular data from a neutral source represents a significant step towards making the music industry a more equitable environment. With the consistent accuracy and reliability of their reporting, Soundmouse by Orfium stood out as the best partner for the project. The quality and accuracy of their reporting processes will be game changing for our industry and will have a positive impact on the remuneration of creators and rights holders as well as the development of our wider industry ecosystem.”

Officially approved in January 2024, the deal marks another step in Orfium’s expansion in Asia, as it works with rights holders to track, identify and report music usage across all types of broadcast and user-generated content (UGC) platforms in the continent. The partnership with BROMIS follows Orfium’s deals in 2023 with Avex, Bandai Namco and the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC), estimated to represent 90% of Japanese publishers’ repertoire.