Music publisher seeks legitimacy through stock market
Published:Sunday | September 11, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Ivan Berry, a director at the music publishing company C2W Mu-sic Limited, is taking his company public amid scepticism that the industry in which he plays is a good business proposition.
Berry, a 30-year music industry veteran, believes by listing on the junior stock market, C2W will lift the profile of the music industry. C2W, which was first introduced publicly by the name Caribbean Music Publishers, could potentially offer returns of 22 per cent on investment, he suggests.
"I chose the stock exchange for one main reason: it is important to be on a public market because if we are successful with a 22 per cent return on investment, then we are not bums," he said Wednesday at an investors' forum organised by Stocks & Securities Limited. "It is critical to change the mindset of what intellectual property is and for it to take its rightful place."
Stocks & Securities is lead broker of the C2W initial public offering.
Revenue streams
Berry, who has teamed up with former deputy chairman of Nat-ional Commercial Bank, Kris Astaphan, plans to release the company's prospectus later this year.
C2W's business model involves licensing songs to US mega-stars in exchange for lengthy revenue streams which can last under law 50 years beyond the death of the songwriter. These songs will be sourced and created by Caribbean songwriters who will split half the revenues with C2W.
This model in 2010 £3.4 billion in music royalties disbursed by the UK-based royalty organisation PRS, and some US$2 billion from ASCAP, the US-based counterpart.
"The music industry is not dying and that is because we have new revenues streams," said Berry in the face of global music sales in steady decline since 2000.
The decline is mainly due to piracy, according to the Inter-national Federation of the Phono-graphic Industry, which represents the recording industry worldwide with some 1,400 members in 66 countries.
"Jamaica's creativity gives us global relevance and distinctiveness. It is high time we should be compensated for it," said chairman of JamCopy Mark Thomas at the Stocks & Securities forum to a mixed audience of investors and creators. "This is the time when you applaud," he said.
Creative industries, which in-cludes music, film, art, and dance, accounts for 4.8 per cent of gross domestic product based on a World Intellectual Property Organisation study conducted by locally based economist Dr Vanus James.