January 2006
Dear Songwriter & Composer:
Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and wish you and your loved ones a healthy and prosperous 2006.
As we enter the new year, the digital marketplace remains a priority at BMI. Our revenue stream from new media licensing efforts continues to increase, buoyed by the rapidly growing demand for ringtones, ringbacks and other mobile entertainment technologies.
Interestingly, the period covered by the enclosed distribution also marks the 10 th anniversary of our first license agreement for the public performance of your music in the digital environment. Over the last decade, we have seen dramatic changes and developments in the quantity and quality of the outlets offering music on digital platforms. Today, BMI serves more than 3,600 digital music outlets, ranging from major online portals such as Yahoo, AOL and MSN to music subscription services like Rhapsody and Napster and mobile entertainment services offered by nearly 300 wireless content companies and cellphone carriers.
In the volatile, expanding market for digital entertainment, we have worked diligently on your behalf to ensure that you are properly compensated for the use of your creative property, securing your future performing rights income-stream while offering marketplace-driven licensing solutions for the digital media. For the 12-month period ranging from July 2004 through June 2005, we processed more than 3.5 billion performances of music from our new media licensees. We have worked with industry leaders and small Internet sites alike to create workable agreements that embrace the universe of digital opportunity. We have also built state-of-the-art systems that enable us to digitally receive and process enormous amounts of performance and financial data for our licensees to ensure that we make accurate and timely distributions of your royalties for performances in both the digital and traditional markets.
We have fought to protect your rights in the United States and around the world, working closely with our sister societies in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific Rim. Today, our commitment to securing markets for your intellectual property in the digital age is greater than ever, despite efforts by some to minimize or completely eliminate those rights. From time to time, I may ask you to help us, and yourselves, with calls to action in the preservation of copyright and other issues that affect each and every one of us. We thank you for the opportunity to serve you and look forward to our second digital decade.
I’d like to offer our congratulations to your fellow BMI songwriters Mariah Carey, Kanye West and John Legend, who each received eight Grammy nominations, and to all those nominated for the upcoming 48th Annual Grammy Awards.
Again, my best wishes to all of you and your families for a healthy, happy and rewarding 2006.
Sincerely,
Del Bryant
President
Chief Executive Officer