W
hen IMPF was setup, it primarily had one item on its agenda: the Global Repertoire Database. Yet the GRD project, which would have created a single worldwide repository for all music publishing rights information, infamously collapsed in late 2014, by which time costs had hit £8m – a bill certain PROs were not willing to foot.
“The idea has not gone away since then,” comments Pierre Mossiat, CEO at founding member Strictly Confidential. “We still need global data for a global business. The GRD probably was probably too fast and probably too expensive for CMOs. But the next step, of regional hubs [bundling together collection across numerous territories’] is very possible, before something bigger in the future.”