WMG CATALOG STICKS THE LANDING

Warner Music has signed a blanket licensing deal with music-rights tech firm ClicknClear that will allow its catalog to be used for the global performance-sports market. The sector is said to be worth $2.4b annually.

ClicknClear offers a selection of licensed music to the performance-sports industry, including individuals, teams, event producers and federations working in cheerleading, jump rope, dance, gymnastics and lots more.

The firm is helping offer a new revenue stream that research suggests could add more than 10% to the recorded-music industry’s annual revenue. Its deal with Warner follows similar agreements with Sony Music, Sony Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing.

Said Tiago Correia, WMG Senior Director of Global Digital Business Development, “ClicknClear’s technology will help us expand the market by sharing clear and accurate data and empower the performance-sports industry while ensuring our creators are appropriately remunerated and credited for their work.”

For context, the performance-sports industry has landed in hot water for using unlicensed music, most recently during the Olympics; composers Heavy Young Heathens filed a lawsuit claiming that NBC, U.S. Figure Skating and silver-medal-winning skaters Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier violated their copyrights by using their cover of "House of the Rising Sun" without permission.