Soundreef invests 30 million over the three-year period 2025-2027: recruitment planned in Rome

After the sentence of the EU Court of Justice that in March definitively opened up the Italian copyright market to private individuals, Soundreef is relaunching in Europe: a three-year investment plan totalling EUR 30 million is ready, which will broaden the Roman collecting society's horizons to the entire Old Continent. The plan covers the three-year period 2025-2027, a timeframe in which the former start-up founded by Davide D'Atri will hire new staff, mainly in Italy, bringing its workforce up from the current 60 to over 100.

Choices that, not by chance, come after the sentence with which the EU Court of Justice 'rejected' Italy's transposition of the Barnier Directive on the liberalisation of the copyright market, allowing commercial companies, not just non-profit organisations, to operate freely as collecting societies. The Italian legislator had in fact taken away Siae's exclusivity, but obliged private collecting societies, such as Soundreef, to identify non-profit companies, such as Lea, to act as a 'screen'.

And here we come to a first novelty: from next year, in fact, Soundreef authors will no longer be managed through the non-profit organisation Lea, but by Dublin-based Soundreef International. 'The choice,' specifies founder and CEO D'Atri, 'is functional to the expansion of the business to the whole of Europe, but we would like to stress that the group remains fiscally Italian and Rome will remain the centre of the group. This aspect also has a very strong symbolic value: after the closure of the headquarters of the big record companies, there is little of the music business left in Rome. We want to stay and hire'. Investments are also accompanied by a business growth plan: copyright revenues this year will be around EUR 22 million, while the forecast for 2025 is for EUR 25 million.

"This is also an important detail," according to D'Atri: "Liberalisation, in any sector, has brought a fall in prices. In copyright, we have seen a growth in overall turnover: in 2023 Italy was the top market that grew the most worldwide, with a 22% increase that brought the business to 698 million. This is because the liberalisation of the sector,' D'Atri continues, 'is in favour of authors. Competition is not done on price, but on the ability to collect'. An area in which Soundreef is also experimenting with new technologies: 'Data collection and analysis,' explains D'Atri, 'make the difference. And we play it with the contribution of artificial intelligence, which speeds up the whole process. Payment times tend to get progressively shorter. Today for live we ensure, for example, reporting within three months, while for YouTube, radio and TV we are in real time'.

As for prices, according to D'Atri, 'Agcom is dictating some guidelines: according to the latest resolution, the price must be linked to your market representativeness. We are in favour of the rules, but with a correct balance point'. Soundreef, meanwhile, continues to enrich its songwriting portfolio: the latest blow was the agreement for the Italian market with Pink Floyd leader Roger Waters. The deal withUS collecting society Sesac, in force since last January, has since brought 15,000 affiliates to the company's roster, including Nobel laureate Bob Dylan, Nirvana soul Kurt Cobain, Axl Rose, Green Day, David Crosby and Ariana Grande. In total, Soundreef counts 43,000 authors, composers and publishers globally, 26,000 of whom are Italian: from Gigi D'Alessio to Laura Pausini, from Pooh to Ultimo, via Sfera Ebbasta, J-AX, Guè and Rkomi.