The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) and the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) held a joint press conference in Tokyo on April 6, 2023, with Björn Ulvaeus (CISAC President), Gadi Oron (CISAC Director General), and IZAWA Kazumasa (JASRAC President) describing the challenges and remunerating creators in the digital world and the GDSDX initiative.

From left to right:Gadi ORON (CISAC Director General), Björn ULVAEUS (CISAC President), IZAWA Kazumasa (JASRAC President)

At the beginning of the press conference, Björn Ulvaeus, CISAC President and member of Swedish pop group ABBA, identified the issues.
Björn Ulvaeus, President of CISAC said: "Music streaming has transformed life for creators, bringing huge benefits but also the challenge of developing robust systems to accurately identify and pay songwriters and composers. This is a big priority as streaming becomes the dominant revenue channel for the music sector. Initiatives such as GDSDX, bringing together CISAC's members in Asia Pacific, are helping to address this problem and setting an example to other regions of the world. The GDSDX platform can contribute to a better music metadata exchange system, and therefore fairer and more efficient remuneration for creators."

CISAC Director General Gadi Oron continued by stating that "The Global Digital Service Data Exchange (GDSDX) is an important project to improve data exchange in the streaming environment and it offers benefits to creators and the whole collective management system. The initiative, led by JASRAC and supported by member societies in Asia - KOMCA, FILSCAP, MÜST and WAMI - breaks new ground in international collaboration in the field of authors' rights metadata. The project will provide a new cross-reference tool for matching streaming platforms' usage data with societies' metadata. It is a win-win partnership, demonstrating a successful collaboration between digital services and creators."

Concluding the press conference, JASRAC President IZAWA indicated that "Rapid development of digital technology and networks have led to an enormous volume of songs actually crossing borders, and the number is at a scale where processing by traditional methods is impossible. The essence of copyright management in the digital era is to use metadata, and GDSDX is one example of JASRAC paving the way forward" and stated that "the initiative of utilizing technology leads to improvement in the value of licenses and will bring merits to users, of course, but also to the public." He also emphasized: "In Japan, a country with declining population, it is important to place culture and arts at the base of its industry. That is why strengthening the ability to remunerate creators is a common issue for society as whole."

A number of DSPs (digital service providers) have contributed supportive messages to the GDSDX initiative covered in the press conference (Appendix 2).

Furthermore, representatives from overseas copyright management organizations participating in the GDSDX initiative, namely WAMI (Indonesia), KOMCA (South Korea), MÜST (Taiwan) and FILSCAP (Philippines) participated in the press conference.

From left to right:
Benjamin NG (CISAC Asia-Pacific Regional Director)
Chico HINDARTO (WAMI Chairman)
Yenny TSAI (MÜST General Manager)
CHU Ga Yeoul (KOMCA Chairman)
Gadi ORON (CISAC Director General)
Björn ULVAEUS (CISAC President)
IZAWA Kazumasa (JASRAC President)
PARK Sooho (KOMCA Head of Licensing 1 Bureau)
Meidi FERIALDI (WAMI General Manager)
Mark Thursday ALCISO (FILSCAP General Manager)

CISAC and JASRAC will drive forward initiatives to better enhance remuneration to creators in the digital society.

Appendix
1　CISAC / JASRAC Joint Press Conference material (excerpt)
2　Messages from DSPs