WIN (Worldwide Independent Network) is a new coalition of independent music trade associations, which represents an estimated 7,500 – 10,000 independent record labels globally. Since forming officially at Midem (World Music Market) in January 2006, this collective, (whose members include United Kingdom, USA, Australia, Canada, Japan, the European Union, New Zealand, Brazil, South Africa and Israel), meets regularly to discuss, debate, and pursue those issues most important to increasing visibility and market access for independent music companies around the world.

Among its objectives, WIN will:

• increase the visibility of the independent sector in the global market
• ensure that Indies’ rights are represented fairly and equitably, in blanket licensing, in litigation and other forms of industry engagement
• develop common specific strategies to deal with independents’ commercial, cultural and political issues
• promote key issues such as national, regional, and international policies
• create a global network of Trade Associations and their member companies to work together, to formulate key political and commercial strategies and to unite the sector globally

Alison Wenham (UK) was elected President of WIN , with Vice Presidents David Vodicka (Australia) and Peter Gordon (A2IM)

Member Associations include:

• AIM (UK)
• A2IM (USA)
• CIRPA (Canada)
• IMPALA (Europe)
• ADISQ (Quebec)
• INZIMA (Israel)
• AIRCO (South Africa)
• IMNZ (New Zealand)
• ABMI (Brazil)
• AIR (Australia)

Membership is currently free to any independent Trade Association. To apply, please contact Ellie Mules at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Launched at Midem in January 2007, Merlin has been incubated by WIN as its first major global project. In essence, Merlin is a global licensing agency. It is also stand alone, non profit company based in London and The Netherlands, and is scheduled to commence operations in June 2007.

Merlin has been formed with the mandate of WIN, to assist Independent Labels and their Trade Associations, who rely on the exposure and licensing of music master copyrights, with a simple one stop solution that will be accessible to the majority of the world’s independent labels.

Merlin is neither an aggregator nor distributor, but is remit to proactively seek and negotiate new media deals for its members, that can’t be easily negotiated locally or individually, or are not covered by existing arrangements.

As such, Merlin is about assisting its members tap new revenue streams and providing access to independent repertoire. Merlin is owned by its members (labels, and trade associations), and will be charged with representing and negotiating terms for the commercial exploitation of the collective Intellectual Property Copyrights, in regards to New Media usages in a global, non – exclusive basis.

Merlin has been created to enhance member’s business, and to improve the trading environment not only for rights holders, but for key stakeholders in the sector, such as distributors.

Why Merlin is Needed? As the internet comes of age, opportunities for the exploitation of music proliferate as never before. Advances in technological innovation are bringing us new ways to use music on an almost daily basis.

These are the early days of what is potentially enormous business, and the market is highly competitive. In this new economy, the existing framework of licenses and reciprocal relationships is no longer able to provide a straightforward route to legal access to musical repertoire for the providers of these new services. For independent labels in particular, there is no practical way to make their material available to many of these services.

Merlin has been created with the belief that achieving fair and equitable recompense for the use of independent copyrights and facilitating access to that repertoire is in the best interests of all of the businesses who make a living from the independent sector, whether they are artists, labels, distributors or aggregators.

Merlin has been created to provide an effective mechanism through which Indies can collect their share of this revenue. In most cases this is something no independent label or distributor could do alone.

Collectively though, this is licensing and revenue raising that can be done. MERLIN has been created to facilitate this role.