Press Release
Limassol, Cyprus — December 19, 2022 — .MUSIC joins an alliance of major music industry players, including Deezer, LyricFind and 12 others to form BELEM. BELEM aims to build capacity and innovative services to for music publishers, songwriters, platforms, and labels to help democratize and monetize access to lyrics. It will also strive to break down cultural barriers by making human translated lyrics accessible to all listeners. BELEM will be showcased on the new .MUSIC domain name address at www.BELEM.music to promote the .MUSIC registry and .MUSIC domain names across the European Union (Disclaimer: The .MUSIC registry is the sole owner and developer of the BELEM.MUSIC domain name).
BELEM is an European Union funded project that received €2 million in grant funding through the Creative Europe Programme (CREA). BELEM seeks to drive new revenue streams to the music industry by promoting and monetizing European lyrics and translations. The project will also amplify the co-creation and co-production of European lyrics, adding new economic value to European musical and linguistic heritage.
In particular, the project is placing a strong focus on online and streaming lyric translations, as well as supporting publisher capacity building and the songwriters themselves on creation and translation. BELEM will also look to benefit labels and artists through providing better accessibility for lyric videos — including translated lyrics. It will also aim to impact the live sector, via both virtual and physical lyric translation exhibitions.
BELEM has been formed in response to an increased understanding of the power of translated lyrics in helping break down cultural barriers and further support artists’ monetisation of their works. For Deezer subscribers, the on-demand multilingual translation has introduced a brand-new music experience based on innovation; with a simple click, music fans can view precise lyric translations of many of the most popular English songs in French, German, Spanish and Portuguese.
“Lyrics can be a truly powerful addition to a song, and as the home of music and a French-founded company operating worldwide, we understand how challenging language barriers can be for artists with international ambitions,” said Ludovic Pouilly, SVP Institutional and Music Industry Relations at Deezer. “BELEM offers an exhilarating prospect — to help artists reach more audiences and for the listeners to better and intuitively understand the music they are listening to. Our core mission is to help music fans on Deezer find new favourites and expand their horizons; our work with BELEM will greatly help achieve this goal for the benefit of all.”
.MUSIC is proud to host the initiative on the new .MUSIC Registry and work alongside 14 EU music publishing, technology, distribution, labels, and academic partners. This consortium of music industry firms are working together to amplify the understanding, co-creation and co-production of European lyrics to add new economic value to European musical and linguistic heritage.
Companies involved in the BELEM project include German all-audio company Zebralution and the .MUSIC domain name registry. They are joined by Canadian lyric solutions company, LyricFind, which has provided innovation in lyric licensing and data service to companies such as Amazon, Google, and Deezer.
“Lyrics are exceptionally important — they can move us, make us question our world, or conjure powerful memories and feelings. But for many artists, the language challenge means their art and their stories often don’t reach the audiences they deserve,” said Robert Singerman, EVP at .MUSIC. “But with the combined power of 15 committed partners and the resources of the EU, we can make dramatic strides towards improving the diversity and unity of artists and audiences both within the EU and beyond. We can help artists fully unleash the meaning of their songs, while at the same time promote legal, trusted and verified .MUSIC domain names across the European Union.”
The full list of 15 companies participating in the BELEM Project include:
About .MUSIC
.MUSIC provides global music community members with a global music industry standard for their music identity and their official website address: i.e. www.yourname.music
Anyone in the global music community can register their unique .MUSIC domain, including artists, creators, bands, groups, industry professionals, music companies and organizations.
.MUSIC differentiates itself from generic domain names, such as .COM, by providing the world’s first domain name extension dedicated to music, with enhanced community-tailored policies that ensure that music artists, bands, industry professionals and organizations are able to register a trusted, secure and verified .MUSIC domain branded under their unique identity. All registrants will be verified and be given a blue checkmark verification badge, usually reserved for celebrities on popular social media websites, to ensure authenticity, authoritativeness and trustworthiness while at the same time to eliminate bad actors, such as impersonators or cybersquatters.
The .MUSIC initiative is supported by thousands of music-related entities and the most prominent and recognized organizations with members representing over 95% of music consumed globally. These include international bodies, associations and federations representing the global music community, which include the major labels, the major publishers, music collection societies, digital distributors and many other music communities (See Supporters).
For more information, visit https://www.nic.music
About BELEM
BELEM (Boosting European Lyrics and their Entrepreneurial Monetization) fosters the licensing, aggregation, distribution, exhibition and translation for meaning. It dramatically increases the monetization of European lyrics and lyric translations. This significantly boosts the sustainability and exportability of European language songs for music publishers and songwriters, (labels and artists) and benefits the audience, leading to increased language diversity and understanding globally, with translated lyrics crossing (and breaking) borders, both in digital and virtual, as well as live, in-concert, formats. The lyrics and lyric translations for meaning will be distributed globally. Virtual and in-person live shows, alongside lyric videos and lyric translation videos, by European artists, will be produced with subtitles, singing in their native languages, or in a mixture of languages. Songs will be able to be understood by audiences in many languages in any country.
For more information, please visit: https://belem.music
