IMRO opens a two-way digital lane with SESAC

Live from 1 October, the deal covers writer-share online royalties when SESAC repertoire is used in Ireland and when Irish works are played in the US; publisher-share arrangements remain unchanged.

IMRO has struck a reciprocal digital rights deal with SESAC Performing Rights under which the Irish society will administer SESAC writer-share online performing royalties in Ireland, while SESAC will administer the same for IMRO members when Irish music is played in the US. The partnership took effect on 1 October 2026.

Under the terms of the deal, IMRO will process usage data, supply reporting and distribute royalties to SESAC whenever SESAC members’ music is broadcast, streamed or publicly performed in Ireland. SESAC will mirror that service for IMRO when Irish creators’ work reaches the US marketplace. The agreement covers the writer share only. Publisher-share royalties will continue to be administered through existing publisher arrangements.

Building on a busy autumn for IMRO

The move follows closely on IMRO’s late-September appointment to take on an international brief for MCPS, a pilot due to begin early next year with reciprocal mechanical deals under review. That earlier step pointed toward tens of thousands of writers feeling a difference in how mechanicals come home. The SESAC partnership sits in the same current: tighter administration of digital rights across borders, and a clearer path for money to reach the people who wrote the songs.

IMRO said the new arrangement builds on an existing relationship with SESAC and on a shared focus on effective rights administration and service to creators. Chief executive Victor Finn framed it as a vote of confidence in IMRO’s digital collections work. “We are delighted to enter into this agreement with SESAC. It reflects the trust between our organisations and recognises the strength of IMRO’s international digital rights administration and collections capabilities,” he said.

Chief commercial officer Seán Donegan added that working with SESAC strengthens IMRO’s standing as a trusted administration partner. From the US side, SESAC president of international Alexander Wolf said the partnership ensures effective representation for songwriters as the international digital music market evolves.

SESAC is the third-largest performing rights organisation in the United States, with a catalogue of more than 1.5 million musical works. It is recognised for the fastest distribution turnaround among the top three American societies — a practical point for writers waiting on digital royalties that can otherwise move slowly across jurisdictions.

Why the writer share matters on the ground

For Irish acts whose records travel, the detail of who collects what, and how quickly, is not abstract. Picture This, the pop-rock four-piece from Athy in County Kildare — Ryan Hennessy, Jimmy Rainsford, Owen Cardiff and Cliff Deane — have spent nearly a decade building a body of work that lives as much on streams and broadcasts as it does on the Irish chart. Their eponymous debut album topped the Irish Albums Chart on its release in 2017. The follow-up, MDRN LV, arrived in early 2019; Life In Colour followed in June 2021. The run has continued through 2025 with the Let The Light In EP, the Live In Ireland album and a string of singles, and into 2026 with Giants.

That catalogue is precisely the kind of Irish repertoire the reciprocal half of the deal is built to serve: when those songs are performed, streamed or broadcast in the US, SESAC’s administration of the IMRO writer share is meant to shorten the distance between use and payment. The same logic runs the other way for SESAC writers whose work is used in Ireland, with IMRO now handling the online writer-share side of that traffic.

What the partnership does not rewrite is the publisher side of the ledger. Those royalties stay on the paths already set by publisher arrangements. The signal is narrower and clearer: writer-share digital performing rights, Ireland and the United States, two societies treating each other’s members as a working priority rather than a distant claim.

For the moment the deal is live and the machinery is the story. How quickly distributions move, and how visible the difference becomes to writers on both sides of the Atlantic, will be the measure that matters next.