Rick Riccobono (International Rights Licensing Consultant)
A recording artist at 16, Rick has spent the majority of his 30 year career to date in music publishing and music rights related ventures. As Vice President of National Creative Affairs at major music publisher CBS Songs, Rick helped establish its international presence in the world marketplace and was instrumental in the acquisition of global powerhouse United Artist Music. He went on to become Vice President of Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) Western Region and Australia where he oversaw the daily activities of performing rights as they related to repertory, new music and TV and Film. He has been honored by the Australian Government as a patron of the Australian Music Business.
In 1998 he was recruited to become the "Chief Music Officer" (and considered first executive to have that title) at digital distribution music start-up Supertracks. There he coordinated the first of its kind digital rights master use licensing deal with EMI International and was responsible for building out the international retail on-line distribution channel. In 2001 Rick launched "Rightsbridge" a music centric international digital rights consultancy and immediately began advising a variety of new on-line and mobile music related ventures on market penetration and rights issues including Napster, Sun Microsystems, Philips/Sony Corporate Alliance Group, SK Wireless, Groove Mobile, Overpeer, 123 Multi-Media, Qtrax, Music Reports, OD2, Audible Magic, Fashion Rocks, and Universal Music Groups VuNet. Rick developed the first ad supported master use and composition rights licensing agreement. Among other consultancies, he is currently uniting the US independent music publishing community under a STIM pan EEA + Switzerland digital rights licensing initiative.
- Current client roster includes:
- New Media Law LLP
- STIM (Swedish Collection Society)
- Universal Music UK
- The Chet Baker Estate
- Audible Magic - P2P mapping and audio fingerprinting of digital music files
- MRI - Music Reports Inc.
- I Like Music - Exclusive supplier of music to the BBC
- SynchTank - Web based platform for that facilities the synchronization process for TV, film and advertising.
- Lime Wire
- The Isle of Man Government - ISP Digital Distribution Strategies
- Qtrax - Digital Strategies
- RightTrack Records and Distribution
- The Touring Company
- Past Board Member:
- National Academy Of Recording Arts And Sciences (The Grammys)
- California Copyright Conference
- Association of Independent Music Publishers
- Society of Composers and Lyricists
- Digital Rights World Wide
- SmartPaper, Inc.
- Rumblefish.com
To see Rick's full CV (in pdf format) use the link below.
Photo Gallery
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BMI's Million Performance Award Presentation to Neil Finn for "Something So Strong", (Left to Right) Mike Chunn, General Manager - APRA (New Zealand), Neil Finn, Grant Thomas and Rick Riccobono, Vice President - BMI.
Rick Riccobono with James Brown
Rick Riccobono with David Bowie
