PRS for Music has announced a new partnership with Orfium, the leading music rights and metadata management software platform, to expand PRS’s licensing coverage to music users based in Africa.

PRS says that the deal will provide access to tens of millions of works, including many of the most successful songs and compositions of today and the last century. Comprehensive coverage provided by Orfium will extend to public performances (including live events), radio, cable TV as well as local and certain multinational online services.

Orfium will license the PRS repertoire and provide the underlying technology infrastructure used to serve these markets. PRS says that the relationship leverages the proprietary software platform built by Orfium and is expected to drive key speed, discovery and cost efficiencies for PRS. In addition, the agreement will expand the global reach of PRS’s Major Live Concert Service, the market leading royalty collection service for large concerts, which will now be available for events held across Africa.

Finally, PRS says, the partnership with Orfium will sit alongside the existing agreement with SAMRO, the collecting society based in South Africa, for its home territories and provide the framework for PRS members to be paid when their works are used in some of world’s fast growing music markets. To read PRS’s press release in full, click here.