Background to GRD

In September 2008, then Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes launched a series of Roundtable meetings. The meetings brokered dialogue between industry stakeholders on legal and administrative barriers to the online distribution of music. General agreement was reached on the need for a common framework for consolidating and maintaining accurate data regarding musical works, their ownership and authority to license 

The GRD Working Group started meeting in late 2009, initially focusing on determining how best a common framework for rights ownership information could be achieved. The conclusion of these discussions was that a central repository of authoritative information is needed, the high-level requirements of which were set out in the Request for Information and Request for Proposals that were issued in 2010. The GRD WG received over 30 responses to the RfI, and then 14 responses to the RfP from organisations from within and outside the music industry. Of these, 7 companies were invited to present to the GRD WG their proposals in more detail. This process concluded with the publication of a Recommendations document which included the selection of Deloitte as the project manager and ICE as the technology solution.