NORM is an association of Southern African music publishers and composers. Our Board of directors is made up primarily of Managing Directors of major and independent publishing companies. We are a negotiating and licensing body and our main functions is to protect the copyright interests of our members.
NORM licenses many areas of music usage, where music is transferred from one format. Upon transference, a mechanical copyright is raised and a license or permission from the copyright owner must be obtained prior to transfer. NORM facilitates that procedure by having a mandate from its members to issue licenses on their behalf.
NORM therefore acts as a licensing body for production houses and record companies who do not distribute their product through the major record companies. The latter in fact have their own royalty divisions which account directly to the publishers. Our association also licenses commercial music usages in audiovisuals, stage shows where recorded back tracks are used, digital music downloads to cell phones and pcs and promotional cds. Production music licenses are also issued to copyright users. NORM also has blanket licensing arrangements with the three broadcasters (synchronization rights in commercial music usage for TV, radio or cinema advertising must be obtained directly from the publishers).