Songtradr Plays Music Matchmaker to Products, Creators, and Consumers

341908LOGO Songtradr made its debut this week, a consumer-friendly B2B platform that simplifies what’s complicated about music ownership and rights.

The Songtradr team’s ambitious goal is nothing less than to redefine the value of music. It’s a one-stop shop for managing, licensing and selling music, simple and affordable enough for anyone to use.

“We see ourselves as connecting the fragmented world of music rights in one place,” explains Songtradr CEO, Paul Wiltshire. His company facilitates deals, matching songs with films, TV, video games, advertisers, YouTubers and others. Using Songtradr, composers and artists collaborate and then find buyers, publishers and labels—all of whom can use Songtradr’s free content management system to organize extensive inventory. It’s a marketplace where music assets are stored, discovered, curated, and monetized.

Unique features include Songtradr’s extraordinary variable pricing calculator, which helps rights holders determine market rate price points based on media usage, budget, term and territory. And for those looking for a personal touch, Songtradr’s matchmakers curate music for carefully targeted audiences.

Fluent Unveils Blockchain-based Global Supply Chain Software Platform

Founded in 2014, Fluent is a blockchain-based financial network and payment platform startup aimed at providing a frictionless operating network for large enterprises and their global supply chains. The company unveiled their enterprise software platform today, the Fluent Network, which enables real-time, low-cost, simple and secure invoicing and payments along global supply chains via blockchain technology for banks, financial institutions, and global enterprises.

Source: Brave New Coin

Getty Images Partners with Video Licensing Platform Rumble

Video licensing platform Rumble announced today that it will make its entire portfolio of social and viral videos available for license by Getty Images’ global customer base, making it the largest source of social video for Getty.

Rumble’s network of 18,000 video creators upload their videos to its platform via the web or iOS and Android apps, which then automatically post them to social sites including YouTube and Facebook. Videos can also be distributed to over 200 Rumble partner sites, including outlets such as Reuters, Yahoo and NBC. In 2015, Rumble creators generated over 74 million views on Rumble.com and 1 billion views across all platforms.

Source: VideoInk

SoundExchange Debuts Search Tool for Song Codes

Need to find an important piece of metadata for a particular recording? SoundExchange has announced the launch of an online tool for looking up the ISRCs, or International Standard Recording Codes, related to the nearly 20 million recordings in its database. ISRC is the standard for identifying sound recordings. Countries have their own ISRC agency that assign the unique numbers.

Each number is comprised of a two-letter country code, a three-character code for the registrant, two numbers for the year, and five numbers assigned by the registrant. The RIAA oversees the ISRC system in the United States and its territories. The IFPI oversees ISRCs globally.A correct ISRC helps ensure the correct label or artist is paid a performance royalty when the recording is streamed by webcasters such as Pandora and satellite radio service SiriusXM Radio.

At any given time, SoundExchange has tens of millions of dollars in undistributed royalties because it has received inaccurate or incomplete data from a service.

Source: Billboard

NBC Changes Contract to Adam Levine’s ‘Songland’ After Claim of Rights Overreach

NBC dialed back the rights it is claiming for applicants to Adam Levine‘s new songwriting competition, “Songland,” in the wake of a Wrap story that pointed out overreaching with potential contestants.

The words “if I am selected to be a participant on the Program” were added to the submission application signed by songwriters vying to be on the show after TheWrap published a story on Saturday pointing out that the network was claiming royalty rights for all submissions, whether or not they became contestants.

Source: The Wrap

Would ‘100 Percent Licensing’ Unshackle the Market for Music, or Make it Worse?

As we’ve covered in recent months here at the R Street Institute, the U.S. Justice Department is in the midst of its review (and possible modification) of the agreements (called “consent decrees”) that govern the operation of the nation’s two leading performance rights organizations (PROs).

These groups – the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) – are responsible for collecting and distributing royalties from the performance of musical compositions under copyright.

The agreements place restrictions – originating from antitrust concerns, on the one hand, and fear of heavy-handed regulation, on the other – on the two entities’ operations, through which the vast majority of our nation’s musical works are licensed. While no one would describe this system as an inherently good or logical one, it’s important to weigh how any modifications would affect the tenuous balance currently in place.

Source: R Street

Paramount Pictures Puts Hundreds of Full Movies on YouTube for Free

As the music business continues to question the value coming back to rights-holders from YouTube, the movie industry just made a historic pact with the Google-owned giant.

Paramount Pictures has launched a new channel on YouTube that allows users to watch hundreds of licensed movies, in full, for free.

As you might expect, there aren’t too many classics within the trove.

Why has Paramount – a subsidiary of MTV owner Viacom – taken this step? No doubt to capture some advertising revenue from an assortment of films which would otherwise go unwatched.

Source: Music Business Worldwide

We Can Work It Out: How Brands Can Master Music Rights

If a picture paints a thousand words, then a well-placed soundtrack can bring those visuals to life and create a lasting emotional connection.

Think of the use of The Velvet Underground’s malevolent Venus in Furs in a Dunlop TV spot for tyres. At the other end of the musical spectrum, soft and gentle cover versions by Lily Allen and Aurora are likely to become forever synonymous with Christmas, gifts and John Lewis.

However, if music appears to be an easy win for advertisers, this overlooks the complexities of what goes on beneath the surface, where the music rights business can often jeopardise the creative ambitions of even the best marketers.

Many brand teams fall in love with one song, for example, and are held to ransom on commercial terms. That or a they’re forced to accept restrictive licences that lack the permissions needed for the rollout of their global campaign.

From my experience brokering deals for brands, this disconnect is frequently the result of poor planning and leaving the licensing process to the last minute. However, it need not be a nightmare.

Source: The Guardian

Artists Turn to Bitcoin for Inspiration, Not Personal Finance

When it comes to bitcoin’s use as money, word-of-mouth has been its biggest asset.

The journey from Internet obscurity to interest from financial incumbents has been a long one, but it started with passionate users, willing to discuss its benefits with friends, and those friends, intrigued by the idea, began to explore – and spend – the currency themselves.

Bitcoin, because of its peer-to-peer design, thrives on connection.

As this conversation goes viral, talk of digital currencies is spreading across the globe, and one community that has been drawn to bitcoin (and the blockchain) is artists. To date, this includes big-name festival staple Imogen Heap and rappers-turned-venture capitalists Nas and 50 Cent, among others.

Source: CoinDesk

Monetizing Mobile Gaming

The mobile gaming industry made $29 billion in 2015 — and it is only set to continue growing (with estimates as high as $49 billion by 2018).

But the mobile gaming industry is in the “wild west” phase of its history right now, with the constant improvement of mobile devices and so many variables to successful monetization. Though it’s difficult to know exactly what mobile will be like in a few years, here’s what I see influencing the mobile gaming space in 2016.

Source: TechCrunch

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