Licensing

Music discovery, recommendation, creation startups at Midem

Tracklib is a new music marketplace where people discover, buy and license stems from original tracks. CEO Pär Almqvist presented its technology. “We’ve sampled since the 1970s, but getting access to separate stems is almost possible, and buying a commercial licence is very complicated and expensive,” he said.

“So DJs and producers turn to piracy… Talented producers are stuck with generic sounds, and sound designers are kinda stuck in the elevator with catalogue music.” Tracklib thinks the potential market for these “music building blocks” is enormous.

Source: Music discovery, recommendation, creation startups at #Midem

ConsenSys And SingularDTV Partner to Build Film & TV Rights Management Platform 

SingularDTV (S-DTV), a first-of-its-kind Blockchain entertainment studio, is partnering with venture production studio ConsenSys to build a smart contract-based rights management platform for film and television on the Ethereum Blockchain.

Based on ConsenSys’ rights management prototype, Ujo Music, ConsenSys will support the S-DTV service, enabling it to attach usage policies and real-time revenue flow to its video and media content.

Source: ConsenSys And SingularDTV Partner to Build Film & TV Rights Management Platform – Blockchain News

Europe’s Geoblocking Decision: What You Need to Know 

It was previously believed the EU regulator wanted to “unblock the geo-blocks,” which would in theory have prevented companies from blocking access to their services if a user was accessing them from outside an “approved” area. The BBC’s state-funded iPlayer, officially unusable outside of the U.K., could have been affected by such a proposal, but this is not something the watchdog is addressing as part of its announcements today.

“The proposed ‘anti-geo-blocking’ regulation doesn’t do what it says on the tin,” said Julia Reda, a member of the European Parliament’s Green group. “When most Europeans hear the term ‘geo-blocking,’ they think of the all-too-common error message that ‘this video is not available in your country’ — and yet the measures presented today will not do anything to address this. An anti-geo-blocking regulation that does not cover online video content misses the point.”

Source: Europe’s Geoblocking Decision: What You Need to Know – Bloomberg

Rights and the Set-top Box

The formal comsettop _box_openment period in the Federal Communications Commission’s set-top box proceeding closed this week after tallying 256,747 submissions. Most were canned comments submitted by consumers who had been rounded up for the purpose by interest groups on both sides of the issue. But the controversial proposal to require pay-TV providers to “unlock” the set-top box and make disaggregated elements of their service available to third-party device makers and app developers also drew over 1,000 substantive comments from rights owners, members of the pay-TV industry, technology providers and other agencies of government involved in telecommunications policy.

Pan-European Licensing Hub ICE Strikes Deal With Google Play

Designed to enable faster, more cost efficient and simplified rights negotiations for digital music services operating in Europe, the licensing and royalty processing service collectively represents over 250,000 songwriters.

The organization bills itself as the world’s first integrated licensing and processing hub and claims to have the most comprehensive copyright database in Europe. It says it will process online music usage through a single matching engine that will eliminate “unnecessary processing” and significantly reduce disputed claims.

Source: Pan-European Licensing Hub ICE Strikes Deal With Google Play | Billboard

Dubset signs deal for indie publisher rights with NMPA

Independent publisher and songwriter members of the National Music Publishers’ Association can now sign up to be paid royalties each time their compositions are used in mix content that’s distributed to digital music services by Dubset. The new deal is the result of a rights agreement between Dubset Media Holdings and the NMPA.

NMPA members who opt-in to the agreement will have access to Dubset’s MixBANK platform where they can set terms and rules around how and where their catalogue may be used in mix content.

Source: Dubset signs deal for indie publisher rights with NMPA – Music Business Worldwide

Report: New Euro law could put film, TV audiences at risk of substantial loss of content 

The report calculates that changes to copyright and other initiatives at the EU level could result in substantially lower levels of investment in TV and film content, with consumer welfare losses worth up to €9.3 billion. This, it said, would be a direct result of those consumers losing access to content they currently enjoy, being charged more, or being priced out completely. It further asserts that up to 48% less local TV content in certain genres and 37% less local film production would be produced, with the most marginal/risky content at particular risk of being dropped.

The report was launched with the support of a broad group of sponsors, including film and audiovisual producers, distributors, broadcasters, platforms and film agencies throughout Europe and across the world. The group urges the European Commission to re-think its proposals to erode the territorial exploitation of film and TV content and avoid any proposals or other initiatives that would undermine film and television licensing and financing, including the decision to license on an exclusive territorial basis.

Source: New Euro law claimed to be putting film, TV audiences at risk of substantial loss of content | Media Analysis | Business

YouTube launches tool to enable ‘faster, more accurate royalty distributions’ 

YouTube has built a new tool which it says will deliver ‘more accurate reporting of music content’ to music publishers and collection societies. As a result, the Google-owned business believes it will set into motion ‘a faster and more accurate payout and distribution of royalties’.

The new tech is pretty… technical sounding: a new open-source implementation and validation tool for DDEX’s Digital Sales Report Flat File (DSRF). In a nutshell, that’s the industry standard format for digital licensees to report sales and usage to music licensors for both audio and audio-visual content.

Source: YouTube launches tool to enable ‘faster, more accurate royalty distributions’ – Music Business Worldwide

Music’s Middleman Problem: It’s Not What You Think

seabrook-will-streaming-music-kill-songwriting-690Venture capitalist and former music startup founder David Pakman has compiled some grim statistics on the survival rate of VC-backed music services. “Since 1997, according to PitchBook, approximately 175 digital music companies were created and funded by venture investors. Of those, approximately 33 were acquired by larger companies, often for less money than their investors put in,” he writes in a blog post on Medium, taken in part from testimony he gave last year before the Copyright Royalty Board. “Of those who have exited, I believe only seven achieved meaningful venture returns for their investors by returning more than $25 million in profit to their investors (Last.FM, Spinner, MP3.com, Gracenote, Thumbplay, Pandora and possibly The Echo Nest), representing an investor success rate of only approximately 4%, far below that of other internet and technology market segments.

Central music rights database would benefit songwriters

Tim DuBoisToday – in America and globally – the multi-billion-dollar music industry is mired in a Rubik’s Cube of rights administration and royalty payment systems. The current massive multiplayer infrastructure does not serve songwriters, record companies, digital services or consumers.

But what if Congress could ensure that music creators are paid more without increasing music users’ royalty costs? Imagine infringement risks reduced without diminishing creators’ rights. We – an award-winning songwriter and a longtime digital music advocate – believe these benefits are possible, and even probable, if music ownership data is effectively and efficiently collected, validated and utilized by industry stakeholders.

Source: Central music rights database would benefit songwriters

Get the latest RightsTech news and analysis delivered directly in your inbox every week
We respect your privacy.