MTV is leveraging its massively successful Rock Band game to independent artists by introducing Rock Band Network, Rock Band’s own music catalogue and store which budding and established musicians can submit their material for review by Rock Band’s music supervisors. Artists will have total control over the music they submit, from mixing and editing for game related uses to pricing individual tracks for retail. It’s a potentially incredible opportunity to publish and market your music to a very large, loyal and highly-targeted music-loving demographic.
JamLegend is the web-based answer to Guitar Hero and Rock Band, providing a free and social gaming experience that allows users to ‘play along’ with great tracks using their computer key board (which doubles as a guitar if you hold it upright and use the ‘Enter’ key as the plectrum). It’s a fun way to listen to and discover new music, play along with favourite tracks, and compete against like-minded music lovers. JamLegend relies on user-generated music from independent artists. Considering the scope and scale of the video gaming industry, it appears that JamLegend has created are very viable and powerful opportunity for artists and music promoters to garner additional exposure. Here is how to submit your tunes.
TheMusicSnob recently published a post which frowns upon PumpAudio’s changes to its standard licensing agreement, specifically the shift in the 50/50 split to 65/35 in favour of PumpAudio. The post also highlights the practice of ‘Re-Title Publishing’ (also known as ‘Derivative Publishing’) where the song title is registered under an alternate title (e.g. Fields of Gold -> Gold Fields) on the cue sheet so that PumpAudio can collect a portion of the royalties.
PumpAudio was one of the first pre-cleared searchable music libraries that considered submissions from independent artists. The company was acquired by Getty Images in 2007 for $42 million along with a catalogue of 20,000 independent artists. Although the recent shift from 50/50 to 65/35 is bad news for the artist, it is a reflection of deflated upfront synchronization license fees in an increasingly competitive media landscape and down economy.
Re-Title Publishing is an accepted industry practice and serves two principle purposes: It allows the broker to collect backend royalties in addition to frontend fees and protects the songwriter by ensuring that the broker only collects monies for the commercial use(s) he procures. To combat any public confusion that this may cause and benefit the songwriter’s marketing efforts, many films and TV shows offer a “gratis” cue where the original song title is used as opposed to the derivative title in the screen credit roll or music soundtrack release.
Music licensing, a seemingly clandestine industry bisect, is a lucrative business for songwriters and PumpAudio was pivotal to lowering the barrier of entry for upstart and unsigned artists. YouLicense followed suit with an ‘open’ music licensing marketplace and transparent business model.
The Free Music Archive provides a curatorial approach to promoting and discovering music, and allows for the free, legal streaming and downloading of its library’s tracks. Much like an opinion blog, the Free Music Archive acts as a tastemaker with the aid of user generated and suggested content which must first be approved by the site’s curators. Every track on the site is handpicked and pre-cleared for personal use. Users with uploading or editing privileges must be invited. Initial funding for the Free Music Archive came from the New York State Music Fund, a program of the Rockefeller Philanthrophy Advisors.
Sonicbids, the leading online event submission platform, has released a series of plugins for its 14,000+ promoters to better gauge the online presence and reach of the artists they may wish to book through the site. Now, when an artist submits his EPK (Electronic Press Kit) for an event through Sonicbids, the event’s promoter will have access to third-party, public data from Last.fm, Twitter and Google. As such, in addition to reviewing the artist’s content on Sonicbids, a snapshot of number of plays, listeners, mentions, links and posts across other networks should support and streamline the promoter’s selection process.
Sonicbids is home to 150,000 artists and bands, offering an event marketplace for artists to find gigs, and for promoters to secure talent. The site caters to every imaginable music industry sector, with a strong focus on live performances at leading music festivals and conferences, including SXSW, CMJ, Popkomm, Midem, and MusicExpo.
After winning The Singer/Songwriter Awards in the last quarter of 2008, Jesse Terry opted to work with We Are Listening’s accredited music supervisor and founder of Tinderbox Music, Jon Delange, as his prize package. With only ten copies of Jesse’s latest release, “The Runner”, Jon secured no less than nine network-sized television placement licenses on Jesse’s behalf, including MTV (Road Rules, The Real World, Road Rules Challenge, The Hills, The City, Human Giant, My Super Sweet Sixteen, Teen Cribs, Parental Control); E Network (Keeping Up With the Kardashians); and Oxygen Network (Bad Girls Club). The relative ease in which Jon placed “The Runner” is a reflection of Jesse’s adaptive songwriting style and compatibility with today’s leading pop-culture entertainment.
“Just got news that nine TV shows (including The Hills and The City) are interested in using music from my record. I am holding the licenses in my hand!! This is all possible because of We Are Listening and your investment in my career. I’m so grateful. I feel like things are really starting to line-up…” — Jesse
On demand music streaming service, Spotify, has been on my radar since the company announced a distribution deal with CD Baby in the first week of February. CD Baby, the leading force in independent music retail and digital music distribution, represents more than 175,000 artists which account for over one million tracks, all of which are now available through Spotify’s lightweight music streaming application. This licensing deal marks the ‘long-tail’ trend in music availability and consumption, and celebrates the access independent artists have today to mass audiences through pioneering music services, many of which had treated indie talent as nothing more than an afterthought after securing major label catalogues. Under the aphorism of “access not ownership”, the Luxemburg-based company has been growing exponentially since its €15.3m venture capital injection in October 2008 and, in turn, joining an elite group of legal music experience providers such as Pandora, Last.fm, TheSixtyOne, and others, which have found success in catering to music consumers through a balanced and worldly music library whilst reserving significant real-estate for up and coming artists: a pop-culture and grassroots music mix that appears to be paving the way for a new industry. A spot in Spotify’s limelight is not yet available directly for small acts and labels but CD Baby has certainly lowered the barrier of entry. Thank you Derek or, rather, Disc Makers for making this possible…
YouLicense, the first online music licensing marketplace, released a product update last week detailing the launch of Private Label, a new service catering to YouLicense’s target customer base comprising of independent labels and enterprising artists. Private Label is essentially a branded storefront, specifically developed for the streamlined procurement of synchronization and master use music licenses. This is a major turning point for YouLicense which, until now, has very much operated as a destination site and, arguably, the only standalone open marketplace for music licensing. The company has already converted noteworthy distributors and labels including INgrooves, Big Fish Media, AWAL, MBop Digital, Dashgo, and Cyberset Records. Private Label is currently in closed beta but interested parties can request an invitation here.
SoundReef, currently in closed beta, has come up with an interesting angle in a very lucrative ‘indie’ music licensing market which YouLicense.com is competing in and PumpAudio ? acquired by Getty Images in 2007 for $42 million ? has already won a tidy share of. Offering online music licensing solutions for independent artists and small companies, SoundReef hopes to encourage new business by making it possible for clients seeking music for commercial use to license music by compensating the artist (or copyright administrator) with promotional effort. What a clever idea! As most commercial use of music is small-scheme with zero-budget, music buyers now have an alternative currency to barter with and it just so happens to be the most valuable commodity of all for bootstrapping artists: Exposure. Let’s see how this venture kicks off.
I’ve been following Bandcamp for a little while now (see earlier post) and I noticed today that the company made some revisions to its home page. Most notably, Bandcamp created a “features” page which lists the entire suite of tools and services. I was also delighted to learn that Bandcamp now provides Creative Commons licensing designations:
Under the Creative Commons licensing designations, artists who make their music public, in this case via Bandcamp, are providing limited rights to other artists and music fans who wish to remix, share, or use the music in a variety of ways without having to formally ask permission.
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