HitPiece Officially Launches Music Artist NFT Platform and Announces First-of-its-Kind Partnership with Audible Magic to Ensure Authentic Experiences
Music NFT marketplace gaining popularity inks deals with a number of leading artists, including ATL Jacob, Lil Gotit, Lil Gnar, Matt Ox
PROVO, UTAH – August 10, 2022 – HitPiece, the easiest place to create and buy authentic music artist NFTs, has officially launched its platform out of beta. In addition, the company - to protect creators and other rights holders and demonstrate their commitment to authenticity - has announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with Audible Magic, the leader in identifying music rights that enable music use by social media platforms, NFT marketplaces, metaverses, and gaming applications.
The new integration with Audible Magic marks the first of its kind music NFT and Web 3.0 partnership incorporating automated identification services to determine ownership and related rights. Audible Magic’s RightsRx™ service compares uploaded audio to its authoritative content registry of more than 25 million media assets from the creators, music labels and publishers. HitPiece will use Audible Magic’s identification technology to help verify ownership of new music prior to minting of an NFT; thus ensuring only legitimate content is distributed. Audible Magic identifies content so creators can focus on maximizing Web 3.0’s new revenue and engagement opportunities rather than losing earnings to fraudulent sellers.
“We’re excited to join the rapidly growing innovative NFT, Metaverse and Web 3.0 marketplace with HitPiece to continue our commitment to protecting creator rights,” said Vance Ikezoye, President and CEO of Audible Magic. “Through our extensive music registry, music creators and related rights holders on and off HitPiece can be assured the content they own is protected; or monetized where permission has been granted.”
“Following many positive conversations with artists, we’re excited to launch the official HitPiece platform to provide creators with a new way to engage with fans and build metaverse communities,” said Rory Felton, CEO and co-founder of HitPiece and music industry veteran. “As someone who has seen every corner of the industry, too often creators are not in control of how and when they can release content. NFTs for music artists will continue to expand, and we’re grateful for partners like Audible Magic who help us ensure we have guardrails to provide an easy and secure one-stop shop for those in the music community joining the expanding world of Web3.”
Felton co-founded The Militia Group in 2000, a record label that Sony invested in and later acquired the major assets of. In 2021, he co-founded HitPiece to create an NFT marketplace that allowed music creators to easily mint digital assets and build the future of Web3 communities. Built for crypto first-timers, music artists/owners, and music fans, the platform makes NFTs simple to collect and show off, while providing a channel for artists to enjoy exclusive engagement opportunities with their fanbases. Once artists sign up and are verified, they are granted access to their own portal and page where they can upload creative content and control the minting, release, and utility of their NFTs. Fans can purchase NFTs from their favorite music creators to get access to exclusive experiences and content, including music, as well as show off their fandom in their own ultimate metaverse music room.
Since the end of the beta phase, HitPiece has collaborated and finalized deals with dozens of creators including ATL Jacob, who recently topped Billboard’s Hot 100 Producers and Songwriters Charts. In addition to providing artists with their own page, the HitPiece team also guides creators and their teams through the creative ideation process, collaborating with them on launch timeline, marketing strategies, and community development initiatives in channels such as Discord.
“In music, Web3 has significant potential to be a catalyst for increasing artistic integrity, control, and engagement for any musician, no matter their reach,” said ATL Jacob. “I’m grateful to partner with organizations like HitPiece that understand the business first-hand and put hardworking creators first, and I hope the rest of the industry continues to follow suit.”
Creators can register with HitPiece now to begin minting and selling their NFT collections. Fans can connect to the marketplace with their private metamask wallet for their favorite artists’ digital content and exclusive experiences at www.hitpiece.com. Additional wallet integrations to be announced in the future.
About HitPiece
HitPiece is a Web3 software that enables rights holders to sell and mint NFTs. Created by a team of music and blockchain experts, HitPiece is a conduit between the communities of collectors of NFT’s and artists. All NFT’s for sale on HitPiece are authentic and official straight from the creators, unlocking a new way for artists to engage with their fanbases and create a layer of community ownership. For more information or to begin using your cryptocurrency wallet to purchase exclusive experiences, access, content and more, visit https://www.hitpiece.com.
About Audible Magic
For more than 20 years, Audible Magic has innovated solutions to identify content, provide fulfillment solutions, manage rights, and monetize media. Audible Magic’s Emmy-winning automatic content recognition (ACR) technology powers billions of monthly transactions. The Silicon Valley pioneer is the trusted intermediary between major platforms and rights holders (including labels, studios, distributors, publishers, and collectives). For more information, visit https://www.audiblemagic.com/.
BMAT and Audible Magic Partnership to Deliver Global Music Rights Administration Services to the Metaverse
BMAT Music Innovators and Audible Magic Partnership to Deliver Global Music Rights Administration Services to the Metaverse
Los Gatos, Calif. – April 19, 2022 – BMAT Music Innovators will team with Audible Magic to deliver a world-class rights and royalty administration service to Digital Service Providers (DSPs). Music licensing is quickly evolving with the rapid technological advancements in social media, fitness, gaming, podcasts, live streaming, NFT platforms, and other Web 3.0 applications. Rights administration vendors need to keep pace with the ever-changing needs of these emerging DSPs. The partnership between BMAT and Audible Magic combines the industry-leading capabilities of both companies in content recognition, content fulfillment, data matching, royalty and claims reconciliation, machine learning, and copyright expertise.
The administration of music licenses worldwide requires scalable and flexible technology solutions combined with a global view of music rights to ensure DSPs and rightsholders can effectively work together to deliver outstanding music experiences around the world. This partnership lets users listen to the music they want and how they want it while artists, songwriters, and other rights holders are correctly paid.
BMAT works with all industry players to amplify the value of music, including over 100 Collective Management Organizations (CMOs) and Performance Rights Organizations (PROs) across 124 countries. As part of its mission to index all music usage and ownership data, BMAT facilitates a thriving relationship between DSPs and CMOs, at both operational and business levels. By bringing their technical expertise into play, they enable the automation of metadata-complete music reports from over 40 DSPs worldwide.
"We're delighted to partner with Audible Magic to support and enhance the processes behind music usage for various platforms. Their turnkey services of music delivery and identification, as well as relationships with record labels combined with our understanding and associations with publishers, CMOs, and PROs will enable platforms to better manage music licenses and reputation within the creators' community," said Jakue López Armendáriz, VP of Digital at BMAT.
"This partnership will be a net positive for both music creators and businesses since it'll make it much easier for new platforms to include music in their services while ensuring that creators get paid accurately and fairly," said Dani Balcells, BMAT's Regional Manager for North America.
Audible Magic, known for its Emmy award-winning automated content recognition services, has added the world’s most extensive music catalog in the last year consisting of over 100 million tracks, music fulfillment, and rights administration to its capabilities. Platforms that provide music-based experiences, whether it is user-generated content (UGC) on social media or virtual experiences in the metaverse, can engage one vendor, Audible Magic, to help power those experiences to end-users no matter their location.
“I am excited that we have found such a complementary partner in BMAT. Managing music rights requires different approaches from territory to territory. The partnership combines our strengths to bring creative music delivery and licensing models to the market,” said Vance Ikezoye, President and CEO of Audible Magic. “BMAT’s capabilities are a key part of Audible Magic’s ability to provide platforms with a single point of contact to use music in territories worldwide seamlessly.”
About Audible Magic
For more than 20 years, Audible Magic has innovated solutions to identify content, provide fulfillment solutions, manage rights, and monetize media. Audible Magic’s Emmy-winning automatic content recognition (ACR) technology powers billions of monthly transactions. The Silicon Valley pioneer is the trusted intermediary between major platforms and rights holders (including labels, studios, distributors, publishers, and collectives). For more information, visit https://www.audiblemagic.com/.
About BMAT Music Innovators
BMAT is a music innovation company with a mission to index all music usage and ownership data. They help all different companies in the music industry better their data operations to make sure artists get paid for their plays. Every day BMAT delivers 27 billion matches and 80 million identifications to CMOs, publishers, record labels, broadcasters, and DSPs globally.
Driven by machine learning and copyright expertise, BMAT’s Music Operating System pumps neutral data and authoritative knowledge to everyone along the chain. Everyone who makes or uses music can plug in to ease operations, increase earnings, and get in sync with everyone else.
Contacts:
Julia Hutchinson
Audible Magic Marketing Manager
[email protected]
Diana-Emilia Bolboacă
BMAT Communications Manager
[email protected]
Maximize the Value of Licensed Music
Our everyday online experiences would not be the same without music as a backdrop. Whether it is another dance challenge on a social network, the latest concert on a gaming platform, or a challenging online spin class, these experiences are better with music.
The market is experiencing a convergence of services as platforms strive to capture users’ attention and build a community. In this dynamic online market, we see platforms changing formats from short-form to long-form content, offering experiences such as live-streaming concerts that are beyond their original mission and expanding into new territories as their user base grows. Music use is converging with social media platforms now licensing music while music streaming platforms are enabling UGC uploads.
As a key part of a platform’s offering, a music catalog becomes an important asset and is integral to a platform's current and future success. There are several steps that will help a company maximize its catalog.
- First, a platform will want to clear as many tracks as possible.
- Second, the company will need to monitor music use to identify usage trends and understand what additional music, such as a new genre, it may need.
- Finally, a platform will need to build strong relationships with rightsholders by consistently meeting contractual obligations.
The mechanics of managing a catalog can be complex. While some platforms keep catalog management in-house, most turn to vendors for assistance.
Key Hiring Decisions: Identification, Fulfillment and Rights Administration
Once a platform obtains licenses, whether for user-generated content, fitness, gaming or music listening, the next critical phase is to hire one or more vendors to enable the mechanics of the licenses, and power the music experience for the end-user. This includes the identification of songs to know which tracks are allowed or not in UGC uploads (Identification); the delivery of cleared, licensed music to the end-users (Fulfillment); and the tracking, reporting and royalty payments for use of licensed music (Rights Administration).
Hiring these vendors is a crucial step that can impact:
- The breadth of music available
- Building trust with labels, publishers and CMOs, especially timely and accurate royalty payments
- Quickly expanding territories coverage for the service
- Ensuring new releases are quickly cleared and available
The Advantage of a Single-Vendor Solution for Fulfillment and Rights Administration
Platforms often use multiple vendors. This solution can work. However, there is an advantage to using a single vendor with established relationships that is responsible for both receiving and reconciling multiple data streams from unrelated data sources including labels, publishers, PROs, and CMOs; and traversing the complexities of tracking, reporting and payments.
For UGC-hosting platforms, having an identification vendor along with fulfillment and rights administration in one vendor adds to the ease of managing data, reconciliation, reporting, and payment.
If there are issues clearing tracks, site owners will avoid having to coordinate between multiple vendors to find a resolution. A delay or lack of resolution may result in fewer tracks being available to end-users and the challenge of reconciliation and clearance only increases as a platform’s catalog grows and expands into new territories.
Insights into the Catalog
A strong vendor will also provide insights into the constant changes that happen with a catalog at the operational delivery and the business level, including new songs, restricted artists, and territory changes. Offering additional insights like providing a list of new releases that are relevant to the platform’s end users.
Finally, an experienced rights administrator will produce accurate and timely reporting to meet each rightsholder’s requirements across multiple territories and parties. This solidifies a positive working relationship between rightsholders and the platform and sets the stage for future licensing opportunities.
Audible Magic Offers a Suite of Integrated Services to Manage Music
- Licensing Support – Understand what is cleared and not cleared
- Fulfillment – Deliver cleared music to your platform now
- Content Identification – ID and track music on your platform
- Royalty Administration and Payment – Report royalties and pay labels, publishers, CMOs and PROs
Contact us to learn more about how we offer a single vendor solution for managing music on music-hosting platforms.
Bolo Indya Partners with Audible Magic to Manage Licensed and Unlicensed Use of Music
New Delhi, 21 July, 2021: Bolo Indya, India’s first home-grown and most preferred social live-streaming platform, announced that it has partnered with Audible Magic, the leading provider of rights management and identification solutions. The partnership allows Bolo Indya to proactively manage both occurrences of licensed and unlicensed copyrighted media on their site.
Bolo Indya needed an identification service known for accuracy, ease of use and offered an extensive registry of music from around the world, including native music. Bolo Indya worked with Audible Magic to quickly deploy the scalable identification service to respond to the explosive growth in live streaming and short-form videos on their site.
Commenting on the development Varun Saxena - CEO and Founder, Bolo Indya said: “We are committed to providing industry-leading copyright solutions for user-generated content on our platform. This expanded solution will use Audible Magic’s robust technology to support the compliance and licensing of user-generated content on our platform. We are delighted to partner with Audible Magic to help us achieve our goal.”
Bolo Indya is the first of its kind indigenous live streaming platform and is off to a blazing start with a new redemption method, dual live streaming, and other features. Bolo Live, the live streaming capability by Bolo Indya has been embraced by many renowned organizations and personalities since its launch. In the past few months, the platform has witnessed some special moments on Live, including informational talks about COVID-19 by health experts, Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi talking to thousands of viewers through MannKiBaat, Ministry of AYUSH hosting International Yoga Day Live on Bolo Indya, interviews with celebrities, and record-breaking viewership.
Audible Magic provides proven solutions for platforms to protect their brand’s reputation while using music in user-generated content, streaming, radio, and downloads. Platforms can speed time to market by avoiding building the extensive systems needed to identify content, manage licenses, and ensure they meet their reporting and payment obligations.
Vance Ikezoye, President and CEO at Audible Magic: “We are pleased to help Bolo Indya to identify licensed and unlicensed use of copyrighted music proactively. The partnership leverages our strength in content identification technology, coupled with the trust we’ve built with rights holders.”
About Audible Magic
For more than 20 years, Audible Magic has innovated solutions to identify content, provide fulfillment solutions, manage rights, and monetize media. Audible Magic’s Emmy-winning automatic content recognition (ACR) technology powers billions of monthly transactions. The Silicon Valley pioneer is the trusted intermediary between major platforms and rightsholders (including labels, studios, distributors, publishers, and collectives). The company works with a wide range of platforms and rights holders, including Facebook, Twitch, SoundCloud, Dailymotion, Vimeo, NBC Universal, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, The Orchard, CDBaby, and DistroKid. For more information, visit audiblemagic.com .
About Bolo Indya
Bolo Indya is the fastest-growing social live streaming platform. Bolo Indya stands unique as it works towards empowering the next billion internet users of India, by allowing them to transform their social capital and virality into financial independence by unlimited earning every month. It brings to the table the amalgamation of short videos, local languages, UGC as a driver, and Passion economy as the fuel for empowering the internet users of Bharat, taking the penetration of peer-to-peer financial transactions to tier 2 and tier 3 cities of India.
The Bolo-Live streaming feature comes with an integrated real-time gamification in the form of a gifting option where creators can be rewarded by their follower base basis the content quality, density as well as engagement which can be redeemed in cash on the Bolo Indya platform.
The EU Copyright Directive Went Into Effect on June 7, 2021 — Are You Ready?
EU member states were given until June 7, 2021, to transpose the EU Copyright Directive into national legislation. This law affects most online content sharing service providers, including social media platforms, that make available, organize and promote for profit-making purposes copyrighted content uploaded by users. Despite the pandemic slowing the process, several states, including Germany, France, Hungary, and the Netherlands, have completed transposing or adopting the directive into their country’s law. Other countries are not far behind, but the reality is that platforms need to comply on June 7th.
The UK, having left the EU, will not be implementing the directive.
What are the Key Things You Need to Know?
The two main provisions of the directive for platforms include:
- Obtaining licenses for content on their sites
- Preventing the availability of unauthorized content
Other provisions include setting up a user appeals process and preventing reuploads of previously notified content.
Does the Directive Impact All Providers?
The Directive specified that certain platforms were exempt from these obligations. First, non-profits in defined areas such as online encyclopedias and scientific repositories, like Wikipedia and Archive.org, are excluded. Second, small companies will not need to prevent unauthorized content but must still respond to takedown notices and pursue licensing. Courts will apply the principle of proportionality in assessing whether a service provider has complied with its obligations based on the type of service, size, audience, type of works, and availability of suitable and effective measures. Finally, platforms that are not providing access or now chose to block access to those who live in the EU will not have to conform to the directive.
Rightsholders’ Obligations
Rightsholders also have obligations. For example, they must provide relevant and necessary information to enable a platform to identify content that cannot be made available on their site. This is key. If this information is not provided directly or through a vendor such as Audible Magic, the platform’s only obligations are to respond to takedown notices.
We recommend you consult with appropriate legal counsel as you implement provisions to meet the Directive.
How to Move Forward
Audible Magic is here to help service providers with meeting the new legislation by offering services to:
Use our identification services for audio and video to help prevent hosting unauthorized copyrighted content
- Identify unauthorized or authorized copyrighted content.
- Implement stay-down measures for unauthorized copyrighted content.
- Track activity for reporting purposes.
Access and Manage Licenses
Audible Magic offers sub-licenses for music or, where possible, helps facilitate obtaining licenses directly from a rightsholder. In addition, we offer proven services to ingest and clear catalogs and perform royalty reporting and payments.
Learn More about the Copyright Directive
- Take our A17 Assessment Survey
- Read the EU Copyright Directive
- Learn more about the Copyright Directive by visiting our resource page
Music Industry Moves: Critical Content, Quality Control Join Forces for Urban Music Film and TV Projects - Variety
"Vydia has entered into an agreement with Audible Magic which will allow independent creators to access a catalog of new music for customers such as social networks, gaming, and fitness platforms. Vydia’s library includes work by Five Finger Death Punch, Russ, Akon and Kanye’s Sunday Service Choir and also acts as a white label service for 40 music labels."
Read the full article by Variety here.
Vydia Strikes Agreement with Audible Magic, Partnership Allows Independent Creators to Join World’s Most Extensive B2B Music Catalog
As part of Audible Magic’s ongoing mission to help platforms access music for their users, Audible Magic recently announced its partnership with the global music technology platform, Vydia. The partnership with Vydia allows Audible Magic to expand its catalog of new music to its customers such as social networks, gaming, and fitness platforms.
Vydia brings a library of top talent from independent artists from all over the world, including Five Finger Death Punch, Russ, Akon, and Kanye’s Sunday Service Choir. In addition, the platform offers a white label service, currently utilized by nearly 40 labels all over the world, with a list that continues to expand globally. With a vision to provide the infrastructure and tools to power the business of music, adding Audible Magic to Vydia’s ongoing list of distribution channels will further enable discovery and engagement opportunities for creators while maintaining the correct metadata and licensing.
Audible Magic provides platforms with a fully integrated solution for music management, including licensing, fulfillment, rights administration, and content identification. The company hosts the largest business-to-business rights-managed catalog with over 100 million tracks.
On the partnership, Vydia’s Head of Strategic Partnerships, Jenna Tirico Nilsen says "We're thrilled to be partnering with Audible Magic to help them achieve their aim of providing breakthrough music solutions around the world. We are delighted to be a part of their efforts to develop products that solve the demands of the ever-changing music and entertainment industry."
“We are excited to work with Vydia to provide new opportunities for their artists,” commented Vance Ikezoye, Chief Executive Officer of Audible Magic. “Access to great music is key for our customers as they build compelling user experiences to grow their audiences, whether it is for an exercise class, a social media post, or a gaming experience. We are happy to enable that to happen through our fulfillment and rights management services.”
About Vydia:
Vydia is an end-to-end music technology platform and services company that provides labels with the infrastructure and tools to power their business. With a full suite of services, Vydia offers video and audio supply chain, global distribution, analytics, rights management, payments, detailed revenue reporting, and white label services. Vydia is a partner of leading digital service providers such as Spotify, Apple, TikTok, Vevo, YouTube, and Facebook. Combining innovative technology with industry expertise, Vydia is distribution reimagined.
About Audible Magic:
For more than 20 years, Audible Magic has innovated solutions to identify content, provide fulfillment solutions, manage rights, and monetize media. Audible Magic’s Emmy-winning automatic content recognition (ACR) technology powers billions of monthly transactions. The Silicon Valley pioneer is the trusted intermediary between major platforms and rights holders (including labels, studios, distributors, publishers, and collectives). For more information, visit https://www.audiblemagic.com/.
Audible Magic Sponsors 22nd International Society for Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR) Conference
Los Gatos, Calif. — Nov. 5, 2021 — Audible Magic, the industry leader in automatic content recognition, proudly supports the continued research of music identification by sponsoring the International Society for Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR) Conference. This event is the world’s leading research forum on processing, searching, organizing, and accessing music-related data, and will be held online this year from November 8-12.
The ISMIR Conference provides academic and commercial research teams an opportunity to share the latest advancements in artificial intelligence and neural network solutions to identify music and retrieve related metadata. Recognizing the importance of the ISMIR organization, our research team has often presented at and participated in the conference and values interacting with the members. The ISMIR community stays at the leading edge of development, and Audible Magic is excited to support its efforts at this forum.
“As platforms such as social networks, fitness apps, and gaming platforms push the boundaries of how they use music, our research team continues to expand the capabilities of identification technology to meet their needs,” said Todd McGee, Vice President of Research and Development at Audible Magic. “The ISMIR conference is a great place to exchange ideas and new findings.”
As a leading player in the identification space with over 50 patents, Audible Magic continues to innovate. The company now offers platforms an integrated music management solution that includes media fulfillment, rights administration, and its Emmy award-winning identification services.
About Audible Magic
For more than 20 years, Audible Magic has innovated solutions to identify content, provide fulfillment solutions, manage rights, and monetize media. Audible Magic’s Emmy-winning automatic content recognition (ACR) technology powers billions of monthly transactions. The Silicon Valley pioneer is the trusted intermediary between major platforms and rightsholders (including labels, studios, distributors, publishers, and collectives). The company works with a wide range of platforms and rights holders, including Facebook, Twitch, SoundCloud, Dailymotion, ShareChat, Vimeo, NBC Universal, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, The Orchard, CDBaby, and DistroKid. For more information, visit https://www.audiblemagic.com/.
Why is Music Such a Challenge for the Fitness App Industry?
The burgeoning Fitness App industry offers incredible workout experiences and a sense of community, but integrating music poses unique technical and licensing challenges.
The health and fitness app industry is growing leaps and bounds, with some predictions putting the market at US$ 18.7 billion by 2030. The growth is driven not only by better real-time data and equipment, but the worldwide pandemic is driving consumers to find a quality workout at home.
Combining high-quality equipment with classes is now a given for companies like Echelon, Hydrow, and CLMBR. These platforms strive to expand their offerings to their fan base with additional classes on and off the equipment - think yoga, strength training, and Pilates.
Instructors with a worldwide reach on these platforms are gaining almost cult followings. Participants accessing either a web streaming or an on-demand class expect an experience that delivers a workout and a sense of community and emotional connection.
Music: Got to have it
The underpinning of the experience is music. It sets the mood, drives the workout, and becomes part of the instructor’s brand. Class reviewers talk equally about the instructor and their choice of music-many reviewing the playlist before choosing a class.
Instructors who understand this build their class around music, whether it is an hour of EDM, 80s greats, or Miley Cyrus. A large catalog of premium music enables continued class creation and engagement. Recognizing this new vertical for music, record labels are partnering with platforms to create remixes and break new artists.
So, accessing music for these platforms is key to their business. The challenge is getting licenses and handling the overhead of administering the licenses.
Licensing: Infrastructure, Infrastructure, and More Infrastructure!
One of the first major hurdles that a platform needs to consider when approaching record labels is proof of technical competency.
Record labels and publishers want assurance that the platform can effectively manage their catalogs while also reporting and paying accurately. Unfortunately, these systems take a lot of licensing expertise, time, and technical resources to build.
The quickest way to move licensing negotiations forward is to partner with an experienced and full-service digital music management vendor before engagement. This service provider will often have the trust of the record labels, access to the masters, sub-licenses, and proven systems for:
- Receiving the music and continuous updates from the labels
- Identifying content to ensure appropriate use
- Linking the sound recording to the musical composition to clear tracks for use, and ensuring proper payment to the publisher(s)
- Reporting and Payments
Very few will provide all those functions, but those who do will make vendor management a lot simpler.
Licenses for Live Streaming and On-Demand
Generally, fitness platforms provide live-streamed classes which may or may not be stored, and they offer on-demand classes. Therefore, in consultation with a music industry expert or lawyer, these platforms will need to obtain appropriate licenses from labels, publishers, and collective management organizations (CMOs) covering the territories they will operate in.
Once they have secured licenses, the platform will have technical and service requirements to ensure only licensed tracks are used and to meet their ongoing licensing obligations as listed below:
- Establish an extensive catalog with matched sound recordings to musical compositions
- Host an approved catalog for use by instructors
- Identify licensed and unlicensed tracks using content identification technology
- Reporting, royalty administration, and payments to rights holders
It is hard enough to administer hundreds of thousands, and in some cases millions of tracks, but the difficulty increases trying to keep up with the continuous changes in catalog ownership. Platforms will need to identify tracks in their current on-demand classes and possibly replace songs when ownership has changed.
One can see that a platform hosting both live-streaming and on-demand classes will have many licensing obligations and will need a partner to help manage the process.
Let Audible Magic Help Manage Music on Your Platform
Audible Magic enables platforms to focus on growing their business by providing world-class proven music management solutions, including:
- Licensing Support - Understand what is cleared and not cleared.
- Fulfillment - Deliver cleared music to your platform now
- Content Identification - ID & track music on your platform
- Royalty Administration and Payment – Royalty reporting and payment to labels, publishers, CMOs and PROs
This blog is issued for informational purposes only and is not intended to be construed or used as general legal advice.
Is The MLC Part of Your Overall Licensing Strategy?
The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) continues to make strides in building its new team and has already begun to receive payments from digital service providers (DSPs). It is great to see the progress in a much-needed organization that will help simplify license administration for rightsholders and DSPs in the United States.
Some may be unclear about the scope of The MLC in the complete context of all of the rights required to distribute music. All entities that use music, whether on streaming sites, social networks, workout platforms, or yes, even permanent download stores, need to understand if The MLC fits into their overall licensing strategy or not.
What is The MLC?
The MLC is an organization born out of the Music Modernization Act of 2018 (MMA). The MMA updated how mechanical rights in musical compositions are licensed for music streaming and download services. Previously, under Section 115 of the U.S. Copyright Act, DSPs downloading or streaming music could use a compulsory license to license the mechanical rights in musical compositions made available through their services. Using this type of license, a music user would be required to license each musical composition on a share-by-share basis and to provide notice reporting and payments to publishers, administrators, and self-administered songwriters, composers, and lyricists. With the massive volume of music these platforms host, the process was challenging to say the least.
Under the MMA, qualifying DSPs in the United States can elect to secure a blanket mechanical license for music for streaming and downloads. The MLC was created to administer this license, and all DSPs which obtain the license send a monthly report and payment to The MLC. The MLC will then disburse payments and reporting to the publishers who have registered on The MLC portal.
The establishment of The MLC will provide greater clarity, licensing certainty, regular reporting, and accountability, all of which will help both the music industry and the platforms.
The MLC is Only Part of the Overall Licensing Solution
The responsibilities of The MLC are laid out in Section 115 of the U.S. Copyright Act and were designed to meet a specific need for administering rights for music audio between publishers and DSPs for downloads and streaming. Considering what The MLC does not cover brings to light what additional steps a digital platform may need to take to be fully licensed.
Record Label Deals:
The MLC administers a blanket license for the mechanical rights in musical compositions required for a service to offer downloads and streaming music. Platforms will still need to license, report, and pay royalties to the record labels for the use of the sound recordings in which these musical compositions are embodied.
Location:
The blanket license administered by The MLC is only available for services made available in the U.S. If a DSP is downloading or streaming music outside the United States, it will need to ensure it has licenses to use the music (both the sound recordings and the musical compositions) in those territories.
Types of Licenses:
The MLC does not administer any other types of licenses or royalties besides the blanket mechanical license for streaming and downloads, and voluntary licenses for the same covered activities. Licenses The MLC does not administer include:
- Public performance licenses
- Synchronization licenses (audio tied to video)
- Sound recording licenses
- Licenses for physical products such as CDs
Licensing Examples – What is covered, what is not:
Let’s look at a couple of fictional music hosting platforms and what they should be thinking about in their licensing strategies. You should consult with an experienced music licensing professional such as a music lawyer or advisor when developing your own licensing strategies.
A medium-sized social network hosting user-generated videos with music in the US and the European Union: The blanket mechanical license from The MLC is designed to address platforms downloading and streaming music. This type of license covers audio, but not audiovisual. Thus, it does not address any music use occurring in a user-generated video. The DSP would have to have direct licenses with the label and the publisher. In addition, the social network is doing business outside the United States and will have to consider how they will license music in multiple territories with both publishers, music rights organizations, and labels.
A medium-sized music streaming service providing interactive music streaming in the United States: Such a service would be eligible for a blanket mechanical license under Section 115 of the U.S. Copyright Act. The MLC would administer the license, and the DSP would report and send royalties to The MLC. The DSP would also need to obtain a license from, and report and pay royalties to the performing rights organizations for the public performance rights in the musical compositions and the record labels for rights in the sound recordings.
Although The MLC’s scope is not all-encompassing, it does cover one of the more common ways recorded music is made available in the United States today and is a step in the right direction in managing the challenges of music license administration. However, for those hoping to host music on their platform, whether for streaming, downloads, fitness apps, gaming, or UGC, companies need to have a complete licensing strategy in place.
The team at Audible Magic will continue to monitor The MLC’s activities and hope to provide more information in the future. In the meantime, check out the resources below.
- Music Modernization Act: https://www.copyright.gov/music-modernization/
- The MLC: https://www.themlc.com/
Audible Magic – Powering Music Online
Leveraging our fully rights-managed catalog of over 100 million tracks, Audible Magic enables platforms to use music via our comprehensive licensing, fulfillment, identification, and rights administration services. Our bespoke scalable solutions enable the use of music in a myriad of use cases including UGC, downloads, streaming, and radio.
This blog is issued for informational purposes only and is not intended to be construed or used as general legal advice. Please contact the author(s) or your Audible Magic Corporation contact if you have questions regarding the currency of this information.