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Written by Ramsey Brown.
Song licensing and music copyrights are a notoriously tricky subject within the music industry. Although this topic isn’t very exciting for most creatives, it is a very important one to discuss and understand if you ever want to make it as a professional musician.
The digital world is becoming more prominent daily and video production is growing at an exponential rate. Which also means, the need for sync licensing and sync music is greater than ever. This need has opened up incredible opportunities for musicians and songwriters to earn income through getting their songs placed in TV, film, video games and more.
However, the process of finding information on publishing and master recording ownership has been completely unorganized in the past. The U.S. has never had one, centralized directory of music rights and licensing data — making it difficult for those wanting to obtain a track and the people who are able to license it.
The music and entertainment industry has long recognized the need for a sync licensing innovation. And now, that revolution is here. Music tech entrepreneurs, Jarrett Hines and Bryson Nobles have found a fresh approach on solving a fundamental problem in music licensing — via their new development, rightsholder.io
Rightsholder.io is a music copyright research platform that has an expansive library connecting those who want to license music with the rights holders that can grant them access.
With over 160 million songs in its database, the platform streamlines the process of licensing for music for uses such as TV, film, video games, and advertising.
Rightsholder.io gives a complete searchable picture for publishing and master recording ownership information. This technology helps to get more songs licensed and significantly reduces the amount of time spent researching ownership information.
In addition to providing ownership data, users can also identify information on the music’s previous usage so they can know exactly what brands, shows, movies, etc., have already licensed the piece and what exact context the sample was used for.
This innovative platform allows publishers to understand where their catalogs are registered around the world to ensure that they are maximizing their royalty collections.
At large, Rightsholder.io is a music rights search engine that delivers quality results and relative information to empower music supervisors, content creators, and others looking to manage music catalogs. It cuts the friction of sync licensing by providing transparent information that is easily accessible, which ultimately generates more opportunities for sync licenses among songwriters and music creators.
Righsholder.io was designed with and for music supervisors, and others that routinely license music for TV/film, advertising, video game, and podcast productions. It helps them quickly find ownership information and eliminates the need to search multiple databases to try and piece this data together.
The underlying data and search capabilities help to power several solutions for enterprise-level customers, as well as consumer-level customers. Rightsholder.io helps large platforms that utilize music in their products understand music ownership data at scale. It also gives smaller companies and productions the opportunity to access high-quality data that they previously may not have had access to.
This platform will prove useful for anyone in the position of researching music to have in their projects. Whether it be a large scale movie production company, a mid-level advertising agency in need of audio for ads, or an emerging filmmaker looking for music to accompany their shorts.
Content creators are aggressively moving to deliver fresh and much-needed content for the marketplace. With the film and video production industry growing by the minute, this opens up a large need for sync music to be placed in TV, films, commercials, and more.
Many musicians forget about the huge world of opportunity that sync licensing holds. Or, they choose to stay out of it because of how difficult it has been in the past.
With so many new artists emerging on the scene daily, competition to become the next big thing is fierce. With that being said, if you want to make it as a musician (or make a living wage as a musician), getting involved with sync is ultimately the best way to go.
Previously, music licensing involved a lengthy process that required reaching out to many different stakeholders that had a say in who could license each piece of music. Sync licensing companies are great to have, but they often don’t deliver upon the expectations artists set for them.
Now thanks to Rightsholder.io, it is much easier and feasible for musicians, songwriters, producers, etc., to get their craft out to the world to be used and appreciated on a bigger scale.
As of now, rightsholder.io is operating in private beta, but users can still request access to sign up early. We highly encourage all musicians, songwriters, producers, film-makers, and others to take advantage of this new. innovative music licensing platform.
As co-founder Brian Nobles said, “There is a huge amount of value that can be created when people understand who owns the rights to commercial music.”
Although it is still in the development stage, this website has already become a trailblazing platform within the industry — providing valuable opportunities and information to it’s early adopters. Rightsholder.io has other big plans for 2022, so make sure you stay ahead of the curve and get involved now!
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