Music Tech Works Co-Founder Talks Music Licensing, Copyright, Data and Streaming
Founded by music tech entrepreneurs Jarrett Hines and Bryson Nobles, Music Tech Works’ focus is to grow the music sync market by organizing…
Founded by music tech entrepreneurs Jarrett Hines and Bryson Nobles, Music Tech Works’ focus is to grow the music sync market by organizing who owns the rights to what music and simplifying the process of acquiring a license for that music.
Music Tech Works’ first product, rightsholder.io, is a music copyright research platform with a database of more than 100 million songs that provide detailed ownership information, past use data and connects those who want to license music with the rights holders that can grant them a license.
We recently connected with Hines, the CEO of Music Tech
Works, to discuss licensing, music streaming, and what’s next for rightsholder.io.
P&S: What was the jumping-off point to start Rightsholder.io?
Jarrett Hines: Everything started for rightsholder.io when my co-founder, Bryson Nobles, and I started working together over 10 years ago. We both previously worked at a startup where we were helping songwriters manage and monetize their catalogs. Through our time at that company, we had the realization that we wanted the option to be able to send songwriters data to a platform that would help generate more opportunities for sync licenses.
We have been brainstorming and building the concept of rightsholder.io for the past couple of years. We understand the amount of value that can be created when people understand who owns the rights to commercial music.
On our journey of creating this company, we knew we possessed a unique perspective and set of skills to build this platform and make song ownership data easily accessible.
P&S: What has been the experience like building and developing the business? Any specific roadblocks along the way? Surprises (good or bad)?
Jarrett Hines: When we decided to start rightsholder.io, we knew that it would come with the typical challenges that a startup usually faces. We dealt with many of those in our first year, but we could not have predicted or prepared for the challenges the pandemic presented.
The transition from everything in-person to completely virtual was one of the biggest challenges we have faced. As a startup, we must be forming relationships with industry leaders and investors. It took some adjusting to get used to the online world, but it was comforting knowing everyone was in the same boat.
The music industry transitioned quickly, which presented our company with some great opportunities.
In 2020 we became a part of the Google For Startups Founders Academy, and later in the year, we were awarded capital from the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund. We ended 2020 by closing a round of funding from collab capital and started the new year by being selected to be a part of the Spring 2021 Techstars Music Accelerator Program.
We could not have predicted the past few years, but we have been surprised by how receptive and open the music industry has been to new tech and helping to bring these solutions to market.
P&S: At the core of your mission… how is Rightsholder.io working to make finding music copyright data easier for licensing professionals?
Jarrett Hines: Rightsholder.io is a search engine that will tell licensing professionals who owns the rights to what song, and how to contact the rights holders so that they can begin a licensing discussion. Our platform pulls together the recording and composition ownership data for over 165 million songs from dozens of sources. Not only that, but we provide information on how a song has been previously used in a sync, if it has samples, and who has covered it.
Our goal is to make this data easily accessible via an intuitive search experience while also providing a comprehensive view of who owns a song and how it has been used, all in one place.
P&S: What are your thoughts on the overall business of ‘music streaming?’
Jarrett Hines: Music streaming has completely shifted the music industry. It has given the ability for anyone to listen to their favorite artists at any moment, discover new music, and more. The music industry is evolving rapidly, and streaming has been a driving force for innovations for both the consumer and business side of the industry.
One example would be the explosion of catalog sales in the past year.
Streaming has provided data on consumption and engagement that we have not had the opportunity to acquire before. This data has presented a way to show proof of the value of artists’ catalogs, and investors can now predict how much a music catalog could make in the future.
P&S: What’s your long-term view of the music licensing business? How do you see things progressing between rights holders and the licensing groups? Is the data (and the discovery of that data) the key ingredient?
Jarrett Hines: The music licensing business has grown exponentially over the past year, but in my opinion, I see it having a lot more room to grow. New cases pop up every day with people experimenting with NFT’s and metaverse performances, which both require a need for music content that we currently do not have or understand.
Not only that, but digital advertising has boomed since the pandemic started and will continue to see growth as we become more accustomed to the virtual world.
The demand for music licensing is high, and rights holders are continuously trying to work on and look for ways to provide the best licensing experience they can. Data isn’t the key ingredient, but it will always be a part of the equation.
The information of who can grant the music license is constantly changing, which presents the challenge of getting in contact with the right people.
We’ve built one of the largest music rights databases in the world, with the goal of simplifying the licensing experience for rights holders and licensing groups by providing clear and up-to-date information.
P&S: What’s next for Rightsholder.io? Where is the business this time next year?
Jarrett Hines: We are very excited for this upcoming year. The rightsholder.io search engine will be exiting private beta and will be generally available early next year.
In addition, we will be releasing a Playlist Search tool (currently in beta) that will give you the option to provide us with an Apple music or Spotify playlist, and we will be able to return a song ownership report for up to 1000 tracks at a time.
In addition to those things, we’re helping music publishers actively monitor their song registrations around the world. Our goal is to help them quickly identify and fix issues with those registrations in order to ensure that they are collecting 100% of the royalties that their catalogs generate.
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