With the launch of Amazon’s new HD streaming service to rival the likes of Spotify and Apple Music, industry eyeballs are on who will be helping artists and musicians monetize their music away from the traditional labels in the future. The music world has always been about who is able to identify “the next big thing”, nurture that relationship and establish a successful route to market with the potential financial windfall always on the horizon. Of course, making sure artists are paid sufficiently and managed appropriately has always been a difficult balancing act, but streaming and new technology are paving the way for a host of companies pushing into new markets and capitalising on this growing industry.
New platforms and startups are being set up with the next challengers looking to change investment into the industry and capitalise on the new wave of streaming content services. Below are a select few to keep your eye on:
Corite
Corite allows fans to invest in music and get rewarded in the form of royalties from the likes of Spotify and Apple Music.
The Stockholm-based platform started by industry veterans and Universal Music Group alumni Mathias Tengblad, and Emil Angervall, say Corite will enable new artists to enter the music market without the need of the backing of traditional record labels.
It also enables artists to estimate the value of a song they have created based on their streaming history and future projections, before announcing the amount they want to raise and setting a percentage of streaming royalties which investors will receive in return.
Jammber
The music business is littered with stories about songwriters or studio contributors and session musicians who never get the credit — or money — they’re often due for their work on hit songs.
Jammber was started by serial entrepreneur Marcus Cobb to make sure that those cheques get cashed by the right parties in a timely fashion and they get the appropriate credit. It is a suite of tools to manage everything from songwriting credits and rights management to ticketing and touring all from a group of apps on your mobile phone.
With offices in Nashville and Chicago, Cobb has his sights on the West Coast and a base in London in the coming years to push the company forward and make it truly international in its reach.
Songbook
With an exciting new proposition for the industry, Songbook is looking at taking crowdfunding into the music world to help artists fund their work and promote their songs with an ongoing commercial route to market.
Setup by Chris Read in London, Songbook is an investment platform solving the two main problems artists and labels have: a lack of cash and sustained promotion. It lets fans crowdfund an artist’s next album, EP or single; in turn, it gives them a cut of the master or publishing rights, anywhere from which they earn royalties from three to 25 years.
Fanvestory
Fanvestory is a platform for music copyrights. It allows fans to buy a part in a piece of music and be entitled to its future royalties while supporting their favourite artists. Artists are provided money upfront for their copyrighted work and are given a direct line to their most loyal fans.
Positioned as a disruptor to the market, Fanvestory is looking to shake up the current status quo that allows artists royalties and funds in the future and helps them gain access to capital at the start of their careers when they need the money the most.
Global Rockstar
Imagine you would have bought 1% of the master rights of Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” when it was released. Up until today, you would have earned more than £100,000 from streaming alone.
Open investment into the music business is what Vienna-based start-up Global Rockstar is aiming for and in August 2019 it opened its platform to hundreds of thousands of unsigned emerging talents and their fans, who can now become a part of their success.
The idea from founder and CEO Christof Straub is that by investing in music rights, music lovers become “shareholders” of tracks and receive royalties from the commercial exploitation of the master rights for up to the term of copyright which is in average 70 years in Europe.
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