As more indie artistes and publishers release music, it is becoming increasingly difficult for streaming services to keep up with an on-demand culture. Massive amounts of the correct song data need to be processed at much faster rates.
New industry players are addressing this problem. Loudr, a San Francisco based tech company, offers a solution to this fundamental music industry issue. It uses machine learning to match sound recordings to compositions and publishing metadata, making it easy for DSP’s to secure music rights clearance and report royalties at scale. To date, the company has distributed over $1 million in royalties to songwriters and music publishers worldwide.
With that in mind, we had a short interview with Loudr’s CEO, Chris Crawford. Here’s what he had to say.
1. For those who do not already know what Loudr is, can you give a brief introduction of yourselves?
Chris Crawford: Loudr builds products and services that make it easy for content creators, aggregators, and digital music services to identify, track and pay music publishers. Powered by technology that parses song ownership information and matches sound recordings to composition rights holders, Loudr makes it easy to secure mechanical rights clearance and pay publishers for song usage at scale.
2. What are your primary target customers? Are they the music streaming players? If so, are you in the works to secure one of the existing players?
Chris Crawford: Yes, music streaming services / digital streaming providers (DSPs), digital distributors/aggregators, B2B music services such as background music suppliers and platforms, and record labels. We also have a DIY tool that is used by several thousand independent artists.
3. Are you currently working with any organisations in Asia Pacific?
Chris Crawford: We interface with some of the performing rights organizations in Asia Pacific (such as JASRAC). We are not currently powering any providers based in Asia Pacific. We do work with companies outside of the United States for usage that occurs inside the United States.
4. What does the new version of Loudr’s API translate to?
Chris Crawford: Loudr’s new API returns information about the specific composition that each client request is linked to. These include: composition titles, songwriters, publishers, fulfilment methods and work codes for matched compositions.
5. How does it work?
Chris Crawford: After a request has been submitted to our API, our clients can query that state of that request. As a request goes through the licensing process, the status is updated. Every completed license request reveals the method of how it was completed and the linked composition information detailed above. Most requests are completed within 2 business days.
6. What sort of impact do you foresee this new system having in the music industry?
Chris Crawford: No DSP displays linked songwriter information in their service. This upgrade allows services to better understand who wrote the songs on their service and build user experiences around that information.