TuneRights made the cut for January's music tech pitch competition at midemlab. It's essentially a financial services platform that allows musicians to post singles and investors to buy in for a future share of the revenue. TuneRights is in beta and is open for signups.
TuneRights Intro
TuneRights went live in late August and is still seeking traction. It's a reasonable concept but might have problems in different nations due to trading restrictions.
Investors participate for a percentage of future revenue derived from sales and licensing. Given some of the organizational problems solved by TuneRights, it can also be used for other purposes such as rewarding street teams and "remix management."
The concept of creating a platform that manages the process of investing in songs is intended to give songwriters working capital to support building a mutually profitable career. The current limitation of TuneRights is that it's not yet ready to be a strong vehicle for discovery. For example, you can't search or browse by genre, which is a pretty basic way casual browsers investigate a new service. In addition, artists need to make better use of their profiles for attracting interest.
To a large degree, TuneRights inclusion in midemlab is due to the concept of such a platform. Hopefully that concept will grow into a useful tool that will match the dreams of the creators and offer new financial opportunities for musicians and investors.
Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith maintains his freelance writing hub at Flux Research and blogs at All World Dance and This Business of Blogging. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
