Lickd: Monetizing Music On YouTube
Lickd is a platform that allows YouTube creators to easily license commercial music by paying a simple one-off fee. We interviewed CEO Paul Sampson about how creators are using the platform and how artists and labels can get involved.
Imagine that you’re in an elevator with Elizabeth Matthews, the president of ASCAP. How would you describe Lickd.
SAMPSON: A tech solution that opens up a brand new, multi-billion dollar market for the music industry in consumer-facing licensing and monetizing fandom.YouTube’s Content ID system has inadvertently precluded the major music market from ever being heard on the most-watched content on the platform – namely, the influential YouTuber Creator community. Through our VOUCH software, which plugs into YouTube’s API, we make sure that creators will not get a claim on their content and will not use music that has not been licensed. For the artist, this protects their IP and also opens them up to potential new audiences who perhaps previously would never have considered using their music. This way everyone is a winner.
What is the average cost of licensing a video from Lickd?
SAMPSON: At the moment is around the £15 mark but that will rise to £23 over the coming 18 months as more and bigger creators join the movement. We have built a pricing structure that is based on the average views that a creator’s recent video uploads have received. Taking the latest 50 videos, we come up with an average of the video views, which allows us to estimate the size of a creator’s audience and, therefore, their estimated earnings and recommend a price band accordingly. The lowest band starts at $8 per month going right up to $200+ for the largest, professional creators. Our aim is to deliver pricing tiers that meet the different needs of our audience.
What labels and artists are licensing via Lickd?
SAMPSON: There are nearly 2000 labels and publishers signed currently. The biggest of those is BMG (master and publishing) and we just signed our first Major Label deal in an unprecedented move and we will be announcing that in the press shortly.
How do musicians make their music available on Lickd?
SAMPSON: We only accept direct deliveries via labels and distributors directly as we need them to integrate our software into their YouTube CMS to enable claims-free licensing.
