QUICK HITS: Word Collections adds $5M • BeatStars launches Seeds by Lemonaide • New SoundExchanges Board member • Rightsify’s GCX goes large

Digital rights management company Word Collections, founded in 2020 by Jeff Price, has secured $5 million in funding led by Metallica’s Black Squirrel Partners.

Word Collections currently administers the publishing catalogs for Metallica, Greta Van Fleet, Thomas Dolby, Songwriters Guild Of America, Gerencia360, St. Nicholas, Baroness, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, The Offspring’s Bryan “Dexter” Holland, Shriekback, DLG., Bazanji, Gomba Music, Robin Williams, George Carlin, Margaret Cho, Jerry Seinfeld, David Cross, Ron White, Bill Hicks, Bill Engvall, Billy Crystal, and numerous other songwriters, publishers, authors and spoken word comedians.

The funds will be used to accelerate global direct licensing and enhancement of Word Collections’ proprietary technology and systems.

• BeatStars has just unveiled Seeds by Lemonaide, an ethical A.I. creation tool that helps artists and producers generate initial ideas, or plant seeds, for their tracks.

Seeds can help creators push through creative slumps with short, four-bar MIDI files as a jumping-off point for new tracks.  Seeds take an ethical approach to AI training through a voluntary community of producers who are compensated for sharing their work and their feedback. 

• SoundExchange has added newly elected American Federation of Music (AFM) president Tino Gagliardi to its 18-seat Board of Directors to “represent the voice of working musicians as SoundExchange works to champion creators and build a fairer, simpler, and more efficient music industry.” Gagliardi replaces recently retired AFM president Ray Hair on the Board.

• Rightsify’s GCX (Global Copyright Exchange) has created new datasets to enable large-scale music models (LMMs) used for AI music creation.

GCX’s dataset totals 4.4 million hours of music, more than five lifetimes of total listening.

“These models will underpin the next era of products and services in making music production and music generation accessible to all. With large-scale music models, every prompt will be answered, and every musical style and instrument can be generated,” says the startup.