it is everywhere: they Wake us up in the morning, when the Radio is concerned. She accompanies us on the way to work on the Smartphone. It swells in the supermarket speakers: music .

Never the access to music was as easy as it is today. And consumers worry about how performers, composers, lyricists, producers, and musicians get your money. The users pay for their subscription for streaming services and TV and radio fees, or maybe buy a CD. For the music industry, the problems start then.

Could live artist formerly of the revenue from CD sales, the business today is much more difficult. Oliver Pink, the organizer of the Swiss Music Award once estimated that in Switzerland there is maybe just under a dozen artists can make good music life.

artists missing money

Spotify paid for a Song that is played a Million Times, the equivalent of about 5000 francs. “About 10 percent of these go to the artist,” says Mattias Hjelmstedt, CEO and co-founder of Zug Start-ups to the Utopia Music.

Spotify knows at least exactly when the user is listening to which Song. However, this is not the case everywhere: “There are more music listeners than ever, but the artists get less,” says the tech entrepreneur. As a Songwriter and artist would not get all the royalties for using music to which they are entitled. “Music today is played in many places, where nothing is paid,” says Hjelmstedt, for example in the radios, which would be recognized by anyone.

The exploitation of music rights is a complex one. This starts with the fact that a Song has legally two parts: according to the author of a song has the copyright to it. Singing and playing the song someone else, of the interpreter service. In Switzerland, there are two state-regulated recycling companies care about the musicians get to your money: the Suisa collects the royalties, Swissperform drives the performance rights for musicians and producers.

The Radios and TV stations of the Suisa, which Songs were played report. In order to check whether the messages are correct, monitoring the collecting society, the radio stations with it’s own Software, Suisa-speaker Giorgio Tebaldi. “In the case of TV shows, we do no Monitoring” was planned.

“In the major European countries, collecting of exploitation rights right to manage,” says Lawrence Haas, managing Director of IFPI Switzerland, the national society of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. “But have problems to capture the rights in new digital markets, such as, for example, foreign Internet radio stations.” Here IT could help service providers such as Utopia.

Who gets how much?

The Start-up company, which employs 44 people, has programmed a System that scours the entire Internet looking for music. A partial solution would be a search system to seek out new radios. “Our System takes three seconds to recognize a Song, it records a section and adds a date stamp as evidence,” explains managing Director Hjelmstedt. Recently he had a discussion with a founding member of a Swedish band. The Band would get royalties from over 60 countries. Utopia’s System found out that their songs are played in 160 countries.

In Europe is Utopia according to Hjelmstedt is already a huge recycling company as a customer. The name he is not allowed to reveal.

competitors of Utopia is the Spanish Bmat. According to the information and systems to monitor round-the-clock 5000 Radio and 1,500 TV stations in 134 countries, as well as to 1000 Clubs. Also, Nightclubs have to pay royalties for music played. Among other Bmat create the right messages for the German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF.

The German Gema, the counterpart to the Swiss, Suisa, uses for Monitoring music in TV advertising the services of the British IT company sound mouse. “Monitoring companies, provide helpful work, in order to Supplement missing data and to eliminate errors,” says Gema-head of Department Jens Kindermann. However, the detection of a piece of music is only a part of the work. “What is crucial is the associated meta data”, that is to say, the documentation, who is the composer, appeared in which publishing the piece, and who holds the rights. Also this data would need to transmit to the Monitoring service provider or has the ability to supply a link, so that the collecting societies can properly settle.

in 2018, the Swiss, Suisa distributed to 132 million Swiss francs, half of which went to the Swiss holder of a right, the other to foreign countries. “For the music industry, the revenues from the second exploitation have become in the past few years, is without a doubt important,” says Lorenz Haas from the Phono Association IFPI. Revenue from record sales, Streaming and Downloads are the main source of income, but still: These amounted to 2018 to 170 million francs.

the artist says the better Monitoring of a second advantage in addition to higher royalty revenue, Utopia-in-chief Hjelmstedt. “If we find out that the music of a Swiss artist to be heard, for example, in an Asian country like, it may be worthwhile for him to give a concert there.”

Created: 28.10.2019, 21:49 PM