AdRev, a YouTube-certified company that focuses on music rights administration, is launching ContentID.com, a new self-service tool that allows independent artists, labels, and publishers to find and earn revenue from videos using their music.
Up until now, AdRev’s music rights management capabilities have only been available to rights-holders with large catalogs. ContentID.com opens up that service to independent musicians, labels, and publishers, offering them 100% of revenue earned from official, authorized videos (usually those that live on the user’s owned-and-operated YouTube channel), and an 80% cut of revenue from unlicensed videos uploaded by other users. The tool also features an integration with SoundCloud, which AdRev says will allow SoundCloud users to seamlessly add music to the ContentID.com database and enable monetization for YouTube videos containing their music.
AdRev CEO Ryan Born says his company represents 3 million music copyrights within YouTube and to date has claimed over 8 million videos that contain music owned or administered by clients. AdRev is on pace to pay out $2.5 million in YouTube-related royalties in 2013.
AdRev’s clients include the production music libraries of Universal, Warner/Chappell, Extreme Music (owned by Sony ATV), and BMG, as well as songwriters like Bob Dylan and Joshua Mosser (Imagine Dragons). They also manage YouTube rights for Carl Douglas’ one-hit wonder, “Kung Fu Fighting,” which is awesome.
In addition to its music-copyright business, AdRev operates a music-centric YouTube MCN spanning 4,000 channel partners. It appears the MCN is only interested in original music, and does not permit cover songs or artists. AdRev says it also has deals with other MCNs, including Maker, Fullscreen, and Big Frame, to ensure its clients are properly compensated if their music is used by any creators within those networks.
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