Audible Magic Enables Monetization of UGC for Social Networks
New Platform Simplifies Music Licensing to Grow Market
Los Gatos, Calif. (Sept. 10, 2019) – Audible Magic, the leading provider of content identification solutions, announced its UGC Music Rights Platform (UMRP), which simplifies the licensing and administration of music rights by social media networks that enable uploading of audiovisual content. Audible Magic’s UMRP encourages greater use of licensed music, which substantially improves user experiences while creating new revenue streams for both social networks and music industry players.
Licensing music for use in user-generated content (UGC) requires substantial investments in obtaining and managing licenses, which discourages many businesses from undertaking the effort. Audible Magic’s UMRP offers a turnkey solution for social networks, as it identifies copyrighted music, clears that music based on directly negotiated licenses, and provides the back-office services for royalty payment and reporting to licensors.
Audible Magic UMRP consists of a set of new plug-and-play services for both social networks and rightsholders. For record labels and music publishers, UMRP provides an enhanced license registration process combined with a content management system and usage reporting dashboard. These services provide the mechanisms to dramatically lower the cost of licensing and managing rights across multiple social networks.
“This new platform leverages our strength in content identification technology, coupled with the trust we’ve built with rights holders,” said Vance Ikezoye, president and chief executive officer of Audible Magic. “We have spent the past three years working closely with the music industry to build a system that simplifies the use of music in UGC. This has been a long-standing issue for our customers, and we are excited to offer a fully featured solution to address it.”
The various services that make up the UMRP begin to roll out in Q4 of this year and into Q1 of 2020.
About Audible Magic
For more than 20 years, Audible Magic has innovated solutions to identify content, manage rights, and monetize media. Audible Magic’s Emmy-winning automatic content recognition (ACR) technology powers billions of transactions monthly. The Silicon Valley pioneer is the trusted intermediary among rightsholders (including labels, studios, distributors, publishers, and collectives) and major platforms.
Contact
Adriana Saldaña
Sterling Communications
[email protected]
+1 408-395-5500
EU in Final Stages of Clarifying Copyright Law for User Generated Content Platforms
The European Union is nearing finalization of significant changes to the copyright law, which will increase the legal obligations of websites and apps that allow sharing of user-uploaded content, often referred to as UGC or user-generated content. While it is still progressing through the legislative process, it seems likely some form of this legislation will become law. The three current versions approved by separate arms of the EU government share a few common provisions.
If it becomes law, it will likely apply to websites and app platforms that meet four basic conditions:
First, the platform allows the storing and distribution of UGC that may include copyright content, even if use is just incidental. If users can upload content with embedded clips of music or video as part of their content, this provision applies.
Second, the platform promotes or optimizes content for commercial purposes. Commercial purposes would include the generation of income through advertising, subscriptions, app and in-app purchases, and other creative income producing schemes, or attracting users to the service to increase the capital value of the platform.
Third, the platform is located in the EU or if it is located outside of the EU, is it accessible by users from any of the 28 countries currently in the EU. That means if the platform is based in the US but allows users in the EU to access it, this law applies.
Fourth, the platform is above a certain size, currently proposed to be more than 50 employees or annual revenues in excess of €10 million.
Some exceptions to the type of platforms covered are expected. For example, cloud storage services that are for individual use. Other examples include not-for-profit encyclopedia services (such as Wikipedia), open source software platforms (such as GitHub) and online markets whose main activity is selling of physical goods (such as eBay).
If a platform falls under these qualifying conditions of the directive, then what? The company will be required to obtain licenses from copyright owners or must take preventive measures to ensure that copyright works are not available through their service. Since there are inconsistencies between the three versions, it’s not yet clear what will qualify as a preventive requirement. However, it is expected that copyright owners will be obligated to specify what content they want protected.
So where do things go from here?
A trilogue process is currently underway by the EU to reconcile the three different approved versions. A compromise version is expected to be finalized before the end of 2018 and approved in the first quarter of 2019. Once approved, there is a two-year period before it becomes law in every EU member state.
Microsoft Selects Audible Magic's Digital Fingerprinting Technology as Filtering Solution for Soapbox Video Site
LOS GATOS, California - (March 26, 2007) — Microsoft has chosen the industry leader, Audible Magic, as their filtering vendor. Audible Magic will be providing Soapbox, Microsoft’s user-generated video-sharing site, with solutions to identify and filter copyrighted, user-generated content, utilizing Audible Magic’s content identification and digital fingerprinting technology. The system will be used to identify music and other copyrighted content.Read more
