In some ways, Downtown Music Services is a very different company than it was in the first half of last year.
That’s because its parent company, Downtown Holdings, sold all of its copyrights to Concord for nearly $ 400 million in April 2021.
But in another sense, Downtown Music Services hasn’t changed much; it just became so important to the owner’s goal.
While the rest of the music industry seems to be banking on the future value of copyright, Downtown Music Holdings is betting on building the most likely company to serve those rights worldwide. It is projected to generate more than $ 600 million in its music services business by 2021 alone, it is clearly coming.
One step taken by the parent company following the sale of Concord’s copyright last year is to bring together two of its key infrastructure – Downtown Music Publishing, and indie art and DashGo distribution / marketing – to create Music Services in Downtown.
Over the past year, DMS has made some interesting moves such as deals with French airline, with a number of LoFi brands, and Daniel Lopatin, who was the executive producer of The Weeknd’s latest album No.1 world, Dawn FM.
Perhaps DMS’s most exciting deal since the sale of copyright to Concord came last month, when it announced a “major expansion” of its operations – including several new recruits – who speak Spanish in Latin America.
Perhaps DMS’s most exciting deal since the sale of copyright to Concord came last month, when it announced a “major expansion” of its operations – including many new recruits – who speak Spanish in Latin America
DMS is managed by the general manager, Mike Smith (former head of Downtown Music Publishing), along with COO, Ben Patterson (President and founder of DashGo).
Here, the Los Angeles-based Patterson (pictured, main) answers MBW’s questions about the DMS position in the global music business, its ambitions for the LatAm region, and how he believes the industry will grow. in the coming years …
Ten years of music is thousands of years in other industries. Ten years ago Spotify was not yet launched in the US, TikTok did not exist. [So] it is very difficult to confidently predict these changes, but I will try.
One that has been slowly increasing over the last decade is now really exploding and that is remix integration, integration, collaboration, sample, and shared rights. YouTube’s ContentID has developed a gold standard for identifying music used in Creative Commons Attribution (UGC) features and copyright compensation – but now everyone who licenses music wants broader rights to allow users to adapt and share it again. music at their venues.
“Singers and their lawyers are reluctant to pay for pre-defined link rights, remix, or even cutting rights. But for some artists, it is a career change.”
From Instagram auto-creation Reels to official music videos, to Spotify and Apple looking for DJ mixing rights, to popular Tik Tok mash-ups, fats and mixes – all of these require donations extensive rights, and reviews on how those are granted, tracked and compensated.
Artists and their lawyers are reluctant to pay for pre-defined link rights, remix or even cutting rights. But some [projects] – like Imanbek dealing with SAINt JHN’s Roses – are a career change.
We recently witnessed [this change] directly as Sadie Jean created the Duets change for TikTok and started her first WYD Now? through SELENE.
It recently released a remix version that included some of these duetes, but clearing those features – which was suddenly TikTok – took real human time, phone calls, and legal work a [which took more time] than one of the artists expected.
Access to artists, brands, and partners to enjoy this development and to find equal ways to deliver, monitor and deliver these services and reuse them in ways that are not close, but the dignity of creative art is an ongoing challenge and one of the Downtown corporate teams is committed.
It will continue to provide web3, metaverse, blockchain, and other distributed data tracking initiatives that are currently underway. DMS is committed to supporting the creativity and business goals of our client in all of these areas.
I like to see the winners everywhere in music, and I think this is something that can benefit all parties – even if the revenue balance changes the way it is.
Artists are often satisfied with the mix of social media in their music. Platforms love the engagement and flow that creative users can generate, and fans love (and expect) sample flexibility and interaction.
“Singers are often satisfied with the integration of social media in their music.”
For Downtown, as well as managers and distributors of other rights, the complexity of monitoring and calculating usage is an additional burden, and negotiating revenue allocation is a task we have chosen to take on and are really good at.
The challenge remains for the artist: building a lasting career is not a single song that explodes for reuse, but an artistic exploitation of that to ignite a fandom that supports the manuscript, the release the future, and tourism.
I am very happy with our success and our Latin American and Brazilian teams speaking Spanish.
This is not new to DMS, we have supported Mexican music books and artists for over a decade, and have been deeply involved in Central and South America for the good part of a decade as well.
Aside from being a fast-growing listener and broadcaster, artists and brands [LatAm] are a very independent mind. The value of ownership, strategic partnerships, and support are in line with Downtown Music’s structure.
“I am very happy with our success and our Spanish-speaking Latin American and Brazilian teams.”
Our sister company, CDBaby, has also been operating in the state for over a decade and we have been able to support the steady growth of some of those clients when they graduated beyond DIY.
Brands like Alzada have seen tremendous growth and artists like Santa Fe Klan, No Te Va Gustar, Johnny Hooker, and Illapu have all entrusted us with their music. We have been able to expand our staff across the state to support internally.
Mexica Music has long been our driver; We are proud to represent Los Tucanes de Tijuana and have worked closely with them to triple their diverse audience over the past few years.
In many ways, we are already out of them.
It’s hard but it’s nice to see these companies looking at our A&R release.
Christian Nodal’s “Adios Amor” was originally supported by DashGo. Ultimately I think we have a vision for long-term service, and instead of a proprietary style that focuses on hits right now, we are able to attract and retain amazing artists.
The selected list allows us to pay in-depth attention for a long time, but we must be careful to keep hiring to fulfill our promises.
That’s why I’m excited about our new recruitment and promotion to fill that team [LatAm] – from Estefania Parra Lora to Daniella Gutierrez, Martin Liviche, and Juan Nunez, we’re building an in-depth list of creative support artists.
I believe we will continue to see global growth as the influx of migrants accelerates Southeast Asia and Africa, and continues to grow in Latin America.
In addition, our brand production work has done well with LoFi – where we have built a creative network of artists, brands and playlists supported by editorial and strategic advertising.
“We will continue to see global growth as the flow rate continues to accelerate in Southeast Asia and Africa, growing in Latin America.”
There are many other alternatives that we believe we can apply to our [LoFi] education.
Finally, continuing to focus on creating and enriching services around UGC-managed devices such as YouTube, TikTok, Meta, and others, I believe they will bear fruit as the scope of music use, interaction, and fundraising continues to grow. grow in these areas and new ones.
Being alert and attentive has informed us of our strategies from the beginning and there is no sign of a decline in musical creativity.
Our commitment to sub-commitments and transfers has served us well.
Everyone in the team has a vision and awareness of each client’s music and goals and expectations and we find ourselves sharing them – so customer success is our success.
It’s hard to put in a lift, but our customer services, be it brand or publisher, artist or writer, are really great and we strive to improve. We focus on areas where we can effectively impact the project – streaming, digital advertising, release strategy, and support.
Just sleep, and the music business will be different when you wake up! It always changes.
In some ways, I’ve been doing the same job for almost 20 years but at the same time it’s always new – as artists, DSPs and fans create new ways to discover and enjoy music.
At a higher level, I would suggest to all artists: stop releasing waterfalls. They really boost the distribution, impact the algorithmics of [you] pre-released songs, and customers are constantly disappointed with the results. Music Business Worldwide
