With few NZ artists on the official Top 40, and TV productions turning to overseas production libraries because their budgets are being squeezed, Songbroker founder Jan Hellriegel says her company is a shining light for local business, content makers and musicians as it approaches its 3rd birthday.
“Songbroker was created for musicians and music makers so they have a platform to sell their music to the world in one place we also wanted to make it very easy for music users, filmmakers and production companies to find and use our music so everything is on a very easy-to-use search engine.”
Hellriegel sees the primary focus of a music publishing company as getting music heard.
“Finding places where we can get our music on to projects and the outcome of this is that our artists get royalties,” she says.
“We increase incomes for our artists by getting them on TV shows, films, online, on commercials or anywhere music is used.
“The other great thing about music is that there are further incomes derived from broadcast royalties so you get royalties from all around the world if the film travels which has your music on it.
“We increase incomes for our artists by getting them on TV shows, films, online, and on commercials.”
“Music copyright is in many ways the perfect export. It costs nothing to ship, and crosses borders without attracting tariffs. The carbon footprint is negligible.
“Music also keeps extremely well. And unlike a bottle of wine or a kilo of milk powder, you can effectively ‘sell’ the same unit many times, in many markets.”
She says that in the past few months, Songbroker has found interested users for original New Zealand music all over the world, and particularly in Australia and the US.
Some of the resulting licenses have been for relatively new songs. Others, however, are songs recorded and released back in the 1980s.
“A good song is a good song, irrespective on genre or style”, says Songbroker founder Jan Hellriegel. Even if it was recorded 35 years ago it can still be relevant and strike the right chord with a music user.
Music has a long shelf-life and a decent revenue tail.
“Critically, Songbroker is also making it easier for international production companies and advertisers to license the music on the catalogue and the licensing all in one place is a real bonus,” she says.
“Songbroker is unique in that all the rights to the music are held in one place. If a business in New York likes what they hear on Songbroker’s site in the morning, they can usually have the usage approved and secured before leaving the office that afternoon.”
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