2013! The Triumph of DIY Musicians and Songwriters

I am not the type of person looking back at the past but before revealing our 2013 mission I would like to recap 2012. 

Tribe of Noise started this year with promising figures: 13,000 members from 145 countries shaping a stronger Tribe community, our in-store music service got noticed by new international partners (Getty Images, Mood Media) & retail clients and during the music industry conference Midem we launched our new “all rights included” music licensing platform, Tribe of Noise PRO with a big party.

We hired more talented people and shook off our magic “we are still a startup” blanket. Tribe of Noise is growing up and closing in on 20,000 Tribe members from 160+ countries: Our head of music is spoiling our customers with the best possible music, our community manager gives all her love to our creative crowd and in our kitchen more legal voodoo, technology wisdom and our “power to the people” message are melting into a powerful alloy. 

But still, call me impatient, we need to speed up and scale. My mission for 2013 and beyond is to scale Tribe of Noise to a business level where we can tell more and more talented and successful Tribe musicians to quit their daytime job and focus on their big passion: music.

This means Tribe of Noise should generate enough money to at least offer them the opportunity. The icing on the cake. image

So our two magic words for 2013 will be “scaling up”. I can’t disclose the details but the future looks bright. In the meantime the stars seem to align even more in favor of DIY musicians and singer songwriters ready to take back control of their rights. 

Without boring you to death with legal mumbo jumbo here are a few developments you might want to pay attention to if you are in the music space:   

  • From 2013, the U.S. Copyright Act permits composers and recording artists who signed away rights to their works on or after January 1, 1978, to recapture their rights.  
  • The European Commission will introduce guidelines on collective management of copyright and demands more transparency and good governance from collecting societies. Another priority of the upcoming Directive is to stimulate multi-territorial music licensing. You will not see the full effect of this in 2013 but at least accountability will be on the agenda.
  • More national initiatives empowering artists to renegotiate their contracts with music publishers, like the “use it or lose it” (non-usus) initiative in the Netherlands. 

And on that bombshell and in the true spirit of the season, I wish you peace and joy… and some insane good music to listen to! Let’s make some Noise!

Hessel van Oorschot
Chief of Noise 

Opportunities in a Crisis

We’ve reached a major milestone thanks to the thousands of musicians on Tribe of Noise! If you are one of them: thank you for your loyalty, trust and involvement in moving our online music licensing business forward.

So, what happened? We have signed a partnership with the world’s leading in-store media solutions provider, Mood Media. If you’ve never heard of them or don’t fully understand why this is great news for independent artists let me explain and share my vision on how this will impact the music industry.

I’ve been in the industry long enough to understand that most musicians are passionate people, not business people. They love to make music, get exposure and engage with fans who hopefully buy their music and merchandise and visit their gigs. Every single day you can read a new story online on how making money from fans is changing. Musicians who are not able to cope with this new reality are having a hard time. We (the industry) need to reach out, test drive new business models, share our learned lessons and guide musicians along the way.

Participate in In-store music opportunity

Back to our milestone, signing with a multinational company, Mood Media. Their business - in-store media - is helping its clients to communicate with consumers resulting in incremental sales at the point-of-purchase. Music to them is one (and in my opinion the #1) medium to connect with millions of consumers daily in shops, supermarkets, hotels, etc. 

Does this mean every store, restaurant, supermarket, hotel will start calling our in-store music partners today to solely license Tribe of Noise music from now on? Can all the participating Tribe members submitting music to our all rights included in-store music catalog give up their daytime job next month? We’re hopeful… but not yet.

Having said this, with any crisis, financial or otherwise, comes opportunity for creative expansion and alternatives. We’re confident that we’re a viable solution for both in-store media and artists.     

With partners like Mood Media, our impact grows exponentially: Mood Media reaches 100 million people everyday from 580,000 locations in 41 countries. We have the capability to insure that their customers are not sacrificing quality for value. Tribe of Noise will offer a cost effective solution coupled with high-end, royalty free music from our members. And last but not least we are paying out more money to our members month to month. 

So yes, this is a big moment for us, but more importantly for our artists. The Tribe of Noise mission continues!

Falalalala…Holiday Music!

With Thanksgiving behind us we’ve officially dove head first into the holiday season:  wreaths out, lights up, holiday music blaring non-stop.  Which reminds us to remind you that our Holiday Season contest officially ends this Friday, November 30.  Together with iStockphoto we’ve already selected a few winners to tease you with…

iStockphoto has already released 4 of the favorites submitted thus far and featured them on their site!  It makes us really proud to see our artists work on iStockphoto and beyond so we encourage you to submit this week if you haven’t already!  

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