I received an e-mail yesterday from TuneSat regarding two new services they are offering. One is the ability to detect usage of your music across the web as well as TV. The other is a service to help you collect monies due on any infringements you find. The service will be on a contingency basis. In other words, no money out of your pocket unless they collect. Simply amazing where technology is taking us!
Full disclosure: TuneSat is an advertiser here but I was (and am) a happy customer of theirs long before they advertised.
Here’s their press release which explains it better than I can.
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TuneSat, the audio monitoring service which helps copyright holders track unauthorized musical performances, is expanding with today’s launch of Internet monitoring, and an Administrative Services division.
TuneSat essentially serves as an outside auditing service for rights holders to cross-reference their royalty and licensing statements. Since its founding, the company has monitored television and film for public performances of musical compositions. TuneSat detects music in noisy broadcast environments, including under dialogue, sound effects, or voiceovers.
Tech-savvy composers and producers Scott Schreer and Chris Woods founded TuneSat, which uses audio fingerprint technology to search for usages and deliver reports to clients’ online dashboards. Based in New York City, the company actively monitors hundreds of broadcast channels and millions of websites around the world.
The company’s new Internet multi-media monitoring searches publicly available domains, identifying music used in streaming audio, video, podcasts, flash and other multimedia files. TuneSat monitors the Web around the clock, immediately posting the results in a secure online interface. These detections could include files posted moments before the search, or those put online several years ago. Every detection includes a link to the site where the music is found, and the site where the content is hosted (for example, a website may offer a video embedded from elsewhere).
In the event of a royalty discrepancy, TuneSat subscribers can pursue the claim themselves, or hire the company’s newly-launched Administrative Services branch to pursue unlicensed and unpaid uses of their music.
“TuneSat’s Internet monitoring service is history in the making, providing sophisticated, worldwide detection easily available to all music rights holders, even for just one song,” explained Scott Schreer, CEO and Founder. “TuneSat’s data tames the Wild Wild West of the Web, pinpointing the use of music online and providing the information needed to monetize those uses, putting dollars back into the pocket of musicians.”
“TuneSat’s detection data, coupled with the legal resources and expertise of our Administration Services, is a one-two punch for music rights holders,” said Chris Woods, Co-Founder and COO. “Monitoring multi-media content on the Internet can reveal more than just music videos—TuneSat clients have discovered movie trailers, TV synchs, and other media usages that were unlicensed. Further, we now provide access to the Administrative resources needed to ensure the rights holder is compensated for the use of their work.”
Monthly TuneSat subscription rates start at $10 per month and vary by number of tracks and type of service.