Loudr.fm – digital distribution WITH licensing?

[ypb2857]

Has anyone had any experience with Loudr.fm? It’s in alpha now but I got an invite so was playing around with putting some music up there. But after uploading and metatagging everything, I finally get to the legalese, which includes quite a bit about their right to license for film, TV, and commercials, which I didn’t expect, since Loudr is billed as just a marketplace (similar to Bandcamp). Anyone know anything?

The relevant part of the legalese is copied and pasted below:

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3. Grant of Rights

Content Owner hereby grants to Company the worldwide right and authorization to distribute, license, sell, promote, and otherwise exploit the Catalog and any and all rights in and to the sound recording(s) and underlying composition(s) within the Catalog, in all media or formats now known or hereafter devised through any and all digital retailers, service providers, distributors, social media platforms, licensees and other users of any description that sell, distribute, transmit, synchronize, perform or otherwise exploit the Catalog, in digital entertainment services (Internet sites, mobile or online services and other entities distributing entertainment products in a digital format) and in audio and/or audiovisual works of any description, including, without limitation, in commercial advertisements, theatrical motion picture films, free, cable and pay per view television, video games, websites, branded content, mobile/tablet applications, interactive media and radio. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, it is understood that Company may also directly market, promote, sell or otherwise exploit the Catalog through the Company’s website and web services, as well as by way of syndication from the Company’s servers to other sellers or to consumers by way of linking, co-branded sites, widgets, data services or platform integrations. Content Owner grants Company non-exclusive, worldwide, gratis, fully paid-up and royalty-free right and license to reproduce, stream, store, publicly perform, transmit and otherwise use the Catalog, including both the Music and the Digital Assets, in connection with marketing and promotion of the Catalog.

The grant of rights hereunder shall include the right to collect, administer and distribute all income derived therefrom, including any ad revenue or media income and income deriving from digital, mechanical and performance uses, under statute, industry agreement or otherwise. All licenses shall be executed by Company as agent, and in such regard, Content Owner grants Company and its employees the right and authority to execute license agreements on its behalf during the Term. Company does not guarantee placement of the Content with any Licensee and reserves the right to reject distribution of any Content in its discretion.

Company and Company’s licensees, partners, affiliates, agents and designees shall have the right to use the names, likenesses and biographical material of any artists appearing in the Content in connection with exploitation of the Content and/or the marketing and promotion thereof. Such rights shall not include merchandising rights in anything other than the Music. All digital distribution rights granted to Company hereunder are exclusive in nature, and all other rights are non-exclusive unless the Company first identifies and/or begins to negotiate a license, after which that license shall be subject to Company’s exclusive administration under this Agreement.
Content Owner shall retain the exclusive right to commercially release and/or distribute the Content in physical format, e.g., vis-à-vis compact disc.

In addition, Content Owner hereby appoints Company as its authorized representative and agent in connection with the procurement, clearance, administration and payment of music publishing licenses for the sale and digital distribution of the Music, including mechanical and digital phonorecord delivery licenses, i.e., for “Cover Songs”, from the Harry Fox Agency or any other applicable entity, provided that such publishing rights have not already been granted by Content hereunder. Company shall make commercially reasonable efforts to procure the licenses prior to the sale and distribution of the Music hereunder and to notify Content Owner in writing in the event that such licenses cannot be procured. Company shall have the right to deduct payment for any fees and royalties incurred in connection with such licenses from the fees, royalties and proceeds from otherwise payable to Content Owner. Content Owner shall solely be responsible for the payment of any fees and royalties that exceed the balance associated with the Content Owner’s account.

Company shall make every attempt to secure the rights from the legitimate copyright holders, but shall not be responsible in the event a contracting party is ultimately determined to not hold the rights licensed by such contracting party, and Content Owner shall look solely to such contracting party for any claims in connection therewith. Furthermore, nothing in this Agreement and nothing in Company’s statements to Content Owner shall be construed as a promise or guarantee about the outcome of any clearances or licenses hereunder.
Within 45 days of the receipt of this signed and completed contract, any payment set forth in it and digital files of the Content with accurate metadata and cover artwork that meets the standards set forth in the Delivery Requirement Page, which is updated from time to time and located at http://alpha.loudr.fm/legal/services, Company shall deliver the Music and applicable Digital Assets to digital entertainment services. For a current list of the services provided by Company, please log into the Loudr website and review the Music Services page, which may be revised from time and is located at http://alpha.loudr.fm/legal/services.

[Annie Lin]

Hi!

I’m a former singer-songwriter who now works on the business and legal side of things at Loudr. I wanted to respond since this language actually comes from a much older version of our distribution agreement. You can find the current agreement, along with the rest of our legal docs, at this link: http://www.loudr.fm/legal.

In a nutshell, Loudr combines digital distribution with cover song licensing so that you can sell cover songs as well as original music for $0 upfront fees. We offer a direct-to-fan storefront, as well as delivery of music to platforms like Spotify, iTunes and Google Play at your request. If you collaborate, we can pay anyone you want so you don’t have to worry about splitting checks or writing 1099s.

Artist feedback is really important to us, so please let us know if you have any feedback on the agreement. We actually review and amend our agreements quarterly based on the feedback we receive.

And thanks for checking out Loudr : )

Annie

[craig]

Hi

Just uploaded my bands debut album to your site recently and it says that it has been distributed to all platforms.

Would I be getting any notifications once one of the platforms (itunes, pandora, spotify etc) picks up my album and puts it on their store?

Thanks
Craig

[Shorin]

I have a good followup question. Are you able to handle covers from big publishers like Nintendo and Square Enix?

[Annie Lin]

Hi Craig – Yes, you should be getting a notification. But feel free to contact our support team at support@loudr.fm with specific questions. Shorin – Yes! We can and do handle covers owned by those publishers.

[Jonathan Marzano]

I accidentally included a track on my new album that is only a minute long. I emailed loudr while the album was still in review, I sent countless emails regarding this issue, but loudr, never responded. They approved my album for distribution today and still they have not responded to my emails. They are the worst site I have ever encountered and their customer service is the worst of the worst.

[pianohombre]

@Jonathan That sucks man. I have always released through CDBaby and I just released a single. For some reason I selected Explicit Content (it is an instrumental track). CDBaby was very quick to follow up and resolve the issue. Hopefully they will do the same for you. What is your band’s name?

[Reinhold Behringer]

I have been publishing with CD Baby for many years, and now found on their site that link to LOUDR.fm. So I am now giving it a try. I find this concept of no-upfront-fee and cover licenses very exciting – finally I can record and publish 20th century music compositions which are not yet public domain. The old model of getting mechanical licenses was very tideous – this model by LOUDR looks very promising.

I did notice that their customer service is quite slow – this must be because they are quite overloaded. It took several days for them to reply, and they do not respond on weekends, which means that their support mails are piling up every Monday. But their responses have been helpful indeed.

There is one annoying issue, and that is the strict adherence to the title scheme how classical music tracks need to be named. While this is ok for “old” music, it cannot be applied for contemporary compositions which often do not have a catalogue number or even a key. So the system seems automatically to reject my submissions because of this issue – I got, however, a response from their customer service that they would take care of it.

I can post about my further experiences with LOUDR.fm, once my music will be actually online.

Reinhold

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