Audiam's Role In The Music Industry

A major issue in the music industry currently is how music publishers and songwriters can get paid for the use of their songs’ in digital streaming services such as Spotify or Apple Music. One agency that is trusted by these publishers and songwriters is called Audiam. Audiam is an agency that collects music royalties; and licenses and distributes streaming mechanicals to their members (Audiam). In an article by Ari Herstand she stated, “Audiam seeks to offer an easy button to get musician, songwriters, composers, publishers, and labels paid. No paperwork. No loss of rights. No headaches.” In today’s world, songwriters are used to accepting late or even inaccurate payments (Price). Audiam has sought to change that. Since the creation

Streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music must obtain two licenses in order to stream the musical works. They need one license for the sound recording and one license for the underlying composition. There are a couple ways one could obtain the license for the underlying composition, being that one could sign either a direct or compulsory license. The difference between these two licenses is that a direct license is when the entity representing the artist enters a direct deal with the digital service. Whereas, a compulsory license is immediately in place as soon as the recording of the song is released commercially

Members simply upload their master recordings along with a lyric sheet to prove ownership; and Audiam will solidify their rights to the recordings and protect the works. Members receive 100% of the money made from their own videos on YouTube (Herstand). As this is a service that is free to everyone, one may be wondering where this money comes from. The main idea behind this service is that when YouTube gets paid, so do the members. Advertisers pay YouTube to use their ads in videos and YouTube takes a percentage of this ad and pays out the remaining amount. What is unique about Audiam is that the agency gets members paid for the use of their music on any digital streaming service, as well as any use on YouTube