Written by Tim Ingham — Sony Music in Sweden has developed an app which the major says will fix transparent accounting issues faced by artists in the streaming age.
Former Spotify exec Michelle Kadir led development of the platform, which shows acts their daily royalty earnings – including information pertaining to their label advance.
In addition, the app pulls together other key information for Sony Music Sweden artists, including streaming volume across all platforms, plus airplay data and profiles by age/gender/location of their listeners.
A “heat map” highlights the areas in the world where the artist is currently popular – information which could, for instance, help inform an act’s touring plans.
As you’d expect, the app also offers ‘intelligence’ of social media popularity across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
It has been given to artists signed to Sony Music Sweden with a global roll-out expected later this year.
“Transparency has been the key word when we developed this,” Kadir told Swedish publication Weekend, adding that another key driver of the app’s creation was a “realization that the most important thing for an artist in today’s digital presence and to penetrate through the noise”.
“TRANSPARENCY HAS BEEN THE KEY WORD WHEN WE DEVELOPED THIS.”Kadir, Sony Music Sweden’s VP of Digital Business, joined the major in May last year after six years at Spotify.
MICHELLE KADIR, SONY MUSIC
Following a stint at UMG, Kadir was hired by Daniel Ek’s firm in 2009 as a Project Manager and rose to Senior Director of Content & Distribution.
Of course, any app promising artists royalty transparency won’t improve how much money their label is actually passing onto them from streaming services – but many in the artist community will appreciate Sony’s attempt to give them more insight into their earnings.
Kadir developed the Sony app together with a team of new hires and two Los Angeles-based Swedish programmers who goes by the name Bomb Squad.
Weekend reports that Sony has invested ‘substantial sum’ in developing the app – and that it could become an advantageous asset when it comes to competing for artist signatures.
Last year, UMPG launched a portal for its writers which allowed them to ‘request a monetary advance online against due incoming royalties for no additional fee’.
Kobalt is widely seen as the originator of this kind of artist-facing data Portal – the majors are clearly learning lessons from its success.
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