New York, NY- July 1, 2009
Patrick Sullivan is founder and serves as president and CEO of RightsFlow. He is also a member of the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) Publishing Committee. Mr. Sullivan was a key player in negotiating the licensing agreements that permitted the launch of the majority of the online music and mobile services that exist in the market today. He has worked as an expert witness for clients in high-profile copyright cases adjudicated in the courts. Mr. Sullivan also provides senior-level strategy and guidance and expertise to Fortune 500 clients.

Over the past several years, he served as vice president of licensing and music services for both The Orchard and eMusic. Prior to The Orchard, he was a strategic licensing consultant for Selverne, Mandelbaum, & Mintz, a New York-based entertainment law firm. From 1999 to 2004, he served as the director of research and development at the National Music Publishers’ Association/The Harry Fox Agency (HFA).
In this interview, Mr. Sullivan talks about music rights management.
eMarketer: What does RightsFlow do?
Patrick Sullivan: RightsFlow is an outsourced music-licensing platform company that services online music services, record
companies and distributors for licensing and royalties through US publishers and their representatives. We’ve been around
roughly a year and a half and we were started by executives from The Orchard and eMusic.
eMarketer: Who are some of your top clients, and what services do you provide for them?
Mr. Sullivan: Some of our clients include EMI Records, Nickelodeon, Active International, CD Baby, IODA, Disc Makers,
Constellation Wines, Muzak and Zebralution. We represent over 1,000 customers today that need licensing services in the
US.
eMarketer: Could you give me some specifics on what services you provide for your clients?
Mr. Sullivan: In order to distribute music in the US, whether digitally or physically, you’re required to obtain a license, and in
the case of digital distribution through iTunes or a physical CD, you’re required to obtain a mechanical license. This mechanical
license grants you the right to physically or digitally distribute content through iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody or in brick-and-
mortar stores.
Record distributors, labels as well as music services who don’t have the ability to license and streamline this process come to
us and we help facilitate this process. And we do it in bulk and in volume, meaning that companies that have, in many
instances, thousands to hundreds of thousands of songs they need licenses for, will come to us. Our value to them is that,
rather than having to deal with the over 40,000 entities that are representing publishing licenses or mechanical licenses, our
clients come to us for one-stop licensing.
eMarketer: Would you say that your strength is more in the relationships that you have or in your knowledge of how the
licensing process works?
Mr. Sullivan: It’s a combination of both. We’re very fortunate to have a strong relationship with US mechanical license
administrator The Harry Fox Agency. I’m a former director for The Harry Fox Agency and the National Music Publishers’
Association, so that relationship allows us to process these licenses and understand how the inner workings of the music
industry pertain to publishing licenses.
eMarketer: Most of your clients are in the music industry, which was struggling even before the current economic downturn.
What challenges does this present for your business?
Mr. Sullivan: Fortunately for us, the economic downturn has turned into a benefit. Our main competition has been in-house
licensing, and it’s costly. There’s a fixed cost to having licensing personnel, royalty personnel, even legal personnel
overseeing that area. Companies are looking for ways to save money in this economy, so they’re outsourcing that
responsibility to companies such as RightsFlow.
eMarketer: What does RightsFlow do? One of your customers stands out because it’s not in the music space. Tell me about Constellation Wines and the
branded promotion that you did with them.
Mr. Sullivan: Constellation Wines owns quite a few brands in the US, including Blackstone Wines. Through our relationship
with EMI, we had the opportunity to license EMI’s catalog to Blackstone and distribute over 100,000 units all over the US with
download songs on bottles of wine.
eMarketer: So basically, Blackstone had a code for free downloads on the bottle itself and the customer redeemed it? Is that
how it worked?
Mr. Sullivan: Correct. The consumer would get the bottle of wine, they would go home and take a two-song code, and then
put it into a Blackstone/EMI Music Website where they could download the songs.
eMarketer: Do you see an opportunity to do other branded promotions with non-music companies?
Mr. Sullivan: Absolutely. One of our customers is Active International. It’s a Fortune 500, multibillion-dollar company that
works with Kroger’s, Kraft, Colgate-Palmolive, and they’ve just launched a campaign that we put together with them. They
built a branded entertainment store that allows their customers to download music similar to the Blackstone campaign, but
get gift cards.
There’s a way to utilize music where the people will get the perceived value they would if they were downloading a song for
99 cents, and the brand will get the return on the investment that they put in to give that perceived value similar to a coupon
or a redemption at retail.
Link: Full PDF Interview
Link: http://www.emarketer.com/