Our President/CEO Patrick Sullivan was quoted today in a New York Times article on recent moves by Sirius and others towards direct licensing options.

Business Day
Sirius’s Move to Bypass a Royalty Payment Clearinghouse Causes an Uproar
By BEN SISARIO
Published: November 6, 2011

Sirius’s action reflects a gradual shift in music business, as many companies try to reduce costs by bypassing the standard method of paying for digital streams.

Read Patrick’s quote and the full article on the New York Times website.

May 6, 2011 (LOS ANGELES) – A2IM and NARM are once again partnering to offer the perennially popular Music Business Crash Course as a part of this year’s NARM Convention. The Crash Course is to be held Monday, May 9th through Tuesday, May 10th at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles, the NARM Convention hotel headquarters. One of the most highly reviewed programs of the convention, the Crash Course features educational presentations and panel discussions focused on the independent sector.

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Often the most valuable tools you have as an entrepreneur are your network, relationships and mentors. Although starting and running a business is sure to be a learning process, finding out what has and what hasn’t for those who have been there and done that can save you a lot of time and hard lessons learned. Here, seven successful entrepreneurs share their best business advice for fellow entrepreneurs.

Patrick Sullivan, president and CEO of RightsFlow, a New York-based licensing and royalty service provider serving YouTube, Rhapsody, and Muzak, started the company in his apartment three years ago. Today, it is a multi-million dollar firm with more than two dozen employees on both coasts. His advice is to identify the “pain area” your customers have and provide them with a solution. Read the rest of this entry »

RightsFlow Providing Full Mechanical Licensing and Administration For Rhapsody’s Digital Music Subscription Service

New York, NY, July 6, 2010 – RightsFlow, a leading provider of licensing and royalty services, announced today an agreement to provide bulk mechanical licensing and administration and reporting support for Rhapsody, the leading online music subscription service.  The deal will provide Rhapsody with additional tools and solutions for mechanical licensing and content management services for publishing rights in the United States.

Rhapsody offers subscribers unlimited on-demand access to more than nine million songs, whether they’re listening on a PC, laptop, internet connected home stereo or TV, MP3 player or mobile phone (including the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Android-powered headsets).  Rhapsody subscribers can access their music through more touch-points than any other digital music service. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a wealth of public domain Christmas music available, so if you want to avoid the hassle of tracking and paying royalties, you shouldn’t have any problems. I start by looking at the Public Domain website’s list of Christmas songs. Many Christmas hymns and spirituals are public domain, along with old traditional carols. A lot of times these melodies were written years before the lyrics were added and the tune became associated with Christmas (ie. Greensleeves).

Hymns and spirituals are great for instrumental albums, but won’t always work for vocalists. After all, many of the vocal standards recorded by Harry Connick, Jr. or Nat King Cole are secular pieces written by tin pan alley era composers or later. If you’re interested in recording songs that are not in the public domain, you will have to pay royalties. The easiest way to do this is by using Limelight, an online service that collects royalties and administers them to the copyright holders for you. For further reading, see my article on releasing cover songs. Read the rest of this entry »

Bobby Sain and Split Rail Records Winner at MEIEA 2010 International Conference

Limelight, the new simple solution for artists and bands to clear cover songs, has awarded Appalachian State’s Bobby Sain with a fee-free year of mechanical licensing at the MEIEA 2010 International Conference hosted by The Frost School of Music.

“I am very excited to be working with Limelight and look forward to creating some amazing cover songs,” commented Sain, who is currently a student at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina where he also serves as President of Split Rail, a student run independent record label. He was awarded the prize at the opening reception following a round of networking bingo. Read the rest of this entry »

Location: New York, NY
When: Thursday, April 15th, 2010
Time: 6:00 – 8:00
Where: Soho House – White Room
29-335 Ninth Avenue
New York, NY 10014

Change. Growth. Strength.
Come out, spend an evening with the digital music & media industry association and find out more.  Explore how.  Measure the value of DiMA today and what that means for today’s digital music & media business.

RSVP to gideon.kalischer@rightsflow.com

RightsFlow Providing Full Licensing, Reporting and Administration Services Powering Guvera’s Innovative Customer Experience

New York, NY – April 1, 2010. RightsFlow, a leading provider of bulk mechanical licensing and royalty services, today announced a deal to provide licensing, administration and reporting services for Guvera, a new digital content platform launching in the U.S. with free, ad-supported music downloads and streaming services.

RightsFlow will be providing mechanical licensing and reporting services for publishing rights in the United States, giving Guvera a one-stop solution for U.S. mechanical rights licensing and management. Read the rest of this entry »

Lubbock, TX – March 29, 2010 – ScatterTunes™, the company that is revolutionizing the presentation of music through its innovative and interactive V-Album technology, VA (V-Album) Creation tool and “Artists On The Rise” program, has selected Limelight as the mechanical licensing solution for independent artists and bands choosing to use the V-Album platform.

Witt Stewart, CEO and Founder of ScatterTunes says, “At ScatterTunes we are committed to providing innovative opportunities for talented new artists. Now, our partnership with RightsFlow makes it even easier for up-and-coming talent to bring music to market.”

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Cannes, France – January 24, 2010 – RightsFlow, a leading provider of bulk mechanical licensing and royalty services, announced an agreement with PRS for Music,, the music copyright organization representing 65,000 UK songwriters, composers and publishers, to allow RightsFlow to identify and license PRS for Music works for mechanical uses in the United States.  The project fills a crucial gap, ensuring that UK songwriters receive royalties from digital transactions in the United States even where content does not have North American representation.

The agreement puts in place a data-sharing capability whereby RightsFlow can send usage information to PRS for Music who will cross-check this with their own copyright systems.   The result will be better matching of the appropriate sub-publisher or licensing body in the US, or where works are unrepresented direct accounting to PRS for Music.

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