Musicinfo Year End Recap 2021
Originally posted on https://musicinfo.io/blog/recap-2021 by Teemu Uimonen & Alessia Lee
Musicinfo’s eventful year of 2021 is on the home stretch. Let’s take a look at some of the things we’ve done this year.
New distribution areas: South-Korea and Africa
We started distributing to South-Korea’s unique streaming servicesMelOn, Bugs!, Genie, Naver VIBE and FLO. When thinking about South-Korea and its music industry, many of you might think of K-pop first. It is true that K-pop is extremely popular in South-Korea and it has been the main driver for the rapid growth of the music industry, but obviously the music scene in this modern, 52 million people country is much more than just K-pop. There is plenty of room and demand for all kinds of music there. The internet infrastructure in South-Korea is also one of the best ones in the world, so the possibilities for the continuous growth of music streaming is excellent. You can read more about our distribution to South-Korea in our blogs here and here
We also started to distribute to BoomPlay, which operates in every African country except South Africa. Africa is certain to become a big player in the music streaming business in coming years and it is good to distribute music there as an early adapter. Distribution to BoomPlay is done only by request.
Expanding to South-Korea and Africa is great for our existing and new customers, since it does not cost anything extra on top of the widest distribution to China on the market. If you want your music to be distributed to Africa, please contact support@musicinfo.io
Music synchronization service
With our non-exclusive synchronization licensing service, our customers can now make their music available to video bloggers, game companies, advertisement producers, TV programs and movies. Synchronization is becoming more popular as musicians and composers search for more ways of making their music heard and monetizing it. Pitching your music for synchronization does not cost anything, but Musicinfo will take 20% from any synchronization deal you land. The payout can be anywhere from tens to thousands of dollars depending on the usage. If you wish to sync your music with Musicinfo, you need to use our distribution services. If you wish to synchronize the album only partially or only sync it without distribution to DSPs, you can reach out to support@musicinfo.io
Composer interviews displayed at Film Festivals
To celebrate the possibilities our synchronization services enable, we interviewed three of our sync artists, Petri Alanko (game music for Alan Wake, Quantum Break and Control), Cécile Corbel (music for film The Secret World of Arrietty) and Torsti Spoof (trailer-music for Star Wars, Rogue One — A Star Wars Story, Fear The Walking Dead, Jumanji and other Hollywood trailers) for a film that was screened at the Shanghai Film Festival, EU Film Festival In China. It will also be shown at the upcoming Guangzhou Documentary Film Festival. Read more about it here.
Informing artists about the Chinese music market
Sharing up-to-date information about the Chinese music market is also important tofor us.
We have updated some information about the music copyrights in China on Wikipedia. Today, music copyright is enforced in China and piracy is no longer an issue (the Wiki article stated the opposite citing long outdated sources). Read more about music copyrights in China in our blog.
We did our own study about the listening habits of 38 Chinese students. Although the group was small, and represented only a limited demographic, it was still an interesting and insightful endeavor for us. Check out what we found out in our blog.
This year we also researched the Chinese DSPs a bit more. It makes sense to have a grasp of the services we distribute to, right? Did you for example know that to take care of their users, NetEase has invited experts and volunteers to provide online services for those in need of psychological comfort? Read more about it here.
These might be small bits of information, but they are all important steps towards a better understanding of the Chinese music market for us and help ensure we continue providing you with the best and most up-to-date advice and services.
What’s coming in 2022?
We will continue our work on making our services benefit our artists as much as possible and collecting and sharing information about the music markets we distribute to. Covid-19 has been a constant shadow in our daily lives, but as the vaccination coverage grows and smart safety measures are followed, we can get through the pandemic together. And whatever the situation might be in the future, one thing is for sure: Music keeps on playing and bringing us joy and comfort. This has been proved by the growing streaming numbers during the pandemic. For artists this means that it makes sense to distribute music to as many DSPs as possible. Focusing on China with Musicinfo gives you the best possibilities and support in this vast and fast growing music market.
