I spoke with a really cool rep from TuneSat today. Attached is a little peak at their interface. They have a digital fingerprinting technology that will track your songs as they appear in broadcast. They are much more accurate than ASCAP’s sampling surveys/techniques (though, to ASCAP’s credit it has improved a lot over the last few years) and have gotten music companies/composers a lot of additional money. In fact, their technology has resulted in so much extra discovered placements/money for composers, it has overwhelmed ASCAP. I know for a fact when I’m talking to the back end royalties folks, they are completely overwhelmed trying to keep up with it all.
I’m wondering if anyone who is a “semi-pro” indie composer, basically someone doing music/licensing thing part-time but making good money at it, is using this service? For a full on music library or production house, the investment is not so much. But at $27/month (first tier of pricing to track 50 songs, goes up from there) and a year contract, this is not overwhelming, but significant to an indie composer on a very tight budget. can anyone give me some feedback? It’s not the monthly rate, but the year commitment, that is slightly intimidating.
But i’ve gone into my budget and eliminated other waste, like my $10/month box.net account (dropbox for me now, even though it has less features), and now using Blue Host/Word Press to host all my sites for a much more economical/manageable solution. And I’m sure to truly see results, you have to be using the service for long enough…as we composers know, there’s a long turnaround time for any music appearing in broadcast–you can expect to see the records from ASCAP and payment until 9 months later.
I work with a couple of companies who own my tunes exclusively and are pretty tight on tracking things, but I have a half dozen other partners that do the “re-titling” thing with my tracks. Who knows where my stuff could have been used without my knowledge. Any way you slice it, “found money” is extra