MUSIK !D TV NEWS | Is Sony Buying Tunecore? [VIDEO]
In this episode, we're looking into Sony's secret.
Based on an article published on Music Business Worldwide on June 26, 2017
Digital distribution company TuneCore is on course to distribute more than $200m in digital royalties to its user base this year.
The company has announced that it will soon surpass $1bn lifetime payouts to artists across the 12 years since it was founded in 2005.
On its website, TuneCore has launched a ticker which shows the company has (as of 2pm EDT today) distributed $936.75m to artists since it was founded.
TuneCore has previously confirmed that its lifetime payouts at the end of 2016 stood at $836m – meaning that, over the past six months, the company has distributed approximately $101m in digital royalties.
This figure includes money from platforms such as iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon and Google Play, but does not cover royalties earned by Tunecore from YouTube or from publishing rights.
With over $100m paid out across the first half of 2017, TuneCore is easily on course to distribute more than $200m over the full year.
Over the 12 months of 2016, TuneCore officially distributed $188m to artists, up 32% year on year.
Rather than taking a percentage commission from its users, TuneCore pays out a 100% royalty after charging a flat fee for distribution.
TuneCore’s total distributions will naturally grow as its user base expands, but the company hasn’t recently been forthcoming with information about the size of its membership.
Back in April 2011, TuneCore announced that it was servicing more than 600,000 artists – which appeared to show a jump of 100,000 customers over the previous six months.
If it’s managed to continue on such a trajectory, it would now comfortably count more than 1m users amongst its membership.
In celebration of closing in on the $1bn lifetime payout figure, TuneCore has launched a new promotion offering a free-of-charge upload of a single track using the coupon code “BILLION” (U.S., Canada, UK and Australia); “MILLIARD” (France); “MILLIARDE” (Germany); and “MILIARDO” (Italy).
“TuneCore is incredibly proud of our artists for reaching such an impactful industry milestone while keeping 100 percent of their earnings through streaming and downloads,” says Scott Ackerman, CEO at TuneCore.
“We are deeply committed to helping our artists maximize their revenue, which is why we are so excited to celebrate as they approach this historic achievement. We encourage artists around the world to join the Billion Dollar Club and help reach $1 billion in artist earnings ahead of our projected date.
TuneCore was acquired by Believe Digital in 2015.
It continues to be run as an autonomous organization headquartered in Brooklyn, NY with offices in Burbank, CA, Nashville, TN, New Orleans, LA, Atlanta, GA and Austin, TX, and global outposts in the UK, Australia, Japan, Canada, Germany, France and Italy.
Recent rumors suggest that Sony made a 300m+ offer to acquire Believe Digital earlier this month.
