Today (April 20) there’s more big news from Songtradr, via an acquisition that takes it into a rapidly-expanding area of the modern music business.
Songtradr has confirmed the acquisition of Pretzel (aka Pretzel Rocks), a platform that supplies “stream safe” music to livestreamers on platforms such as Twitch and YouTube.
Said livestreamers have to be very careful of playing licensed music via services such as Spotify when recording their videos. Doing so will likely result in a DMCA takedown of their content, or see it stung by YouTube’s Content ID.
Instead, Pretzel is licensed direct by its artists to make their music available for such content without livestreamers needing to fear a DMCA / Content ID takedown.
In return, as opposed to traditional royalties, Pretzel pays these artists 70% of its net subscription revenues – money generated by livestreamers who sign up for the service’s Premium features.
“The explosive growth of lifestyle and gaming livestreams opens up an array of opportunities for our artists and our clients.”
When you consider that nearly 10 million individual streamers broadcast content over Twitch last month, it’s not hard to see how a mushrooming market is opening up for music that carries fewer licensing obstacles than traditional music industry releases.
It’s a market that’s been zeroed in on by the likes of $1.4 billion-valued Epidemic Sound. And now it’s one in which SongTradr is making a serious investment.
Paul Wiltshire, CEO of Songtradr, said of the Pretzel acquisition: “Music and gaming has always gone hand in hand and gamers are some of the most engaged and valuable music fans. The explosive growth of lifestyle and gaming livestreams opens up an array of opportunities for our artists and our clients.
“We immediately saw the potential for Pretzel’s groundbreaking user experience and rights management technology in our ecosystem and a clear alignment of vision, values and culture.”
Over the last year, Pretzel’s monthly recurring revenues have increased over 600%, with over 6 million tracks licensed from rights-holders.
“By joining forces with Songtradr, we will be able to accelerate our progress, developing a platform that revolutionizes the way music is licensed.”
Nate Beck, Pretzel
To date, the service currently provided more than 12,000 hours of music for monetized streams on platforms such as Twitch and YouTube.
“We are excited to join one of the fastest growing music tech companies in the world and continue to innovate new solutions,” says Nate Beck, Pretzel Co-Founder and CEO.
“Our goal with Pretzel has always been to allow broadcasters to stream the music they want to listen to, while compensating artists, songwriters, record labels and publishers fairly.
“By joining forces with Songtradr, we will be able to accelerate our progress, developing a platform that revolutionizes the way music is licensed.”
