Synchtank company highlights The best Dec Synchblog 2020 content 2 Fore word “ Despite everything happening in the world 2020 turned out to be the most successful in Synchtank’s history. “ Chris Cass Chief Business Officer Synchtank Despite everything happening in the world (don’t Also of interest to Synchtank has been the mention the p-word) 2020 turned out to be the development of the tools required for managing most successful in Synchtank’s history. New clients, and promoting production music, be they for fully- new partners, new solutions (including IRIS, our owned libraries for use in in-house productions (see music publishing royalty platform) and new team NFL piece below as well as British Telecom and Issa members all helped drive our revenue growth to its Rae’s Raedio and VICE Media) but also for those highest levels ever. Congratulations to the team for licensing and distributing to third parties, such as our all their contributions and thank you to our clients clients Spirit Production Music and a major music and partners for your continued business. group soon to go live across the globe. In 2020 we saw yet again the requirements for ever- Next year we are looking at and prepared for more sophisticated rights and data management the compliance and reporting challenges facing systems demanded by industry players that use practically everyone who uses the internet with music in their business. Increasingly we have seen the introduction of the European Union Copyright how these have to be flexible enough for rapid, Directive, specifically Article 17 and of the on-going low risk implementation yet have the ability to roll out of the Mechanical Licensing Committee in tightly integrate with multiple big data, finance and the US as well as expansion into new markets for royalties platforms - including our own. Synchtank, such as Africa. We continue to extend our platforms to use the latest standards in CWR, All of this as the entertainment world continues its DDEX and the MLC. inevitable global shift from physical to digital and linear to on-demand causing an explosion in data There are also some exciting developments in volumes. It was highly satisfying to see Synchtank the augmented and virtual reality space that are being in a position to configure software to meet catching our eye, including my former colleague Ty such needs – though of course there were some Robert’s “FanTracks” platform, that we expect to hear disappointments too when budget wasn’t quite a lot more about in 2021. And of course there is the there. role Synchtank expects to play in helping with the valuations of music publishing catalogues with our The creation and consumption of UGC is a new IRIS features. phenomena that continues to grow as Jon Bahr explains in a Synchblog article below. The role All of us at Synchtank would like to take the our software plays supporting CD Baby and other opportunity to thank our old and new customers and similar Synchtank clients such as United Masters, partners for working together throughout 2020 to who are both specialists in providing added value continue our mission of supplying the best tools and services to the self-published writer and self- services while improving efficiencies between the recorded artist, is something we are pleased to supply and demand side of digital entertainment. enable. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 3 About Synchtank Synchtank offers a range of cloud-based SaaS solutions for managing digital entertainment assets, intellectual property, metadata and royalties. Synchtank’s asset management platform and royalty accounting solution are modular, require minimal IT involvement and are configured to meet core business-specified needs. Run as a subscription without CAPEX, Synchtank provides solutions that are flexible and tailored for each customer’s use cases and requirements. Find out more at synchtank.com 4 2020 highlights Launch of royalty Continued Team growth accounting expansion of our and product platform IRIS client base development 2020 saw the launch of our IRIS royalty We were delighted to welcome a diverse To support the growing breadth and accounting platform, giving enterprise array of entertainment companies to our depth of our features we have hired class performance and features to client base in 2020. From distributers extensively this year. 2020 has brought us publishers looking to move their software empowering independent artists like new project managers and developers to systems into the 21st century. Developed United Masters to forward-thinking help manage our client roll outs and add over the last 6 years in partnership with production music libraries such as the additional support options. In support of one of the world’s largest independent NFL Music Library, Spirit Production Music, our royalty system, we have onboarded a publishers, the system has shown that and Issa Rae’s Raedio, it is a range that hugely experienced development team it can deal with well over 2m copyrights reflects the scope of our functionality with enterprise-scale data management and has transacted nearly $1bn to date, and our ability to offer a truly customized and processing experience, reflecting processing hundreds of millions of data solution. Our powerful software helps to the focus on scale, reliability and features rows at high speed. In addition, it fully streamline workflows and dramatically required for large enterprise rollouts. supports multi-office setups in multiple reduce manual effort, allowing our Helping to maximise the value of the languages and automated connectivity clients to focus on adding value to their system is our senior royalty analyst who via a REST API. Following the development businesses. We look forward to continuing will work with clients on their individual of the full cloud-based version with to build efficiencies between the supply requirements. We will be building our support for massive scaling, IRIS is being and demand side of digital entertainment team out further in 2021 as we add new rolled out live to clients in 2021. in 2021 and beyond. features and services. 5 Synchblog 150,000 highlights Thanks to over 150,000 Synchblog readers in 2020! From interviews with clients to synchblog.com in-depth analysis and coverage of industry trends, we’ve put together some of the best Synchblog content of 2020 for you to enjoy. AVL Digital’s Jon Bahr on CD Baby’s Booming Sync Business 6-7 Client & Creating an Equitable Future for Rightsholders Features Introducing the NFL Music Library, a New Destination for 8-9 Content Creators Thunder Only Happens When It’s Raining: How Social Media 10-11 Industry and UGC Could Decide the Future of the Music Industry Analysis This Must Be the Place: Is Africa Set to Become a Major 12-13 Player in the Global Music Industry? Barry Massarsky on Data-Driven Catalog Valuations and 14-15 Drivers of Growth in the Music Investment Market Finance 2020 x 20: The Themes That Defined a Blockbuster Year in 16-17 Music Publishing Deals Sync Pushing Boundaries: New Frontiers in Music Licensing 18-19 Forever Changes: Assessing the Post-Pandemic Film and TV 20-21 & Licensing Landscape and the Potential Impact on Sync What Q3’s Music Industry Numbers Tell Us About the Future 22-23 Metadata of Royalties & Royalties A Metadata with Destiny: The Next Steps for Digital Music 24-25 Information Client Features 6 AVL Digital?s Jon Bahr on CD Baby?s Booming Sync Business & Creating an Equitable Future for Rightsholders We recently caught up with Jon to discuss the secret to CD Baby's booming sync operation. By Emma Griffiths with direct pitching. I?m focused on growing what we have as a whole. Right now it?s CD Baby, but in the future there will be opt-ins from our brands like DashGo or Soundrop. The real goal is to serve licensee needs. Our catalog has a lot of different niches, so we look to work with companies with a wide range of needs. "Our catalog has a lot of different niches, so we look to work with companies with a wide range of needs." We're not looking to replace production music or provide low-cost music for YouTube videos, we don't do those licenses. We have a catalog of commercially released music that's Shazamable and on Spotify. One of the first things we did using Synchtank was take our 5 million sync songs Jon Bahr serves as the VP, Business CD Baby, DashGo, FUGA, Show.co, and and parse them out based on their rights Development & Licensing at AVL Soundrop, so my role is spread across the picture. We have every cover master and public domain master segmented out. We Digital, the global leader of entire group with a focus on business development. I help to create and grow have our core one-stop catalog of over a independent music monetization and relationships with people looking to million songs, where we have the master parent company to brands including collaborate with us across our businesses. that we distribute and the publishing that we CD Baby, AdRev, and DashGo. administer. Everything else is kept in the site I?m also focused on sync and licensing our but in a separate area. After 13 years at ASCAP, Bahr joined catalog, which is something that we are Synchtank client CD Baby in 2016 and now putting more focus on since I joined CD Has the Downtown acquisition of AVL works across AVL Digital Group, which was Baby in late 2016. We?ve put a lot of focus on Digital had an impact on your sync acquired by Downtown Music Holdings in engaging music supervisors and building business? March 2019.