Sony BMG, home to Christina Aguilera and the Zutons, will be the first big label to pay Ricall a commission for finding new users for its tracks. Until now, Ricall has been charging a finder's fee to the companies buying the tracks. But with Sony BMG tracks they will not be charged on top of the cost of the licence.
Richard Corbett, Ricall founder and chief executive says his group provides more clients for music labels and publishers by bringing in smaller buyers such as computer games makers . The Sony BMG agreement marks a change in music labels' mindsets, he says, away from liaising with a few bluechip companies on a handful of lucrative licensing deals. "What this really means is a shift towards volume licensing," he said.
"For Sony BMG, the Ricall partnership also means getting its long-tail of older, more obscure content out to more buyers. The deal means advertisers and computer games makers searching Ricall database will now have access to back catalogues of artists such as Bucks Fizz, Miles Davis, Nina Simone, The Byrds and Duke Ellington. Each of Ricall.
com's three million tracks - which become four million after this deal - have a musical fingerprint listing attributes like tempo, instrument, demographics and mood. That allows buyers to search for tracks by style, which in turn means a record label can also offer its less well-known music to new customers. Peter Leggatt from Sony BMG's commercial markets team said so-called "synch" licences were becoming "an increasingly important source of revenue for the music industry.
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