Song Sleuth

🎵 Timeless Tunes, Endless Potential 🎵 At Song Sleuth, we believe that great music never gets old. Our latest report reveals a treasure trove of opportunity hidden in decade-old music user-generated content (UGC). While today's industry often chases after viral hits and fast-moving trends, our insights show that the past is not only alive but thriving in the digital age. 🔍 Key Findings from our report: 1️⃣ Viewership of older UGC is growing - of 22,000 unlicensed videos we analyzed from 8,300 artists, we found they had a combined 970 million views, gaining more than 46 million monthly views in total. That's millions of dollars of revenue waiting to be tapped. 2️⃣ The Queen of Pop still reigns - Madonna leads the charge of all the artists we anaylzed, with her catalog receiving 11.8 million views, proving her lasting impact. 3️⃣ Filmed footage of live concerts outperform other forms of UGC - Live UGC accounts for 58% of views, reminding us of the timeless magic of iconic performances. ✨ The Takeaway? Older music is far from forgotten. It's a growing revenue stream with untapped potential, offering new ways to connect with audiences and monetize evergreen content. At Song Sleuth, we’re committed to analyzing every angle of music UGC, both new and old, to help artists and rights holder uncover its full potential. Big thanks to our Data Analyst Maud Ranger for pulling together these findings. Read the full report 👉 👉 👉 https://lnkd.in/eaBqgxdi #MusicUGC #SongSleuth #TimelessTunes #MusicInsights

📣 Exciting news from Song Sleuth! 📣 We’re delighted to welcome Ryan McCarry as Non-Executive Advisor. Following his investment in the company, Ryan brings extensive experience in scaling businesses across Tech, SaaS, and Venture Capital. His proven expertise in business development, startup growth, funding strategies, and acquisitions will be instrumental as we continue to solve the music industry's problems around monetising user-generated content (UGC). On his appointment, Ryan says: “It is great to be working with Jordan again and a huge privilege to be a part of the next stage of Song Sleuth’s development and growth. This is an opportunity to work with an incredible team and I’m excited about the journey ahead. Our innovative and ‘true AI’ UGC platform has huge potential in the Music and Sports sectors and we aim to be the market-leader with the strongest tech offering available to our growing list of clients.” 🚀 We’re thrilled to have Ryan on board as we drive innovation in the UGC space. https://lnkd.in/ebk7qtpd

This New York Times article highlights a shift in the music industry. Older songs are blowing up on platforms like YouTube and TikTok, leading artists to modify live sets for a new generation of fans. This social media-powered “catalog resurgence” is breathing fresh life into music catalogs, boosting streams, ticket sales, and even vinyl reissues. So why should rightsholders make user-generated content (UGC) a priority? The reality is clear: UGC has become a powerful driver of engagement, revenue, and brand longevity. But with this surge in content comes the need for solutions to help manage and monetize their content effectively. At Song Sleuth, we empower rightsholders to turn UGC into a strategic asset, ensuring that their music isn’t just riding the wave of trends, but truly harnessing it. https://lnkd.in/eshEu-yd

🗞️ This just in 🗞️ Timbaland will be dropping his new song “Love Again” exclusively on Suno - and launching a fan remix contest to boot. From later today, Suno will be releasing the stems to the track alongside, offering users the chance to remix track. In addition to giving away $100K in prizes, the top 2 remixes chosen by Timbaland will get an official release. This initiative marks a significant step in how artists are leveraging UGC to deepen fan engagement and amplify their reach. Creation is the new consumption. https://lnkd.in/guFnehfh

How does user-generated content differ across music genres? In a recent report in which we analyzed millions of videos on YouTube, we looked at the different types of UGC that fans from each of the main musical genres create. Here are some of our findings: 🎸 Rock is the most cover-friendly genre, with covers making up 41% of total rock UGC. 🎶 Pop follows closely with covers making up 40% of total UGC, while for country it’s 34%. 🎤 On the flip side, hip-hop dominates the remix scene, with 33% of its views coming from remixes, compared to just 23% for rock. These trends make sense. Hip-hop’s roots in sampling align well with remix culture, while the accessibility of acoustic instruments and tutorials makes covers more common in rock, pop, and country. For more UGC insights, head over to our blog - https://lnkd.in/eYYVEXdC #MusicTrends #UGC

The way that fans engage with music is constantly evolving. Easy access to smartphones, free audio/video editing software, and high-quality tutorials from seasoned veterans allow us to relive, reimagine, and recreate our favorite songs more than ever before. Between live concert footage, remixes and videos of covers and performances, the user-generated content industry is going through exponential growth right now, with billions of videos uploaded yearly. As a company operating at the frontlines of the UGC boom, we've analyzed millions of these videos, gaining a deep understanding of the types of content that people are posting and how UGC trends vary by genre and artist. In our ongoing series, we're going to be sharing our discoveries. Starting with infographics like the one below, showing that covers are currently the most popular form of UGC online. Read all this and more! https://lnkd.in/eYYVEXdC #UGC #MusicIndustryInsights

The music industry is undergoing a transformative shift, driven by the rise of user-generated content (UGC). Once a byproduct of culture, UGC has rapidly become the culture itself, upending the status quo in which streaming services were the primary means by which people discovered and engaged with their favorite artists. In this article, we explore some of the shifts and new trends that are emerging around UGC, including: ✅ Creation as the new consumption ✅ UGC overtaking music streaming services as the primary driver of music discovery for Gen Z ✅ UGC as a cost-effective way to circulate catalog ✅ UGC's increasing prevalence in artist marketing campaigns ✅ What Kendrick v Drake taught us about UGC as the new status symbol

We have two exciting announcements to make today 📣 We're pleased to be partnering with Regalias Digitales LLC to identify undetected user-generated live music content and maximize collections for all rightsholders across their portfolio. The partnership will see us deploy our UGSeeker product - an AI and machine learning platform that scans online platforms to find undiscovered UGC - for their artists, songwriters and publishers. Additionally, we have entered into a 12-month commercial trial with ICE, the world’s first integrated music copyright, licensing and processing hub. Our commercial trial will ensure that ICE Core Society & Publisher partners can now explore the returns from the industry-leading UGC identification services which only we are able to provide, helping to identify additional works not currently included in platforms’ usage reporting. Song Sleuth CEO Jordan Gross says, “We’re delighted to be expanding our relationships within the music industry to digital rights management companies and performing rights organisations. Regalías Digitales and ICE are forward-thinking and cutting edge music companies who share our passion for innovative solutions and commitment to maximizing collections for rightsholders. We’re excited to get to work finding UGC that is currently being missed for their partners and ensuring that they are receiving the money they are rightfully owed.” Our mission is simple: to ensure that all rightsholders receive the royalties they deserve. By joining forces with forward-thinking companies like Regalías Digitales and ICE, we’re taking a big step toward closing the gap on missed UGC revenue opportunities in the music industry.

MIDiA Research has conducted its first-ever survey dedicated to songwriters. In it, they explore how songwriters earn revenue; challenges they're facing (spoiler: the number one challenge is, unsurprisingly, lack of collecting meaningful royalties); tools and services they're looking for and more. The below infographic depicts songwriters' goals, with finding new revenue streams and securing more sync placements top of the list (Source: MIDiA Research Songwriter Survey 2024). Download the summary here: https://lnkd.in/ejNCpQtT

Luminate recently published their 2024 mid-year report; a 64 page document which contains an abundance of music data, from which we can glean valuable insights into how today’s fans in the U.S. are consuming and engaging with music. When it comes to live music, it's clear that user-generated content (UGC) arising from the intersection of on and offline music fandom presents us with some exciting opportunities. Here are some of our key takeaways: ➡️ While 76% of American music listeners are consuming short-form videos, 22% of them have posted these videos themselves. ➡️ Short-form video users are 38% more likely to attend live events than the general American population. ➡️ There's a correlation between the genre of music a fan listens to, and the likelihood of them posting UGC. J-Pop and K-Pop fans are 59% more likely to post UGC than the average music listener, followed by Hip-Hop/Rap and Latin fans at 41%, Dance/Electronic listeners at 36%, R&B at 32%. ➡️ There’s significant local growth in on-demand audio streaming by genre during the week of a live show when compared to the week before. Dance/Electronic music exhibits the largest increase, growing 143% from one week to the next. That's significantly more than the runner up, Rock Music (up by 63%). For more analysis of the report, head to our latest Culture post after the jump.