Launched in 2009, Epidemic Sound is a production music library with a library of tracks available for video creators. They offer music in any country, on any platform.
Epidemic Sound is a subscription based service. Video creators pay a monthly fee and get unlimited use of the songs in Epidemic’s catalog. The company owns 100 percent of all the music in their library. They buy music directly from composers that do not belong to performance rights organizations.
The service is used by TV4 in Sweden, MTV3 in Finland, Channel 5 in the U.K., and many more.
Now, Epidemic Sound has raised $5 million in Series A funding. The money comes from venture capital firm Creandum, who previously funded Spotify, Wrapp, and more.
Epidemic Sound will use this funding to expand recently opened operations in Holland, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S.
CEO and Co-founder Oscar Höglund says:
“In less than a year we signed up a majority of the Swedish broadcasters; the following year we did the same with all broadcasters in Northern Europe. It’s now time to introduce our services to the rest of the world.”
Basically accelerates the race to the bottom, ending the career viability of creating production music.
http://pmamusic.com/how-performance-free-music-libraries-hurt-the-industry/
And the production business figures out yet another way to eat itself…
Its a horrible business model, which negatively affects 99% of working composers and musicians. I inquired about providing some music for their library and the first question I was asked is, ‘are you a member of a royalty collection society?’ I’m with PRS so I was immediately told that legally they can not accept any music from me or anyone registered with any royalty collection society. What remains unclear is whether a person can submit music to Epidemic and later decide to join PRS. I would think not and any aspiring musicians should read the contract very carefully, because if you are serious about making music you should be aware that receiving performance royalties is the single most important right to hold on to. And you’d better make sure you the music you give away is pretty awful if you’re going to accept such a low, one off payment for it. Any self respecting, up and coming musician should avoid this business model.