These kinds of growing pains are common among young growers. Often based in remote locations with little access to industry know-how, the BeatStars team believe providing educational resources is an important resource for young people entering the industry for the first time. It is this passion for education and development that led BeatStars to found its publishing arm, in partnership with Sony Music Publishing, last year.
“It’s another team within the BeatStars family that is able to react quickly to support something from the producer that connects with the audience,” says Mateo.
Initially open to a few select producers and writers, BeatStars Publishing has spent the last year perfecting its offerings. “We really wanted to make sure everything was working properly, that our community was heard and that whatever it wanted was implemented first,” says Mateo.
Now that the team has found out what their clients need from the publishing company, BeatStars and Sony Music Publishing want to open up the common platform to anyone who wants to sign up, even those who have never used the Marlet. For the general public, BeatStars Publishing offers administrative services for a period of less than one year in return for a reduction of 20% in mechanical royalties and 40% in performance royalties. Administrative services include copyright registration, revenue data and tracking analysis, and worldwide royalty collection and distribution.
“These are agreements that are not traditionally made,” says Mateo.
What’s the catch? For the basic administrative agreement, which is available to everyone on the BeatStars online portal, producers and writers will not receive an advance, but Mateo says that BeatStars is “always open to working on specific agreements that may require one “. BeatStars also does not offer an in-house sync licensing team, although they may potentially offer this service through the Sony Music Publishing partnership. Mateo adds: “We have companies that contact us directly… looking for instrumentals for a stage, but it’s on an ad hoc basis.”
The open-ended administrative agreement is designed for maximum flexibility and educational resources for emerging talent, but lacks some of the bells and whistles of a traditional publishing or co-publishing agreement. However, BeatStars Publishing will also offer co-publishing deals to some producers.
Director of A & R / label services Dylan bourne says, “we’re here to facilitate whatever they’re really looking for, rather than trying to push them in one direction or another, which I think is a big difference between us and other companies that are in this space. ” With their co-publishing agreements, BeatStars can offer more convenient A&R services, advancements and more.
“We carry out the full spectrum of publishing contracts,” says Mateo. “if there must be a different conversation [about the deal], at some point during the tenure, then we can have this conversation. We also operate a full-fledged publishing company with the backbone of Sony. “
As more and more nascent talent build organic careers on the internet, BeatStars Publishing’s new administrative offerings want to act as a first hand, handling the basics of royalty collection and administration while teaching young talent the industry as a whole. “Over the past 13 years, we’ve offered unbiased opinions and helped our talent. We just thought publication was just another piece of this puzzle.”
