A note of consolidation in the world of digital music: Rumblefish, a company that works with the likes of YouTube, Amazon, Vimeo, Facebook and Slideshare to let users add licensed soundtracks to their digital creations, is today announcing the acquisition of Catalogik, a platform to help find and monitor the use of specific digital tracks.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but it includes the acqui-hire of the two founders, Gideon Arom and Alex Stone; IP related to Catalogik’s music licensing, pitching and rights administration platform; patent-pending search-related technology; and trademarks and other IP.
The Rumblefish platform covers over 1.8 million pieces of music, and the company says it licenses over 20,000 soundtracks each day on more than nine million social videos.
Those videos, it says, get “hundreds of millions of monthly views,” so it’s no wonder that Rumblefish is looking for a better way of tracking and collecting revenues on those views. Improving the tracking process might also mean less examples of mistakes like this one and this one.
Rumblefish, in the statement below, says the acquisition will help rights holders — musicians, publishers and so on — use Rumblefish to track how and where their music gets used. Some of what Catalogik does is offer algorithm-based search capabilities, automatic metadata population and a cloud-based transactional accounting system, which fits with Rumblefish’s existing online model and could, as Billboard notes, be used to improve the platform’s overall search algorithms as well.
Rumblefish says that it will be integrating Catalogik’s technology into its platform, and it gives specific emphasis to one partnership in particular, with the tech “accelerating development of its YouTube monetization platform.”
That refers to a partnership first established in 2010 between Rumblefish and YouTube to create cloud-based music editing studio Friendly Music, offering music at a rate of $1.99 per song per video — still the rate being charged today.
“The Catalogik team, codebase and IP portfolio are brilliant, giving Rumblefish new technological capabilities that will help us better monetize soundtracks on YouTube and other social video networks and applications,” said Paul Anthony, founder and CEO of Rumblefish in a statement. “The Catalogik team accelerates our roadmap, improving the best social video soundtrack platform in the world, with the largest catalog and best soundtrack search tools in the market.”
Catalogik was based in LA, and this is where its team will remain, as part of a new LA office for Portland, OR-based Rumblefish.
Release below.
Rumblefish Acquires Catalogik, Accelerating its Social Video Soundtrack Monetization Capabilities
Acquisition Benefits Rumblefish Artists and Labels to Better Monetize Soundtracks in Social Videos on YouTube and Other Video Applications and Networks
PORTLAND, OR—March 21, 2013—Rumblefish (www.rumblefish.com), the leading provider of soundtracks for online social video, today announced it has acquired Catalogik, a Software as a Service (SaaS) music licensing and rights administration platform. This acquisition further establishes the Rumblefish soundtrack platform as the industry standard for social video by significantly improving its search tools and accelerating development of its YouTube monetization platform.
Catalogik was co-founded in 2009 by entrepreneurs Gideon Arom and Alex Stone, two UCLA computer science and musicology graduates who built a leading-edge, web-based music licensing platform that enables publishers, labels and administrators to save time, cut costs and increase synchronization revenue. Catalogik’s technology includes dynamic algorithm-based search capabilities, automatic metadata population and a cloud-based transactional accounting system.
In the transaction, which is effective immediately, Rumblefish has acquired the Catalogik music licensing, pitching and rights administration platform, patent-pending search-related technology, trademarks and other IP. The Catalogik executive and development teams will join Rumblefish, working out of a newly established Rumblefish Los Angeles office. Rumblefish and Catalogik did not disclose the financial terms of the acquisition.
“The Catalogik team, codebase and IP portfolio are brilliant, giving Rumblefish new technological capabilities that will help us better monetize soundtracks on YouTube and other social video networks and applications,” said Paul Anthony, founder and CEO of Rumblefish. “The Catalogik team accelerates our roadmap, improving the best social video soundtrack platform in the world, with the largest catalog and best soundtrack search tools in the market.”
Rumblefish has built the world’s largest catalog of copyright-cleared music with more than 1.8 million soundtracks, licensing more than 20,000 soundtracks each day into over nine million social videos. Rumblefish-licensed soundtracks are featured in videos receiving hundreds of millions of monthly views. The Rumblefish music licensing platform offers its API and SDK to its partners for ease of use and integration of licensed Soundtracks into social video applications.
“This is a great outcome for me, my co-founder, our team and our shareholders,” said Arom, Catalogik’s Co-founder and CEO. “We’re thrilled with the task of solving the most challenging problems facing the sync licensing market, a space we’re really passionate about. By partnering with Rumblefish our team and technology will quickly make a meaningful impact.”
About Rumblefish
Rumblefish is the largest provider of soundtracks for social video and has been a pioneer in the music licensing industry for over a decade. Through its API, SDK and Storefront offerings, the platform allows partners to offer soundtrack functionality for web and mobile applications, and provide access to the world’s largest copyright-cleared soundtrack catalog of nearly two million tracks. The company makes soundtracks for online social video easy and legal, and has issued more than nine million licenses, paying millions in royalties to its artists. Rumblefish partners include YouTube, Animoto, Socialcam, Virtual Active, Klip and Google. The company can be found at www.rumblefish.com and is headquartered in Portland, OR.About Catalogik
Catalogik, founded in 2009 by entrepreneurs Gideon Arom and Alex Stone, is a Software as a Service (SaaS) music licensing and rights administration platform. The platform enables record labels and music publishers to pitch sync licensing opportunities to music supervisors with an integrated CRM and take advantage of features like custom licensing storefronts, accounting and transaction tracking, database management, and cutting edge music search technology.
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