Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/3788
ing new features for clients that give us a big advantage over our competitors," he reports. "To handle the growth in traffic we do cluster hosting, on multiple servers, so the Website always stays up and running. We also do realtime offsite back-ups for security purposes." The Website has strong search capabilities with 17 filtering options. The latest Flash player technology enables quick auditions and studio download privileges have been recently introduced for busy production clients. "Select clients can now download high-resolution, non-watermarked tracks to try in their productions," Johnson explains."If it works, they're already there, they don't need to re-edit.They just have to license the tracks." P R O L I F I C S E A R C H E S Although Dallas-based Prolific Ar ts Music (www.royaltyfreemusiclibrary.com) launched at the beginning of this year, its co-founders, Brian Beshears and Scott Meath, were responsible for creating Studio Cutz Music, Blue Fuse Music and NoiseFuel Sound Effects, which are now the property of Getty Images. Their new royalty-free library offers three exclusive catalogs of music, available by individual download, downloadable CDs or physical CDs. Royalty Free Music Revolution is a 90-plus CD library encompassing all genres, styles and applications. "It's our meat-and-potatoes library," says Scott Meath. "If you're going to purchase just one library it would cover all your needs." The Radical Music Librar y is a 46-CD catalog with an edgy, dramatic, even "over-the-top" approach to broadcast music, he notes. Many of its orchestrals were recorded in Europe.The Mojo Music Library represents a broad diversity of musical styles on each of its downloadable CDs. Within the Revolution catalog are all-purpose music beds that are "very under- scored in nature. They don't lean heavily on one mood or another," notes Meath. "They can be used in anything and don't fight narration." The company has innovated most with its multiple licensing options, available at www.prolificartsmusic.com. One option offers customers pre-paid credits with each credit worth one song download. "The more you buy, the cheaper they are," Meath explains. "It's an opportunity to get the best value for your dollar because you can buy credits now and use them as needed; they don't expire. We're still rolling out pre-paid credits, but the flexibility of the system is proving to be very popular." Monthly subscriptions are also offered to customers with fairly consistent music needs.They sign up for a minimum one-year subscription, payable annually or on a monthly basis, and are entitled to 10 , 25 or 50 song downloads per month. "The larger the package you purchase the lower the price," says Meath. "If you've got a par ticularly heavy period of usage, you can purchase pre-paid credits to supplement your subscription." Prolific Ar ts Music groups and includes all of the edited versions of a song for one fee. "At a lot of sites you pay a fee for the full-length track and pay again to li- cense different versions," Meath points out. "We group the full-length track, any al- ternate versions and the broadcast edits all for one fee." In addition, "all licenses are lifetime synchronization licenses.You can use the music today and six months from now for a different project and owe no additional licensing fees." Having gained experience in online design from their previous libraries, Meath and Beshears feel they've "hit the nail on the head" with the search options for their new Website. "Customers search from an established and controlled set of keywords, which guarantees they don't end up with a dead search," says Meath. The search system also shows the other relevant keywords, which fur ther helps narrow their search based on the catalogs' content. "It funnels you toward the re- sults you're looking for instead of frustratingly directing you to a dead end with zero results." F R E E P L AY ' S F R E E S Y N C & M A S T E R M O D E L New York City's Freeplay Music (www. freeplaymusic.com), an online produc- tion music library spanning all popular genres, started in 2001 with 300 tracks and now boasts over 10,000. The company consists of three par ts: a production music library featuring in- strumental tracks with new offerings posted daily; an indie artists' portal for artists looking to get airplay on radio and TV; and a sound effects library composed of 16 collections available for purchase as individual sound effects or in albums. Freeplay Music lives up to its name by connecting broadcasters and production companies seeking quality music with the composers who create it via its Free Synch and Master model. "Before Freeplay Music existed, the majority of produc- tion music required an upfront synch and master license. Freeplay changed all that," says licensing manager Mark Brinker. "Instead of most broadcast customers paying us master and synchronization fees upfront, we focus on the back-end performance royalties as the publisher," he explains. "It's a dual incentive for producers to use our music covered under the BMI, ASCAP and SESAC blanket licenses and for composers to submit music to us for inclusion in the library for back-end performance royal- ties. It's truly a win-win for everyone." Brinker emphasizes the "no hassle, no negotiation" nature of Free Synch and Master. "It's quite a burden for producers to go after clear- ances for each song they want to use. Freeplay simplifies things. Over a hundred US broadcasters are using our music now, including NBC and Fox. And we believe the Free Synch and Master idea is the way of the future, especially as new fingerprint technologies like Tunesat are able to monitor the use of music in broadcast globally for more accurate accountability for royalty distribution." www.postmagazine.com October 2009 • Post 39 RipTide Music and PigFactory have teamed up to launch Pacifica Music (www.pacificamusic.com), a new catalog of modern music geared toward film, television, trailers, commercials, games and corporate projects. The catalog has over 6,000 tracks available, representing genres that include hip-hop, rock, pop, orchestral and electronica. There are also plans to add between 4,000 and 5,000 additional tracks every six months. Audiosparx represents over 2,100 indie musicians, producers and publishers. Its music catalog contains more than 12,000 tracks.