Guest
Tom Höglund
Tom Höglund is Long-time executive at Epidemic Sound, as introduced on the show.
Episodes (1)
Tom Höglund of Epidemic Sound explains the model that pays musicians upfront and splits future revenue fifty-fifty after every collecting society refused.
Questions these episodes answer
Why did Epidemic Sound build its own music licensing model instead of using collecting societies?
Every performing rights organization Höglund approached refused to give up exclusivity over any use case, even for content creators who could not afford to negotiate separate licenses per track. So the founders built a one-stop model where Epidemic Sound owns every track outright and sells a single subscription covering unlimited use.
From: Epidemic Sound: The Legal Model That Created a New Music Economy
How does Epidemic Sound pay musicians differently than a major record label?
Musicians get paid upfront for every track they deliver, and Epidemic Sound also splits fifty percent of all future streaming and platform revenue with them. Because artists never have to recoup label costs first, Höglund says the deal was roughly ten times better financially than a typical major label contract at the time.
From: Epidemic Sound: The Legal Model That Created a New Music Economy
What made Epidemic Sound's business take off with content creators?
Multi-channel YouTube networks like Maker Studios were getting sued constantly because their creators' videos kept getting claimed for using other people's music without a license. Once Epidemic Sound offered them a subscription that eliminated that risk entirely, the networks adopted it immediately and the company's reach exploded across YouTube.
From: Epidemic Sound: The Legal Model That Created a New Music Economy
Why won't Epidemic Sound build generative AI music?
Höglund argues nobody in the music industry is actually demanding AI-generated tracks, since subscriptions are already cheap and there is already far more music released daily than anyone could ever listen to. He believes people want art made by real human musicians they could go see live, and treats the arts differently from productivity software.
From: Epidemic Sound: The Legal Model That Created a New Music Economy