The newly launched Bridger wants to help songwriters unlock hidden sources of revenue, boost their careers and shake up the industry with some fresh ideas.
As a former artist manager and songwriter himself, Jocelyn Seilles, Founder and General Manager of Bridger knows how difficult it is to enter the monolithic music industry.
However, it is not only the fierce competition that makes it difficult. The shared ownership of music and a lack of knowledge about revenue streams, copyrights and master rights are significant barriers to songwriters trying to earn a decent living.
“One of the main characteristics of the music market today is that it belongs increasingly to independent artists, meaning artists using digital distribution services such as Distrokid, CDBaby and Tunecore,” says Jocelyn Seilles. “What many of these artists do not know is that if you only use these services, you’re only going to collect the master rights part of the royalties and that you’re missing out on the copyright part which is not insignificant.”
Representing the fastest-growing segment of the music industry, independent artists – artists not represented by record labels – lose out on around 25% of streaming revenue if they do not sign up to platforms that collect their copyright royalties.
Worth a total of 2.5 billion a year, the online streaming copyright market is certainly worth exploring. That’s why Bridger has created an intuitive platform that allows songwriters to sign up – free of charge – in “less than 3 minutes”, register their songs and collect their copyright revenue.
“Our message is very clear. We have a service that is extremely innovative for songwriters and they all should have a look at it to assess how it works and compare it to their current service. Because the processes we’ve put up are a lot simpler than any existing ones,” says Jocelyn.
“By the end of the year, we want to be recognised as an independent copyright management entity by our peers.”
Jocelyn Seilles
Learning The Trade
While one part of Bridger’s services revolve around “helping independent songwriters enter the copyright world”, they also want to help them advance their careers. By combining their copyright service with a free educational platform, Bridger hopes to “lift all entry barriers” for aspiring artists.
“We believe music industry knowledge is key to your career growth. Through free educational content, we give you the opportunity to become an expert and therefore make the best decisions for your career,” says Jocelyn.
Having soft-launched on 2 February, Bridger has already registered around 5k musical works on their platform. With a full launch expected at the beginning of March, Bridger will first focus on songwriters and then later also allow publishers to sign up to their platform.
“By the end of the year, we want to be recognised as an independent copyright management entity by our peers. That’s one target. We also want to make sure that our service is open to publishers,” concludes Jocelyn.
