As media becomes more and more interactive, the demand for sound effects and music increases at a commensurate rate. However, because of the legal complications that accompany the sale and purchase of intellectual property, the process is often needlessly cumbersome, and generally viewed as archaic.
However, one Boston-based company is setting out to change all of that. Vinylmint is a global marketplace for musicians, composers, voice actors, and translators who provide custom sounds and music for agencies, broadcasters, game developers, and more. The Boston Founder Institute is currently enrolling - apply today!
Currently, the those interested in purchasing custom sounds have three options: 1) Ask an acquaintance for a favor which may be cost efficient for the production of the sound, but incur expensive copyright clearances and rights management fees. 2) Work with a record label through an expensive, cumbersome negotiation and licensing process. 3) Or spend hours searching through a stock production library of sounds that may already been used in other content by a competitor. As you can see, this process isn’t easy for both sound producers and purchasers.
Vinylmint’s proposed solution is to simplify the process by delivering a curated, collection of custom sounds to consumers based on their requests, and reducing timeframe for acquiring custom sounds from an average of 6 months to as low as 36 hours by removing the negotiations process and providing a method to work directly with the sound creator. By sourcing sounds from a global community of professional sound creators, Vinylmint is developing a central source for sound publishing and clearance insights, which is valuable to a buyer who is conducting copyright research.
Vinylmint’s founder and CEO (as well as Graduate of the Boston Founder Institute), Byron Morgan, is no stranger to the complications that abound in the world of media and music. Having worked in the advertising and music publishing industries for over 10 years, Morgan has cultivated a broad network of award-winning sound creators and has executed digital campaigns and branding efforts for both Inc. 500 and Fortune 100 companies.
Since its launch at TechCrunch Disrupt NY in 2012, Vinylmint has had a string of successes throughout its relatively young life. During 2012 and 2013, the company has raised $26,700 from angel investors and gained press attention by presenting at DEMO, Launch, and SXSW, and have acquired larger enterprise customers like The Martin Agency, EA Sports, Google, DuPont, Grow, HQ Creative, Burberry, and HPE, to name a few.
However, this is just the beginning for Vinylmint, as they have big plans for the future. Using the data collected from creative briefs for advertisements, social engagement with those ads, and trend analysis about how effect a sound was in similar ad where it was used, Vinylmint will leverage this information to assist advertisers in making strategic decisions about which sounds will be most influential amongst their targeted audience.
