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>> Okay, I'm here with Brandon Martinez today.
He's the co-founder of Indie music.
Indie has over 200 partners, and has generated over 1.5 billion, with a B
views on YouTube and their claim is
that they're the largest music network on YouTube.
And we'll certainly explore that claim and
make sure we understand what that means.
So Brandon, thanks for taking the time today.
I really appreciate you doing that.
>> Sure, no problem.
Thanks for having me, John.
>> Yep.
So first off, my daughter wants to know if you can
get Riff Raff and Diplo to play for a family birthday party.
[LAUGH]
Absolutely.
>> Yeah done.
>> I'll hit them on speed dial.
[LAUGH]
Let's talk a little bit about you guys
had a role at the Harlem Shake phenomenon.
You know with Matt Gleeson and just can you
talk a little bit about what your role was
and then going forward, what kind of ramifications, financial
and otherwise have you seen from that from that phenomenon.
I don't know whether we should be thankful or
be hateful of you for helping that phenomenon get going.
[LAUGH]
I get that a lot actually.
It's a fascinating phenomenon.
You know, we caught onto it, you know, as it was really taking off.
there's a little bit of massaging in the back to make sure
that the businesses are monetizing its as fast as they possibly could.
>> So what do you think does the, does the label
have to give up in full of the artist's social media?
Do you guys Do you have any
train wrecks there where you have conflicts where
you're trying to do one thing and the label is trying to do something else?
>> Yeah.
So our artists, our labels, they all actually own 100% of their IP.
We don't take any of those rights at all.
in the modern day of the music industry I just
don't think that that's something that we need access to.
making what it is is that we're working with them exclusively on YouTube.
To better monetize their content, whether that is through
their own channel and official videos or third party content.
so we sort of have an understanding with our label partners
from the bat what it is that they want
to do in terms of monetizing or taking down videos.
Whenever there are instances, maybe a song
has leaked on line or something like
that, they'll give us a heads up about it and that's always ahead of time.
And we want to have this video taken down.
Or, we saw this can you, can you please find out about it.
We also do get disputes.
So maybe they've given a license to accompany or something
like that to use a song, who will then dispute
the ownership in the back end of.
Hey we've worked with so and so.
And we'll always verify that with legal partners,
so it's always up to our labels or
up to our artists as to what it
is they actually want to do with the content.
Then our job like I said is to manage the system on their behalf.
[UNKNOWN]
So you cut your teeth as Machinima.
what lessons were you able to take from the gaming world
and your experiences there at Machinima into what you're doing at.
>> so I wasn't actually at Machinima, I
was a digital agent at the Abrams artist agency
[CROSSTALK]
and I was one of the first agents to do deals with Machinima, though.
So I brought them, that's okay, I brought them
a lot of their bigger YouTube talent, like recklesstortu,
that was one of my clients who had a
really popular show that still continues called online gamer.
It's hilarious, it's about a sort of that,
the guy who trolls you know, what is it?
X-box Live and things like that.
>> Yep.
>> And you know, kind of, but in real life what that guy would be like.
so it's a really funny show, very popular with the gaming community.
and those were those initial deals I did with Machinima, which
one of their first really big partners that they got on board.
so I think that was really, is that initially I
was working with writers, directors, producers of, of all kinds.
both from the traditional industry who wanted to get
into a bit more digital space, as well as,
you know, bigger YouTube talent.
Or web producers that wanted to cross
over into the mainstream industry, as well.
And so you know there's a lot.
There's a lot of those days of what a digital deal looks like.
What kind of rights do you need to give up?
How do you monetize this content?
That's a lot of what those early days are about.
And certainly applied to what I brought over to the music.
>> Yeah, you're fortunate to be there sort of at that beginning and
getting to watch all of that happen.
>> Certainly.
>> I'm a small investor in Big Frame and I know the guys
at Maker and, and some of the other and, and you know, YouTube networks.
it's a love hate relationship with YouTube obviously.
[LAUGH]
>> well, you know, and I think they get it.
Right?
There's a lot of fear I think on both sides
and so how do you, how do you deal with that.
How do you deal with that single sorts of failure issue of,
you know, YouTube cuts you off or changes the rules or whatever.
You've kind of screwed, you, what's your strategy long term
to keep your relationship sound within obviously, cover yourself.
>> no, I wouldn't say that we
have a love hate relationship with, with YouTube.
I, I think it's, it's pretty mutual.
And you know, we're both companies doing business and I think
it's a matter of how we continue to make this partnership work.
I don't know if it's just the user feed
but we talk to them on a pretty regular basis.
whenever things go wrong for us they're right there to help us,
you know, fix them or resolve any issues that the, we may have.
in terms of long-term, I, I think however,
you know, we're certainly looking at other platforms
where we can also be monetizing, applying the
skills that we've you know, built on YouTube.
other platforms, as well, where we may be
beginning to monetize or, or looking at better monetization.
you know, we're certainly looking
at platforms like, SoundCloud and Instagram.
And, and and
[INAUDIBLE]
and there's certainly the similar rights
issues that we're dealing with on YouTube.
beginning to pop up onto other platforms as well.
so, you know, I think it really comes back to our
artists and our partners, in terms of where are the fans.
Where are the fans finding their content
and where, what are the opportunities for them,
that we can help them better monetize and
optimize content in terms of discovery, and search.
And
[INAUDIBLE]
specifically.
again, we'd rather listen to our partners and find out what
it is that they would like for us to do for them.
>> Yep.
what, what's the idea band for you?
Is it they have to be with a label?
You work directly with the labels.
I guess it has to be a band that's signed to a label.
What are the other characteristics that you found common amongst bands?
>> Yeah, the way that our outreach works
is that, if people are talking about someone,
whether it's a band, a rapper, whoever it is that helps.
Because then it's an immediate audience where
people are going to be sharing their content.
you know, we have a lot of artists who we found as well
before that, maybe they were opening
for another band or something like that.
And we really like the content of the music and that's
why we chatted with them and helped them build from there.
That's exciting stuff, when you can really
play an active role in you know building
out the success of an artist.
I think that there are a lot of those in the YouTube
world who can point to, you know, we worked with so and so.
I think that our relationships are a lot
closer, in terms you know of helping them understand.
The value's on the platform.
They are the one that are doing all the, you know the keyword optimization.
We point out to them the things that they can
do and they're the ones that actually executing them as well.
You know,
really helping them build I think is important to us.
We don't really have any specific categories, we're genre agnostic, we
don't have any specific things that you have to be doing.
What we find is that you know, we're,
we're offering a lot of tools for our partners.
some of them will use them, some of them won't.
and those that are willing to put in the
work and build up their, their audience, and their channel.
by all means,
even if we're not huge fans of their music you
know, we will become fans of their work ethic, for sure.
>> Yeah.
That's a good way to put it.
So obviously being you know, hard workers one issue.
What are, what are other mistakes you found that bands and rappers
make when they try to distribute their music on YouTube by themselves.
Like what are the common things you just shake your head and go, damn dude.
[LAUGH]
Yeah, I think that one of the, the overall
biggest problem is something that we've really gotten in to.
But it was starting to happen before Harlem Shake and Harlem Shake
was really like, wow we really need to make this appropriate is
[INAUDIBLE]
management in general.
I think that a lot of artists don't realize a couple of different things.
One, whenever you are distributing content be it through a a tune-core,
a CD baby, you know disco kid, even InGrooves or something like that.
Or maybe you have a deal with the label and maybe you've even retained
your rights with the label, have a
deal with the orchard or something like that.
You may
have not realized that you've often times given them the ability.
To claim your content on YouTube.
So often times, I can't tell you how many times, you run into artists who
are like, I got a content or infringement notification on my own content.
They still own it, it's their video and yet they're getting in essence
[UNKNOWN]
they're infringing on somebody else's rights.
That blocks them from being able to monetize their content.
They no longer have access to like their analytic
and you know what's usually important to building an
[UNKNOWN].
That's probably the biggest thing.
To go along with that, sort of a secondary topic is
that you don't have a publishing deal, you are your own publisher.
I definitely think that a lot of artists don't think about that at all.
meaning that, that's other revenue that they're just leaving on the table.
That they could be reflecting on as well, in terms of third
party content that's using their music and all that kind of stuff.
>> Okay, and
lastly Brandon, just wrapping up, are
there any artists that you're particularly
proud of with respect to how, Indie Music moved the needle for them.
Not necessarily, again, not their genre not their songs, but
just you're proud of the work you were able to do.
Do you want to call anybody out?
>> So absolutely.
We've got a lot of those artists.
I think right now one of our favourites
throughout the office is a rapper named Soulcon.
He is an Indie rapper from Brooklyn.
They came out of the battle rap scene, so that's
kind of where he cut his teeth and built his audience.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And then has his own solo career as well as an artist.
he also works with a group called Brown
Bag All Stars that he's an active member of.
they all met at Fat Beats records in New York city and all got together.
In so con his music has been fantastic personally.
And again, the content is really, really good.
he, he's been releasing a couple of videos more frequently now.
so he's really beginning to build that audience and get's a lot of pick up
from blogs and stuff like that because
everybody really likes to share his music videos.
where the content matches the quality of the music as well.
and then everything that we've, you know, made
suggestions about in terms of, you know, branding
a channel to the back end work that
needs to be done in terms of optimization.
him and his manager Byron Warf has also really stepped up to the plate.
They are very receptive to the suggestions that we've
made and the work that needs to be done.
that actually culminated in, there's a project that we recently helped out
on with Bonnaroo, where they do a lot of these super jam impressions.
And get different artists together from, from walks of life basically.
And they wanted to do a YouTube version where the artists would
have some sort of presence on the, so we've asked about them.
Two of the four artists are performing together.
also Black Violin is another great example of
artists really working hard to build their channel.
so there's Black Violin, Soul Con, the
other two artists are, there's a group called
Nowark out of California and Jenny C is
our cover artist in Cal, California as well.
They met on a Wednesday, performed on a Saturday and
it was one of the best performances of the entire weekend.
So we went down and supported them as well.
and just really, really fantastic.
And Suol Con was actually the leader of the group and you could really
tell everybody was really looking to him to pull it all together as well.
it was just fantastic, another one of those
really great success stories and I think we're
going to see a lot of other great stuff coming out of Soul Con as well.
>> that's awesome.
Well, I appreciate your time and again Raymond, I'm going
to look up, I'm going to check out some of those artists.
Hopefully some of my readers will check out
[SOUND]
what the music's doing, as well as some of the folks that promote.
And it's funny to hear you talk about the ones you're proud of.
Its, its entrepreneurship is so simple, it really comes down to, you know,
being open to new ideas, listening and
being willing to work really really hard.
That's kind of it.
>> Absolutely, absolutely.
>> There's no secrets.
[LAUGH]
>> We suddenly found ourselves sort of
at the centre of the maelstrom of a
bunch of different things, that people are
trying to figure out in the entertainment industry.
And it's been a Whirlwind, but it's definitely been fun.
>> Yep.
Yeah you need to take, grab the tail by
the the tiger by the tail and hang on.
>> Yeah, exactly.
[LAUGH]
>> Alright Brandon well thanks again I really do appreciate your time.
>> Cool thank you Don.
Really appreciate it.
Talk to you soon.