New York, NY (Top40 Charts) "...we think it's worthy of our efforts to provide [music's] creators with the ability to be fairly and transparently compensated for their work and talent."
Even though The
Beatles once famously sang "I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love," it is clear today that artists have limited options available to monetize their songs. Vezt Inc. has announced a solution that aims to revolutionize the music industry: let artists select percentages of the rights to their songs to offer for sale to fans, friends, rights-buyers and brands. The company plans to track and collect royalty income via its blockchain-secured, app-based platform starting in Q1 2018.
"We believe that music is one of the few mediums that can literally transform life," said co-founders Steve Stewart and Robert Menendez in a statement. "It can provide solace and comfort to those hurting or in need, joy and excitement to an experience or event, and even has the ability to transcend time and space with the emotional nostalgia that hearing a favorite song can trigger in one's mind. It's powerful and magic and we think it's worthy of our efforts to provide its creators with the ability to be fairly and transparently compensated for their work and talent."
-- You Can't Always Get What You Want --
Today's music industry is fragmented, leaving most artists with few options to generate real income growth.
Record labels and music publishers are only focused on a few blockbuster releases.
Both developing artists and successful, established artists alike are constrained to heavily unbalanced deals that rely on antiquated protocols which lack transparency.
Individual songwriters often have copyrights in numerous compositions, but have no way to directly monetize their rights, or to develop new income streams outside the traditional publishing model.
--- Who Are You? ---
Vezt is universal in who it benefits:
ARTISTS: Any artist can benefit from Vezt. With the ability to finance music creation and collect royalties without unnecessary intermediaries, music creation can become a profitable business again for the artists.
RIGHTS-BUYERS: Savvy music professionals (producers, A&R, promoters, managers, etc.), institutional rights-buyers (pension funds, mutual funds, etc.), and brands can benefit from a robust song marketplace, where tracking and collection of royalties and licensing income is transparent and in real time.
MUSIC FANS: United in their love for music on a meaningful level, music fans now can translate their passion into true partnership with artists on a song-by-song basis.
--- With a
Little Help From My
Friends ---
Vezt lets artists choose which portions of their songs to offer for sale to fans, friends, rights-buyers and brands in a monetization process called an Initial Song Offering™ (ISO). On the back-end, Vezt provides tracking and royalty collection on ownership interests through its blockchain-based smart contract technology. Earnings can be received quickly and transparently.
Artists select a song and choose the ISO date, how much of their rights to raise (ex. $10,000 for 10% of their songwriter rights), and the reversion term (3 years, 5 years, 10 year, or in perpetuity).
Rights-buyers on the Vezt platform (including fans, music professionals and brands), buy the rights during the ISO. The artist can then receive the funds.
The song rights information is encoded on the Vezt blockchain and royalties are collected from both Performing Rights Organizations ("PROs") in 137 countries around the world and STEM.is, a service which aggregates digital performance royalties from streaming services such as Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Pandora, etc. Vezt registers the rights with PROs and digital platforms, and pays artists and rights-buyers.
--- VIDEO: Take a First Look at Vezt ---
Take an an early sneak peek at Vezt. Watch the video at https://bit.ly/veztvideo
--- About Vezt ---
Vezt Inc. lets artists choose percentages of the rights to their songs to offer for sale to fans, friends, rights-buyers and brands. Founded in 2016, the company is headquartered in Los Angeles, California and has received funding from Binary Capital and principals of Global
Trust Group. See vezt.co for more information.
CEO Steve Stewart has more than 25 years of professional experience in the music, and new media industries. As CEO of Steve Stewart Management, he negotiated and secured lucrative major label record and publishing contracts on behalf of approximately 20 recording artists with companies such as Sony Music, Warner Bros. Records, Atlantic Records, Capitol Records, Disney's Hollywood Records, A&M Records, Geffen Records, Elektra Records, American Records,
Maverick Records, EMI
Music Publishing, Famous
Music Publishing, Rondor Music, Warner Chappell
Music Publishing and Universal
Music Publishing. Steve is the former personal manager of Grammy Award winning, multiplatinum alternative rock band Stone Temple Pilots, managing their career from their inception through their fifth major label release on Atlantic Records. Under Steve's management, the band's worldwide record sales exceeded 25 million records, generating more than $500 million in gross revenues. He has held Co-Founder and COO titles at business marketing aggregator, GoYodel, and sports social video app, SportsBuddyz, and helped establish crowdcasting startup, SURKUS, as their Head of Business Development, securing long-term corporate clients such as Live Nation. Steve has BA in Political Science from UCLA.
COO Robert Menendez has more than 15 years of management experience and an expertise in developing business and financial platforms for long-term growth. Menendez is attuned to the complexity of the technology space, with a particular acumen for navigating the competitive landscape to make lasting changes that affect the bottom line. Prior to co-founding Vezt, Menendez managed all facets of operations at Newmax Advisors, LLC, where he successfully created fiscal synergy for investors by coordinating algorithmic trading teams primarily made of programmers and developers managing account platforms. Menendez began his career at Oppenheimer & Company, and then promptly moved to CA to become Co-Founder of Tradestar Capital, Ltd., a prop trading firm and subsidiary of Assent Trading. His ability to spot high quality talent and personally stock each subdivision with high performing individuals enabled him to build each of the five branches, in five different cities, of Assent Trading into fully operational and profitable units. Following Assent Trading, Menendez was instrumental in the launch of Coastal LLC, a quantitative fund for which he raised both trading and operational capital. Menendez's talent for easily cross-pollinating technology and funding led to a partnership at One Asia U.S.
