🥞 IC Digest: Rise of the Inside-out Majors
Plus, SESAC and AudioSalad, end of the Q1 special, a special new Bandcamp doc, industry events, product updates, what we're listening to, and more!
Hello and welcome to another IC Digest, this one diving deep into questions like… WTF is an inside-out major? Does Bandcamp tacitly endorse IC for royalty accounting? and When does the Q1 Special end?
Answers abound below, along with the usual assortment of updates, events, and of course our current fave tunes. Enjoy!
— Hunter, Infinite Catalog co-founder and person trying to make “inside-out major” happen
🥞 My latest long-form piece, diving into the new breed of music-stack companies and what their rise might mean for traditional majors, indies, and music’s creator class, was published over at MBW. Dive in over there, then come straight back here for some late-breaking bonus content re: SESAC/Audiosalad.
GAMMA, DOWNTOWN, UTOPIA, AND THE RISE OF THE ‘INSIDE-OUT MAJORS’
Bonus // related: SESAC buys AudioSalad
Very curious to see a Performing Rights Org purchasing a B2B distributor like AudioSalad, which puts them into similar territory as the aforementioned service-stack companies. As a host of new PROs have come online recently — notably PEX’s RME and Kobalt’s AMRA — it makes sense that the more established players may attempt to differentiate and maintain an edge. Whether or not they’ll be creating new efficiencies or combined offerings remains to be seen.
🎉 ANNOUNCEMENTS
🤑 We’re in the final days of the Q1 Special, ending March 31st! There’s still time to sign up, finish onboarding, and claim your discount!!
🥁 Bandcamp added a new help doc that shouts out IC as a royalty accounting solution, noting IC “integrates with Bandcamp’s Sales Report API to make it easy to include your Bandcamp sales along with other income and generate royalty statements for your artists.” Indeed we do!
📀 We’re once again sponsoring the Indie Label Market, this time for its spring edition this weekend in Manchester!
🫱🫲 Speaking of events, Hunter will also be at AIM Connected in London on March 29th - if you will be too, let us know by hitting reply!
🧰 PRODUCT UPDATES
Notes on Data Imports
A while back we built a notes feature, making it possible to leave messages on certain pages in IC for yourself, colleagues, or payees, useful for heading off inevitable questions, e.g. “we still haven’t been paid for that sync yet, sorryyyy”.
Now you can add notes to individual data imports! Like this one:
Direct Connections menu
Account Settings now shows Direct Connections in a dedicated menu! It also indicates which ones you’ve got enabled:
To set up a direct connection, click the name of the data source and follow the instructions. Once enabled, your data will begin automatically flowing into your account!
📆 UPCOMING INDUSTRY EVENTS
+ check out the newly public 🎟 Events Directory for more conferences, festivals, record fairs, webinars, etc!
Mar 22nd ‣ Treefort Music Festival (Boise, ID, US)
Mar 22nd ‣ MMF Training: Essentials of Music Management (Online)
Mar 23nd ‣ Women in Web3 + Entertainment (LA, CA, US)
Mar 23nd - 8th April ‣ Savannah Music Festival (Savannah, GA, US)
Mar 24th ‣ Lollapalooza Brazil (São Paulo, Brazil)
Mar 24th ‣ Ultra Music Festival (Miami, FL, US)
Mar 26th ‣ Independent Label Market (Manchester, UK) 🆓
Mar 27th ‣ iHeartRadio Music Awards (LA, CA, US)
Mar 28th ‣ Tin Pan South Songwriters Festival (Nashville, TN, US)
Mar 29th ‣ AIM Connected* (London, UK)
Mar 30th ‣ Big Ears Music Festival (Knoxville, TN, US)
*we’ll be there! If you will be too, give us a shout by replying or however you like to shout.
🙌 WHAT YOU'RE UP TO
ICYMI, our Community Updates have proven so popular and fun to make that it now has a weekly cadence and a slightly new name to match!
Say hello to the IC Community Weekly, delivered to your inbox (almost) every Friday and featuring a host of new catalogs, releases, tours and shows, as well as a brand new Catalog Connections section.
Ari: Influenza Prods - Mémoire
Hunter: En Attendant Ana - Principia
Austin: Melati ESP - BAHASA BARU
Adam: Indigo De Souza - Younger & Dumber
You can find a Spotify playlist here ft. our favorite tracks!