For Your Next Commercial Project You Won’t Have to Compromise on the Music
The complex process of using copyrighted musical works meant that only major companies could enjoy quality music from all over the world. The Israeli start-up Fync is changing the rules of the game by making tens of thousands of songs accessible to every company and every business – easily and quickly
We encounter music in countless moments during our daily lives. More than once during an advertisement a nostalgic song plays on the screen, during an episode of a TV series we hear a familiar melody in the background, and the video on our phone is accompanied by a pleasant catchy tune. Songs and music play a very significant role in the worlds of advertising and content – but the meeting point between the music industry and commercial clients is extremely complex. Every time a song is turned into a movie, series, advertisement or video – it is the result of a complicated process that also involves legal aspects. Musical works and songs are copyright protected, so a license is needed that allows their playback on other platforms, certainly for commercial use.
"Today it is extremely complex and complicated to obtain a license to use a song for a commercial project that is copyright protected," explains the CEO of Fync, Netta Berkman. "The reason is that every song has several rights holders: between two and ten or more. In order to obtain a license, you need to obtain the contact information of the various rights holders, verify that they do in fact hold the rights to the work, and then conduct separate negotiations with each of them. This process can last several weeks or months – and the client doesn’t know in advance how much the license will cost, how long the process will take and whether in the end he will even receive the desired approval."
Make the music accessible
Berkman, trained as a musician and creator, worked for years in the music and television industry. Her work in various programs on Israeli television made her intimately familiar with the challenges inherent in the world of music licenses, and eventually led her to found the Israeli start-up Fync, which helps customers easily and conveniently obtain music use licenses.
"In the beginning, we worked to provide copyright-free music to all kinds of bloggers on YouTube and Instagram," she relates. "After a while we came to the conclusion that one of the biggest challenges in the music industry today is the difficulty in obtaining licenses to use music that is copyright protected."
Fync was founded to make music accessible to commercial companies and content producers. "We are building a platform for consuming music that is protected by copyright," says Berkman. "We work with music companies and labels from all over the world to enable any type of company to purchase a music license easily and quickly. Our platform helps media companies, advertising agencies, start-ups, gaming companies and podcasts."
According to Berkman, the current situation in the world of music licenses severely limits the access of small and medium-sized clients to copyright protected songs: "Because the process is so complicated, today it is only accessible to companies that are close to the source – either they are a major corporation with a huge budget, or they are linked to labels and publishers, or it’s just not worth it to go through this arduous path. The reality is that copyright-protected music is not available to 90% of the companies and projects around the world. This is what Fync wants to change: we want to make copyright-protected music accessible."
Advanced platform – combined with AI
The company's vision is simple and so are the tools it has managed to develop. The platform developed by Fync allows customers to search for the right song for their project – where the entire process of obtaining the license is carried out automatically. "For us, this is something that every company in the world should have access to – without the need to understand anything about the industry or copyright in advance," says Berkman.
They recently launched Fync’s innovative platform for a closed group of a few dozen customers. "The first customers are already using our product and giving us feedback," Berkman says. "We already represent over 50,000 songs that are copyright protected, after signing agreements with several different labels – most of them from the United States, but also from Europe and Canada."
Already today, Fync's music library includes a vast variety of songs: "We represent songs from all kinds of great artists of the past such as Bob Marley, Dolly Parton, Bibi King and Coolio. We also have a lot of media-adapted songs that today regularly appear in series, movies, commercials and other commercial projects around the world," says Berkman.
"The significant advantage provided by our platform is that it is possible to use the songs we represent within 48 hours," she adds. "This is something that didn’t exist before in the music world. We suggest that clients send us a brief – and we create a list of songs that are customized for their project, or with the help of AI customers can search for songs themselves based on a reference song. For example, a company that produces a film and wants a song by Bruce Springsteen but cannot pay for it – can find, with the help of AI, songs that sound similar in production and to the singer's voice and convey the same emotion."
In addition, the product developed by Fync allows companies to obtain licenses even for songs that are not in the platform's existing database. Berkman: "Something else we did was to find a solution for companies that don't know how to deal with the major record labels. They can contact us and we know how to streamline the process for them even for songs that are not on the platform."
In the end everyone wins
In recent years, Fync has been aiming to bring about a real revolution in the world of licenses. Berkman: "We want to be the Spotify of the licensing world. Our goal is to bring as many copyrighted songs to Fync as possible: both songs by singers and songs from series and movies. Our platform helps players on both sides of the equation: commercial companies can improve the effectiveness of their campaigns and make use of much more music – while artists can turn the licensing world into a revenue-generating market for them."
At the moment Fync is in a capital-raising round as part of the company's significant expansion processes. "We are in advanced talks with several funds and are also increasing our team," says Neta Berkman in conclusion. "We recruited talent from the music industry in the United States – and we are currently recruiting more development personnel."
In collaboration with Fync
