The Music Industry Is Changing at a Dizzying Pace — Now Reprtoir Has a SaaS Solution to Help Indie Labels Manage It All
Photo Credit: ReprtoirIn an effort to help independent labels and publishers streamline operations in the hectic digital age, Cannes-headquartered Reprtoir is developing an all-in-one SaaS solution featuring distribution tools, royalty-accounting technology, trackable playlists, and more.
For the first time in history, artists can instantly release their music to billions of fans (in nearly every country around the world), and carefully maintained metadata enables creators to collect the corresponding streaming royalties from nations near and far. Similarly, it takes little more than a click for customers to purchase merch and physical releases.
But behind the scenes, the industry-wide pivot to digital has brought an abundance of new considerations for indie publishers and record labels that deliver and monetize music internationally. Releases’ distribution, promotion, and royalty-calculation processes – some of many current responsibilities for labels – present numerous logistical challenges on their own. And if recent years’ changes are any indication, these challenges are poised to increase in quantity and grow in scope moving forward.
This isn’t to say that service providers and software developers have failed to tailor their offerings to suit the rapidly evolving music landscape. On the distribution side, for instance, DistroKid and CD Baby afford valuable services to the indie space, whereas ampsuite has achieved success in content management and Tipalti is working to optimize the music industry’s notoriously ineffective payment-processing systems.
Juggling a multitude of digital resources can be overwhelming in today’s quick-moving music industry sphere, however. As a result, Reprtoir is looking to thread this body of worthwhile solutions into a comprehensive SaaS suite that offers the best of convenience and efficiency without sacrificing precision.
Reprtoir, which recently joined forces with Digital Music News to expand its SaaS concept, started out as a self-described “side project” of Rendez-Vous Digital. Rendez-Vous Digital is a music-licensing platform that specializes in audio and video monetization services. Since their debut in 2009, Rendez-Vous Digital has released north of 35,000 digital albums and paid rightsholders royalties for the projects’ approximately 2.2 billion streams, Reprtoir content manager Mathilde Neu told Digital Music News.
In managing these releases and distributing their royalties, Rendez-Vous Digital higher-ups utilized a number of programs. Then, finding the platforms’ core functionalities lacking in quality as well as scale, execs set out to create a one-stop software suite (minus tools related to live shows and ticketing) with a simple-but-capable layout.
On the content side, Reprtoir’s current features encompass Audio Manager, a CMS for music metadata (and a similar Videos Manager) and Works Manager for compositions.
As the platform’s main interface for songs, DDEX-compatible Audio Manager focuses chiefly on metadata, allowing clients to verify tracks’ ultra-important details and, via a web-based search function, enhance discoverability by automatically enriching files’ identification specifics (such as “instrumental ratio” and “danceability ratio”). Audio Manager also organizes contributor and royalty-split information – like the Works Manager does for compositions.
Operations-wise, Reprtoir’s Releases Manager emphasizes the upfront onboarding of new music metadata, which can then be exported to Sony Music’s The Orchard or Believe as pre-filled bulk-upload sheets. In this way, Reprtoir verifies that releases’ metadata conforms to each platform’s requirements and aims to eliminate the hassle (and the prevalence of missing royalties) associated with infilling for every project.
Similarly, Reprtoir’s Playlists for Business tool is designed to help sales and marketing teams promote releases and obtain sync-licensing placements. Users can promptly share secure playlists (private or otherwise), automatically receiving a real-time analysis of their listening stats – including the most popular songs, play time, and even how many times tracks were replayed.
And Reprtoir’s Royalties Manager accounting system handles income, expenses, advances, and royalty statements, regardless of payments’ currency or source.
On the latter front, the software’s automated statement mapper is natively compatible with standard file types from Spotify, Apple Music, FUGA, BMI, PRS for Music, the Harry Fox Agency, and an array of additional DSPs and distributors. Lastly, the five-year-old software suite comes equipped with a contracts manager (which supports many agreement types crafted for a variety of territories) and an extensive contact-management and organization tool.
The streaming-driven music industry is continuing to change and grow – especially in terms of the many moving parts involved with operating indie labels and publishers. Consequently, there’s something to be said for the short-term advantages of a consistently updated SaaS solution that connects these moving parts into an all-embracing ecosystem. And in the long term, this ecosystem could help clients stay ahead of the curve as further changes (and professional obligations) arrive.
Exceleration Music’s Bloodshot Records, Perfect Time Music Group, and Play Two are among the more than 350 teams that utilize Reprtoir, which is currently developing features including a rightsholder portal, the ability to send playlists in emails themselves, and accounting-visualization functions within the royalties manager. Higher-ups also accept (and frequently integrate) requests for new features, thereby affording industry stakeholders – not solely software developers – direct input in the music landscape of tomorrow.
