A new industry platform has launched to collect and manage credits for music creators – with Universal Music Group as the first client.
Connex will work with music labels and industry organisations globally to help support the accurate remuneration and accreditation of music creators’ work.
The platform connects music creators and their preferred tools with labels, distributors and publishers, in order to provide a secure solution for managing credits and audio files. It is adaptable for both independents and large music companies.
Connex said the service will encourage better collaboration and transparency within the modern music industry.
Speaking on the launch, Björn Ulvaeus, ABBA member, music tech entrepreneur and advocate for creators’ rights, said: “As a creator, I’ve seen first-hand the challenges in ensuring everyone gets the recognition and fair compensation they deserve, Connex is a crucial step towards a future where technology empowers transparency and collaboration, enabling us to build a more equitable and sustainable music industry for all.”
Created to serve and support the entire music ecosystem, Connex was developed over four years of engagement with music professionals. It claims to offer an “industry-leading suite of services”.
UMG joining us as our founding customer is testimony to Connex’s capabilities
David Campbell
Tim Burgess, VP process innovation, UMG, said: “Our creative community, ranging from artists, songwriters, producers to engineers and session musicians is central to everything we do, and we strongly believe that ensuring they are correctly credited is an essential part of both promoting their work and helping to secure their legacy. At UMG we continue to innovate and develop increasingly reliable ways to collect complete, accurate and rich creator credits so that everyone involved in creating the music that we release and administer, is accurately recognised and compensated for their work.
“Connex is a critical piece of the end-to-end process and technology network that can connect the credits captured in the studio directly to labels’ A&R and label copy systems, and onwards. We are delighted to be the founding customer of Connex, as we work together on this exciting initiative to drive the industry forward.”
The platform's industry-enhancing solutions include:
– Connex launches with Session Studio, VevaSound, MusicTeam and Patchbay as fully integrated partners, able to connect hundreds of thousands of music creators directly to all music companies.
– Through Connex, labels, publishers and distributors are able to easily review the data and assets collected within one platform, with the added benefits of complete audit tracking and conflict resolution.
– Connex allows real-time delivery of data from a vast range of sources, ingesting unstructured data from email chains, spreadsheets and documents, minimising manual data entry.
– Automatic sample detection on every audio file allows music companies to take control of sample clearance early; lyric transcription significantly reduces time and input errors, delivering accurate and time-stamped assets.
Connex also embraces the DDEX global standard RIN message (Recording Information Notification), ensuring that a common digital language is used to pass these credits throughout the entire music ecosystem.
Kim Beauchamp, DDEX chair and EVP, strategic business transformation & operations at Universal Music Group, said "DDEX developed the RIN message to standardise the way that data collected in the studio is passed on to music labels and other recipients. Unfortunately, the standard doesn’t address the reality of how labels receive credits today which often involves receiving information from multiple sources via multiple mediums. Connex has been built to bridge that gap and make the vision of RIN a reality, to make the transmission of credits from the studio to the label as easy, robust, and accurate as possible.”
David Campbell, managing director of Connex, said: “Connex represents a real step forward for the music industry. It simplifies the process of managing creator credits and audio and enables stronger collaboration and faster decision-making across the industry. UMG joining us as our founding customer is testimony to Connex’s capabilities and further supports our mission to solve the industry’s complex data challenges with software products that people want to use. Importantly Connex is accessible to all music companies, from independents to the world’s largest music catalogues.”
Connex was developed in collaboration with Stage, which has developed music rights and royalties management systems like Session Studio, Salt and RDx.
FOLLOW 
