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Digital
Island Def Jam forms app alliance, wants developers
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 28 February 2011
Universal Music’s US-based Island Def Jam division last week announced a partnership with an outfit called The Echo Nest which, and I quote, is “a music intelligence platform that powers smarter music technologies”.
The two companies are inviting developers to use Echo Nest’s technology and Island Def Jam’s music to create commercial music-based apps to sell to those crazy app-obsessed smartphone-wielding kids. Any apps created through the programme will be sold by Island Def Jam, who will make sure any publishing royalties are paid, and then split revenues between themselves, Echo Nest and the app developer. How fair the revenue split terms are to the developer isn’t completely clear as yet.
But I do have a quote from Jim Lucchese, CEO of The Echo Nest, who says: “The music app is the new music format. In the same way that the music video provided a promotional wrapper around songs and artists while also functioning as a new creative work, music apps can attract new fans and raise an artist’s visibility while standing alone as a creative product”.
Of the partnership, he added: “This is a bold move on the part of Island Def Jam, which has become the first major label business department to embrace an open development ecosystem to attract the best and brightest developers”.