I had the pleasure of speaking with Michael Raine of Canadian Musician magazine for an upcoming article about instore music and how it can help indie musicians. We’ll be sure to post a link to the article here when in comes out.
One of the topics we touched on was ensuring that your music is “Shazamable”. In other words, that your music can be identified by the ubiquitous music discovery app “Shazam” and others.
Of course, discovery is worthless without conversion and making money. Discovery can lead to product and concert ticket sales but as a performer you also are entitled to “neighbouring rights” and getting paid every time your songs are played in a store or public space. The onus is on you though, the musician, to register with copyright collection associations like Re:Sound and Socan in Canada and ASCAP, BMI and Sound Exchange in the US, to ensure you receive your copyright checks.
So before sending your music out, prepare yourself and register with those agencies and make sure your tunes are “Shazamable”. It’s a fairly easy process: https://support.shazam.com/entries/23061432-Submitting-songs-or-albums-to-the-Shazam-database
If you’re on CDBaby that process is done automatically!
The world, she awaits!
