Media tech firms U-TO Solutions, Soundmouse enter strategic partnership for Indian market

U-TO Solutions, a media technology company based in India, and Soundmouse, a UK-based music reporting company that specializes in Music Recognition, cue sheet creation and reporting services to the broadcasting industry, have announced that they have signed a strategic partnership agreement to offer Soundmouse services to the Indian market.

U-TO is now an exclusive partner for Soundmouse offerings in India region. U-TO will lead initiatives to create market awareness as well as localization of services to custom fit regional market dynamisms.

Today the market needs accurate reporting of music usage with complete metadata for all content consumption across TV & OTT platforms. The combined strengths of U-TO and Soundmouse aims to solve the industry-wide problem to comprehensively manage and monitor contractual music rights and its adherence with automated programmatic algorithms for music detection and it’s reporting, it said in a company statement.

“This partnership is a win-win for the industry as a whole, including all contributors,” said Sumit Suri, Founder and Chief Information Officer of U-TO Solutions. “The partnership resonates industry sentiments and need for better rights and royalty management. Governing bodies like IPRS are actively running campaigns to educate the market and create artist awareness on copyrights. The joint collaboration brings together U-TO’s in-depth business understanding of Indian M&E practices and Soundmouse’s proprietary audio recognition technology used by leading world broadcasters, media organizations, and PROs. This will meet a dire need for Indian M&E industry to declutter copyright-related hassles.”

“Brands are increasingly connecting with consumers in India in this digital age through music,” Mark Vermaat, Head of Business Development at Soundmouse, said. “As a leading music detection company in the world, we are happy to enter the Indian market in partnership with U-TO who bring a tremendous amount of experience and local market intelligence. This will bring unparalleled advantage to the Indian music broadcast industry.”

“U-TO brings Soundmouse via an exclusive partnership to India," added U-TO's Sumit Suri. "It's one of the most technologically advanced solutions in the space of music detection and is a naturally complementing solution to our existing rights management platform, RightsU.”

U-TO and Soundmouse jointly answer two major challenges of music rights for broadcasters, publishers and collecting societies – managing adherence to contractual nuances and monitoring music usage. The solution will generate accurate cue sheets that will ensure accurate royalty payouts to music rights holders and the pre-emptive usage adherence mechanisms will considerably reduce IP rights violations and grievances between broadcasters and music labels, the statement added.

Published on: Tuesday, March 22, 2022, 12:07 PM IST