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Amuse (music company)

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Not to be confused with Amuse Inc..
amuse
Company typeMusic company
IndustryMusic Industry
Founded2015; 9 years ago (2015) in Stockholm, Sweden
Founders
  • Diego Farias
  • Andreas Ahlenius
  • Christian Wilsson
  • Jimmy Brodd
  • Guy Parry
Headquarters
Stockholm
,
Sweden
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Giorgio D'Ambrosio, CEO
Websiteamuse.io

Amuse is a global music company offering digital music distribution, funding and artist services to independent artists and managements, who retain 100% of their master rights. The company was founded as a modern alternative to major record labels in 2015 in Stockholm, Sweden by entrepreneurs Diego Farias, Andreas Ahlenius, Christian Wilsson, Guy Parry, and Jimmy Brodd. Amuse is based in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in London, UK and New York, US. In 2024, Giorgio D'Ambrosio was appointed CEO of the company.

Business model

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Amuse's proprietary technology platform uses the streaming data from digital music distribution services to partner with independent artists with momentum.[1] When the company discovers music it can help grow, Amuse's team offers the artist a tailor made licensing deal, including services like funding, artist marketing and rights management, in return of a revenue split. The licensing deal means that artists remain in charge of master rights.

Amuse's open digital distribution service lets self-releasing and independent artists release and monetize their music, through all major streaming services. Amuse offers two subscription tiers for music distribution - Boost and Pro[2] - as well as connected services such as automated royalty advances,[3] AI mastering[4] and music performance insights.[5]

History

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Amuse was founded in 2015 by Diego Farias, Andreas Ahlenius, Christian Wilsson, Guy Parry, and Jimmy Brodd, with the ambition to redefine artist discovery and record label deals. The first Amuse iOS and Android digital distribution application was released in March 2017, allowing anyone to self-release and manage their music catalog straight from their smartphone.[1] In June 2017, American rapper, singer, songwriter, DJ, record producer, voice actor and philanthropist will.i.am joined the company's list of co-founders.[6] Later on in May 2018 Amuse raised $15,5M USD in series A funding round led by venture capital firms Lakestar and Raine Ventures.[7]

In April 2019 the company launched Fast Forward[3] - an automated royalty advance service for self-releasing artists.[8]

In the end of 2018, Lil Nas X uploaded his song Old Town Road through Amuse. According to former CEO Diego Farias, he had previously uploaded several tracks which had not gained much attention. However, in the beginning of 2019 the company could see, through their algorithms, that Old Town Road was doing extremely well, and so they offered the artist a deal. Lil Nas X later on chose to sign a deal with Columbia Records.[9] The song Old Town Road, featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, ended up becoming one of the most prized songs in the history of Billboard Hot 100, as it spent record-breaking 19 weeks at No.1.

By 2023, Amuse was a top 5 DIY digital music distribution services worldwide, in terms of release volume.[10] They also had five of the ten most streamed songs on Spotify in Sweden and launched Music Insights, providing distribution users with granular statistics about their music performance, including user-generated content from YouTube and TikTok.[5] "Master Your Music", a new AI release mastering service, was launched in July 2023 through a collaboration with the Norwegian startup Masterchannel, used by artists like Ane Brun and Skinny Days (producers for Tiësto, Alan Walker and Seeb).[4]

Operations

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Amuse has two main operations - digital music distribution and licensing of music. Their offering stretches across a range of services for independent artists, from an open digital music distribution platform to artist services, marketing and funding.

Amuse's label works with a selection of licensed artists, like US indie pop/rock acts Yot Club, Emei, Penelope Scott, Stela Cole, Vundabar, Hotel Ugly, The Walters, Bedroom and Mind's Eye, UK Drill phenomena Fumez the Engineer, Canadian rap/R&B artist 80purppp and Turkish chill trap artist Serhat Durmus.[11] In early 2024, Amuse celebrated that Hotel Ugly and Yot Club had both surpassed 1 billion streams during their partnership with Amuse.[12] The label has received a series of US, Canadian and UK Platinum certifications for licensed artists, as well as US, Canadian and UK Gold certifications.

The data-driven royalty advance service Fast Forward that was officially launched in April 2019, utilises machine learning to calculate and offer users up to six months of their upcoming royalties through the Amuse smartphone application. The service is very scalable and able to offer artists advances between 10 USD up to thousands of USD.[13]

Financials

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Amuseio AB is based in Sweden and is required to release their financials. In 2022 they had a gross revenue of $40.5M USD and made $2.3m USD loss.[14]

Controversy surrounding claims of fraud

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There has been a growing number of artists complaining about their work being removed due to artificial streaming (more commonly known as "bots"[15]) without any evidence of it provided by Amuse. These reports have been showing up both on social media and online reviews and in each of these cases Amuse keeps the royalties as well as any payment for their plans without refund. [16][17]

One of the aforementioned cases includes a video by Youtube user "Sir Freak" where the aggrieved party shows evidence of Amuse claiming the warning came from Spotify as well as evidence of Spotify claiming that they raised no such warning and that all his activity was genuine.[18] Amuse has yet to comment on any of these claims.

Associated artists

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References

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  1. ^ a b O'Hear, Steve (2018-05-22). "Amuse scores $15.5M for its free music distribution service and 'next gen' record label". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-04-08.
  2. ^ "Amuse Plans". amuse. Retrieved 2024-04-08.
  3. ^ a b Wang, Amy X. (2019-02-05). "A Music Startup Is Paying Artists For Their Future Royalties". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2024-04-08.
  4. ^ a b Stream, Platform & (2023-08-23). "Amuse Launches 'Master Your Music'". Platform & Stream. Retrieved 2024-04-08.
  5. ^ a b "Music Biz Member Amuse Launches New Music Insights Service To Empower Artists With In-Depth Data". Music Business Association. Retrieved 2024-04-08.
  6. ^ "Will.i.am Joins 'Mobile Record Label' Startup Amuse, Talks 'Defining a New Type of Record Industry'". Billboard.
  7. ^ "Swedish startup Amuse closes $15.5m funding round". Music Business Worldwide. 2018-05-22. Retrieved 2024-04-08.
  8. ^ "Amuse to pay AI-driven royalty advance money to independent artists". Music Business Worldwide. February 5, 2019.
  9. ^ "Lil Nas X rejected a $1 million-plus deal with Amuse before signing to Columbia Records". Music Business Worldwide. June 4, 2019.
  10. ^ Nylin, Lars (2023-12-19). "4 Snabba: Roshi Motman, VD Amuse". Musikindustrin (in Swedish). Retrieved 2024-04-08.
  11. ^ "Label". amuse. Retrieved 2024-04-08.
  12. ^ Major, Michael. "Indie Phenomenon Yot Club Surpasses 1 Billion Streams Since Partnership". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2024-04-08.
  13. ^ Wang, Amy X. (February 5, 2019). "A Music Startup Is Paying Artists For Their Future Royalties".
  14. ^ "Amuseio AB i Stockholm (559036-7016) - Merinfo.se". www.merinfo.se. Retrieved 2020-09-23.
  15. ^ "Man accused of using bots and AI to earn streaming revenue". BBC. Retrieved 2024-09-06.
  16. ^ "Don't use Amuse.io - all music removed, end of discussion. Assuming my money is gone too". Reddit. Retrieved 2023-01-24.
  17. ^ "Amuse Trustpilot reviews". Trustpilot.
  18. ^ "My distributor REMOVED all my music from streaming services". Youtube. Retrieved 2024-03-12.
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