Getty Images and MuuseMe.com, a digital platform showcasing Latin music for commercial placements, have announced a partnership creating a Hispanic music division that taps into music of Spanish-language indie acts that can be licensed in the U.S., Latin America and Spain, according to officials at both companies.
The move to work together comes after research on behalf of Getty Images Music executives that showed the market for Spanish-language music is viable and licensing inquiries continue to grow through the creative community from ad agencies to music supervisors, a specialty that MuuseMe.com has developed since launching more than a year ago. Additionally, Getty Images has customers in more than 100 countries.
The first round of acts featured through Getty includes about 3,000 bands, according to Getty Images Music director Melinda Lee, adding that more than 32 million “content creators’ visit Getty each monthly. Those visitors from the creative types at ad agencies to television producers are defined as “anyone taking a visual project and who wants to put music to it.” Lee says
“We found that our clients really needed this music,” Lee says. “So we thought that the best partner in the world would be MuuseMe because they really have the largest market share within the advertising market that’s actually targeted for this demographic, and it’s growing.”
Muuseme co-founder Robert Filomena says that part of the company’s role is to provide Getty with music that didn’t exist in their portfolio previously.
“Getty was not offering Spanish-language cross genre styles like dance music and rock that would be appealing in both Spain and Latin America,” Filomena says. “This appeals to an enormous consumer base of 500 million Spanish speakers.”
Essentially, MuuseMe is curating a selection of content for Getty, Filomena said. Also, most of the bands in this first group of acts are “smaller, lesser-known indie bands. This is mostly for bands who need more distribution outlets.”
Because Filomena and the rest of the MuuseMe team already have strong ties in the music business, they were able to find indie artists and labels looking to join them in the partnership with Getty.
As part of the music industry standard, Filomena adds, artists will get 50 percent of licensing fees. The other half is split between Getty and Muuseme.
“The value for us is we can now provide a second layer of distribution for a certain segment of our content partners through Getty’s international sales team,” Filomena says. “In addition to marketing the artists we work with directly to MuuseMe’s existing client base, Getty will provide access to placement opportunities for our indie partners, particularly in the interactive, corporate and television worlds, that were previously out of reach.”
Lee says that the partnership does not exclude major labels although the focus will be on indie bands and labels from countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Spain and the U.S. as part of the initial offering.
“For us, success would be hearing back from our client base who say that they need [this type of service], ” Lee says. “This will also give these artists … a new revenue stream.”