When it comes to getting creative and making music, the decision to divvy up who owns what can be a daunting conversation for musicians, even one they might avoid.
The Labz, an Atlanta startup that helps you protect your music while you collaborate, aims to do just that with an instant copyright generator, audio watermarking and lyric tracking.
Lead founder Farah Allen said she wanted to create a solution for musicians who feel uncomfortable or uneducated about the copywrite process and documenting who owns what part of a song.
"Typically what happens is creatives just don't like to have that uncomfortable conversation when they're collaborating with each other, which is often times what they have to do," she said. "They're really in this very creative zone where they're really giving up a lot of themselves and being vulnerable. And that conversation about, 'Alright, so how much percentage of this song do you want to own,' just doesn't happen really often."
"You can think of it like IMDB, but for music creators."
Allen said $2.5 billion in the music industry is still left unclaimed because of a lack of documentation.
"Not enough people are doing their documentation, and companies can't find them to pay them," she said. "That’s where we come in. We understand the creative mind and how they like to work, we understand the tools they are currently using."
Some of those tools include emailing, file sharing and documentation so that the conversation is easy and seamless. Using an algorithm, The Labz calculates a percentage of contribution, automates forms needed to move forward and logs it on a blockchain database so all user data is secure.
When it comes to copywrite lawsuits in the music world nowadays, even email isn't safe documentation in the legal system, Allen said, because emails can still be hacked or doctored.
"We have a public database anyone can Google and search a song or a creator that has used our system and see what their percentage of contribution (is)," she said. "You can think of it like IMDb, but for music creators."
Allen, who's background stems from IT management, rather than the music industry, said her curiosity to solve this issue with technology and the skills she learned throughout her career drove her to create The Labz.
"So when I heard about the problem from my husband who's in the music industry, he's on the business side, I heard about it and then I just constantly kept seeing it," she said. "I kept seeing it in the news, people getting sued because they have to prove their ownership."
The Labz is one of several alumni startups from The Farm, a Comcast NBCUniversal and Boomtown accelerator collaboration. The Farm's next Demo Day will kick off at 5 p.m. Friday at the Coca-Cola Roxy in the Battery at SunTrust Park.
Since its inception, The Labz has received $50,000 in funding from The Farm and angel investors, Allen said. While the startup currently offers a website to musicians, Allen said her goal for next year is to launch a mobile app. Users can sign up for a monthly membership for the services for $9.99.
Allen's ambition is to integrate The Labz in universities and music programs, so young, up and coming musicians will be able to learn and utilize the technology.
"Everyone at the end of the day is losing money if this problem isn’t solved," she said.
