Portland-based music licensing company Marmoset is joining a partnership program with social media giant TikTok that should give Marmoset’s new subscription service a big boost with creators.
In March Marmoset launched Track Club, a subscription service that allows members to easily find and customize officially licensed music from the company’s roster of artists. Traditionally, licensing has involved a lot of negotiations on phone calls or emails to set terms for song use or custom scoring for everything from commercials to TV shows.
However, as the creator economy has taken off — people making high-volume content for podcasts or platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram — the need for quick self-service access to licensed music has grown, said Marmoset founder and CEO Ryan Wines.
“I believe if we fast-forward years in the future, (the industry) is moving in this direction,” he said of the subscription model, especially for creators. “It’s a different audience and user base than what it was before. It’s such a high rate of content, this model serves them well.”
As part of the TikTok program, Marmoset is listed as an approved sound partner. That means the company’s service can be found alongside about a dozen others for marketers and creators to find and sign up for a Track Club subscription.
How the TikTok partnership came about
The company, which has 50 employees, has been working on the Track Club product for about a year and a half, Wines said. Since launching in March the team has been gathering user feedback and adjusting the product based on that input.
Wines sees this new model as a benefit for Marmoset, as well as for artists who can still make money on traditional music licensing to large brands and products but who can now also sell their music to smaller customers on top of that.
Marmoset has been working with TikTok for years as both as partner to brands that are on the platform as well as with the platform itself as a client. TikTok has its own commercial library of music of more than 150,000 cleared and royalty-free tracks. Being a sound partner is just the latest.
“(TikTok) created a vendor list of partners they deem approved for their audience to work with. That is what we negotiated, and my colleague José Maldanado led the effort from start to finish. I’m excited about this partnership and the way he was able to navigate through it,” Wines said.
As Track Club gains steam, Wines said the company is exploring other partner opportunities as well.
“Track Club has taken off in wonderful ways that we are really excited about,” he said. “It’s meeting benchmarks and expectations of a new product.”
Marmoset's plans for the rest of 2022
For the rest of this year the company is focused on innovating on Track Club, Wines said. The company has applied for patents around the platform and sees this service and Marmoset’s focus on its company values as key differentiators in the market.
Clients and creators that want to work with vendors that align on values will see what Marmoset stands for, Wines said. The company is a Certified B Corp and has been vocal for years on its work to be an equitable and inclusive employer.
Earlier this year the company released its annual transparency report that outlines its work. The report “allows us to be a beacon in the community and industry of a new way of leading an organization or a brand through values and seeing the impact,” Wines said. “Everything we do is through an equity lens. How can we use our success for good to make a positive impact.”
