Type Private company Area served Worldwide Website KobaltMusic.com Founded 2000 | Industry Music industry Key people Willard Ahdritz (CEO) Founder Willard Ahdritz | |
Services Publishing, neighbouring rights, label services Headquarters New York City, New York, United States Subsidiaries AWAL, American Mechanical Rights Agency, Inc., Awal Limited, Kobalt Music Publishing Limited Profiles | ||
Conversation willard ahdritz kobalt music group midem 2013
Kobalt, also known as Kobalt Music Group, is an independent rights management and publishing company. Founded in 2000 by CEO Willard Ahdritz, Kobalt acts primarily as an administrative publishing company, not owning any copyrights. Also offering label services and neighboring rights, the company has developed an online portal to provide royalty income and activity to artists and allow them to manage their rights and royalties directly. Wired reported in 2015 that Kobalt was "the top independent music publisher in the UK and the second overall (to Sony/ATV) in the US," with around 600,000 songs and 8,000 artists in its catalogue, including Massive Attack, Trent Reznor, Gwen Stefani, Phoenix, Prince, Sonic Youth, Ellie Goulding, Paul McCartney, Bob Marley, John Denver, Tiesto, Bob Dylan, and Kelly Clarkson. Kobalt owned 17.3% of the total worldwide market share among worldwide music publishers as of 2015, ranking it second after Universal. With headquarters in New York, Kobalt also has offices in cities such as London, Los Angeles, Nashville, Atlanta, Berlin, Stockholm, Miami, Hong Kong, and Sydney.
Contents
Founding and early years (2000–11)
Kobalt Music Group was founded in 2000 in New York City, with founder Willard Ahdritz, a native of Sweden, taking on the role of CEO. Together with Klas Lunding Ahdritz had previously launched Telegram Publishing in Stockholm in 1988. Kobalt's initial business model focused on collecting and distributing royalties for artists, with the stated goal of ensuring artists were paid appropriately and promptly. In 2005 the company debuted its Kobalt Label Services Portal, an online portal for artists to track and manage their own portfolios.
Kobalt Music Group won Independent Music Publisher of the Year at the 2009 Music Week Awards, winning the following year as well. Kobalt added a neighboring rights division in 2011. In December 2011, Kobalt bought Artists Without a Label (AWAL), a digital distribution and label services company. Kobalt as a result gained access to AWAL's network of digital retail partners, which among other companies included iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, eMusic, Rhapsody, 7Digital, Beatport, Deezer, and Nokia. The acquisition also allowed Kobalt to begin supplying advanced data analytics to clients.
Expansion and new services (2012–14)
After the AWAL acquisition, Kobalt formed the label services division Kobalt Label Services in 2012. In July 2012, Kobalt Music Group signed a deal with MPL Communications to exclusively provide administrative services to MPL in "the world outside North America, the U.K. and Ireland." The catalog included 1,200 songwriters such as Hugh Masekela and Paul McCartney, with classic songs such as "Baby It's Cold Outside" and "Luck Be A Lady." Prince signed a deal in May 2013 to market and distribute his work with Kobalt, with Prince's rights over his masters left intact.
Recent developments (2014–16)
In 2014 Kobalt purchsed the American Mechanical Rights Agency (AMRA), a collection agency. Kobalt announced that it was preparing to expand into the Latin American market in April 2014, and that June the company raised USD $140 million in funding to "accelerate rapid growth" and that year Kobalt also raised USD $66 million from investors such as MSD Capital.
In February 2015, Google Ventures in London made Kobalt its inaugural investment, with Google Ventures' president explaining that Kobalt was "changing the way artists are treated in the music business, particularly when it comes to providing trust and transparency and compensating creators for their work." Google Ventures (with MSD Capital, once again investing) raised USD $60 million for the company in a Series C round of financing, which Kobalt announced would largely be used to develop their technology and open new offices in Miami, Brazil, and South East Asia. This brought the total of equity raised by Kobalt to $126 million. At that point, Kobalt had also invested $100 million of the initial $153 million it had raised to "help finance a second strand of its business – label services where Kobalt either buys part or all of an artists' rights to help collect royalties on their behalf."
Wired reported in May 2015 that Kobalt was "the top independent music publisher in the UK and the second overall (to Sony/ATV) in the US," with around 8,000 artists and 600,000 songs in their catalogue. At the time, Kobalt continued to collect royalty money directly from services such as Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, and various collection agencies. With headquarters in London, Kobalt currently has offices in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Nashville, Atlanta, Berlin, Stockholm, Miami, Hong Kong, and Sydney.
Technology
Kobalt has developed a number of technologies to increase its own efficiency at tracking and collecting royalties. In 2005 the company debuted its Kobalt Portal, an online portal for artists to track and manage their own portfolios. In 2014, Kobalt introduced ProKlaim, a YouTube integration that by 2014 had significantly increased artist revenue on the platform. ProKlaim serves as an "advanced detection platform" by integrating with YouTube's own music detection technology. As of 2015, Kobalt had started describing their backend technology as "KORE." KORE manages rights, and tracks, collects and pay royalties across disparate markets, with the collected data accessible through the Kobalt Portal.
Current catalogue
Kobalt currently has licensing deals with around 8,000 artists and 600 publishing companies, representing a catalague that totals around 600,000 songs.
Selected publishers
The following publishers are currently signed to Kobalt Music Group:
Selected artists
The following artists have a significant portion of their catalog, if not all, currently overseen by Kobalt Music Group:
Awards and nominations
The following is an incomplete list of awards won by Kobalt Music Group: