STEM LAUNCHES ROYALTY SERVICES

Distribution and payments platform Stem has launched its biggest product in years, Royalty Services. Labels can now work with Stem to gain more insight into their royalty obligations, improve accuracy and spend less time making payments.

In partnership with Curve, Stem is making it easy for labels to manage contract data, track earnings from DSPs and other sources and verify that each statement is accurate in a fraction of the time they’re currently spending. Artists have access to a dashboard to view and collect royalty income from multiple labels in one place.

Over the past year Stem has worked with Quality Control, 3LAU, Fool’s Gold and Our Vinyl to understand the challenges facing royalty finance teams and build solutions that fit their needs.

“This is the next step in our mission to improve financial clarity for the music industry,” said Stem Chief Product Officer Brendan Kao. “Labels need a clear dashboard to understand royalty obligations and payments, and artists deserve clear insight into what they’re owed. Now Stem can offer that experience whether you distribute with us or not.”

Stem Royalty Services is available to labels and other music companies with significant royalty obligations, a desire to better understand their business and a commitment to offering artists a better experience. It assists with onboarding contracts, catching up on previous royalty periods and inputting regular statements from DSPs and more. After each period is calculated, clients review a summary in the web app that makes it easy to spot mistakes and make adjustments. Once finalized, labels can fund payments to hundreds or thousands of recipients with a single transaction. Artists, meanwhile, can view and manage payments from multiple labels via a single portal.

“Stem's software makes royalty data easy to read to the point that I actually want to log in myself to look at trends,” said Coach K of QC Music.

Pictured: (l-r) Brad Bennett, CTO, Tracey Melnick, VP, Royalty Services, Milana Rabkin Lewis, CEO, Brendan Kao, CPO, and Charleton Lamb, head of marketing

Photo credit: Patrick Strattner