London, February 15, 2023: The metaverse will never sound the same again. Today marks the official signing of a major agreement between Lickd, a leading micro-licensing, and music solutions company, and record labels and publishers EMPIRE and Kobalt Music Group, licensing their music catalogs to bring the noise to the open-source virtual reality world of Decentraland’s Vegas City.
After news of a “first-of-its-kind” metaverse partnership for Lickd broke in late 2022, the company acted quickly to create a “metaverse-enabled” player and select the background and featured music for it with the EMPIRE and Kobalt catalogs, among others.
The music player is called “Chorus” and is available in all venues and public spaces in the Vegas City district, offering hundreds of genre- and mood-specific playlists across the city’s attractions.
With its launch at Vegas City’s LaLigaLand venue, Lickd aims to bridge the worlds of music and sports. After announcing its presence in the metaverse, the new zone, associated with the world-renowned Spanish soccer league “LaLiga”, will bring a new approach to fan engagement.
LaLigaLand will target the Gen-Z audience with the development of a series of LaLiga themed plots related to the ongoing soccer league activity. With music being a vital asset to the success of each district, this is an obvious area of interest for Lickd in expanding its offering in this area.
Paul Sampson, CEO of Lickd, said,
“We are delighted to have officially signed up with EMPIRE and Kobalt to bring music to Vegas City, Decentraland. At the heart of everything we do at Lickd is innovation and the synergies between what we, EMPIRE and Kobalt envisioned as the scalable opportunity for music in the metaverse were clear. They agreed that the industry needs to act quickly and decisively to capitalize on that opportunity and what we are announcing today is proof of that. The great popularity of the metaverse is inevitable, so we continue to offer new offerings to our users, partners, and customers alike.”
Lickd is a micro-licensing and music solutions company that already offers more than one million pre-licensed songs from reputable and independent labels and publishers to a growing database of 130,000 social video content creators for UGC.
Lickd’s new product, Chorus, aims to offer a similar level of music access to creators in the metaverse, enabling brands and venues of all types to create a user experience of the quality their users deserve.
Partnering with EMPIRE and Kobalt from the beginning ensures that Chorus has world-class partners from day one and that their music is heard throughout the Vegas City district and beyond.
Derek Cournoyer, Vice President of Global Digital Partnerships & Emerging Media at Kobalt Music Group, said,
“As community building transcends physical boundaries, music will continue to play a vital role in shaping shared experiences. We are delighted to join forces with Lickd to help ensure that our songwriters, publishing clients and their music thrives in this burgeoning digital universe of creation and experiences.”
Ghazi, CEO and Founder of EMPIRE said,
“EMPIRE prides itself on being an early adopter of new technology and culture, whether in the physical world or in the ever-expanding digital landscape. Lickd has identified a problem and created a solution that allows us to bring our music and culture to the metaverse in a scalable way.”
As the owner of the largest entertainment zones in Decentraland, Vegas City continues to dominate the supply side of the metaverse, with new venues popping up at a breakneck pace.
All zones, including LaLigaLand, will feature music from Lickd, selected by genre, theme, and ambiance to suit the experience. With the support of EMPIRE and Kobalt under its belt, Lickd’s ambitious roadmap to reach more realms of the metaverse with music includes tapping into new districts as they appear in a world that continues to grow in popularity.
James Ashton, CEO of Vegas City, said,
“It’s exciting to think that people from all over the world can come together in the metaverse and hang out virtually against a backdrop of awesome music, just like they do every day in the physical world, and we’re thrilled to launch it in LaLigaLand and make it the first Decentraland project to feature this great service for players of this gamified experience.”
Lickd’s innovative work with EMPIRE & Kobalt Music Group adds to a track record of notable industry collaborations, with a portfolio that includes Warner Music Group, Epic Games, and Universal Music Group.
About Lickd
Lickd is the world leader in music micro-licensing and music solutions for content creators of all kinds. Its innovative, market-first VOUCH software enables online video creators to license music from record labels, publishers, and famous artists, as well as a wide range of stock music, without losing their advertising revenue to copyright claims.
Headquartered in London and operational since 2016, the company serves digital creators around the world, rooted in its belief that “the best music matters.”
About EMPIRE
Founded in 2010 by Bay Area native Ghazi, EMPIRE is currently a leader through its innovative approach to the digital music era through its label, distribution, and publishing arms.
Focused on early-stage artist development, the San Francisco-based company has been instrumental in launching the careers of multi-platinum and Grammy Award-winning artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Yung Bleu, Fireboy DML, and Anderson.Paak.
Through tailoring deals that are always in the artist’s favor, EMPIRE is able to form a true partnership with every artist and label on its roster.
Together with EMPIRE’s exclusive software for analysis, retrieval, and royalties, which is available to all partners, the company offers a level of transparency unparalleled in the music industry.
About Kobalt
Kobalt is an innovative technology-driven music company created as an alternative to the traditional music business model. The company has become the leading independent music publishing destination for artists, songwriters, and publishers.
Through 13 global offices, Kobalt services more than 700,000 songs, representing some of the world’s greatest songwriters, including Roddy Ricch, Max Martin, FINNEAS, Karol G, Andrew Watt, Stevie Nicks, Phoebe Bridgers, The Lumineers, Gunna, Justin Quiles, The Foo Fighters, Paul McCartney, and many more.
On average, Kobalt represents over 40% of the top 100 songs and albums in the US and UK.
Kobalt continues to drive innovation in music through its unique platform of services and technology that tracks and collects royalties from the billions of micropayments in digital music today.
The company continues to transform the industry, most recently through AMRA, its global digital music collection partnership designed to maximize value for songwriters and publishers in today’s digital age, while providing the highest level of transparency and efficiency.
For more information about Kobalt, visit www.kobaltmusic.com
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