When you’re weary, feeling small
When tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all (all)
I’m on your side, oh, when times get rough
And friends just can’t be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Written by Paul Simon
Performed by Simon and Garfunkel
Published by Universal Music Publishing Group
Today’s newsletter announces the release of Exploration Data – Catalog Management Software. We are so proud to make available a valuable tool and hope you’ll join us in putting our best foot forward.
We appreciate you for reading and hope that it will not be long before we’re able to share a laugh in person.
Exploration Data
It wasn’t very long after we founded Exploration that we realized we needed a system to manage the catalogs we were entrusted with.
Nothing existed that was accessible for our purposes, so we decided to build it.
We’re calling this catalog management software Exploration Data.
We started with YouTube since it needs comprehensive data from our clients and we built our system backward from there, matching fields required by their system to be editable fields in our system.
Exploration Data can preview and edit titles along with all of the associated metadata that will allow our clients to get paid more efficiently and accurately. We can confirm who wrote a song, the splits of each writer, and their associated publisher. In addition, it lists the territories controlled and all of the song’s unique codes utilized by services that need them: HFA, MRI, Loudr.fm, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, YouTube, etc. It also lists all of the master recordings a composition might be embedded in with corresponding metadata and vice versa.
It’s easily searched, able to be sorted in a variety of ways and is able to be extended as new services, such as SoundCloud, come online.
It’s simple to export a single song or many in bulk. in multiple formats. It currently supports YouTube CSV and DDEX exports. This is important, as having a well organized storage vault that only we know about doesn’t do a lot of good.
We engineered the ability to efficiently export and deliver the data to those outlets that need it, in the format they require, to pay royalties timely and accurately. Delivery of clean data on demand is critical in collecting the monies one is due.
The interface is intuitive and it is easy to use making it ideal for a rapidly expanding catalog.
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So there we were, working all along building this great tool for ourselves. And it works. It does exactly what it is intended to do.
And then we thought that perhaps our friends and clients could use it as well. Maybe having all of that organized data would benefit them outside YouTube and SoundCloud. Perhaps they’ll also benefit from using Exploration Data to update record labels and film companies and collection societies and PRO’s and anywhere else that demands their data.
So that anytime someone raises their hand to say, “I think your song played and I might have some of your money. Please send me your metadata!”, our client’s could do it it super fast!
Maybe everyone in the music business could benefit.
So we decided to make Exploration Data available to all, for free.
Exploration Data is free to use by all!
Might some people use it that are not utilizing Exploration to collect royalties on their behalf? Of course. But it is my firm belief that as the tide rises, so do all ships. If you are well, so are we.
As a music industry, we all can benefit by organizing our copyrights, together.
Please let us know if you would like to access Exploration Data to better manage your catalog.
Happy Holidays 🙂
Stay close,
Aaron
PS – We have a ton of ideas on how to make this software more useful and valuable. Adding royalty processing…additional export formats…hosting media…these additions and many more are on the development pipeline for the not so distant future, but this is a solid start. We need real users in there working with it in order to understand exactly what is important to them and how it should work.
PPS – If everyone finds it valuable or none at all makes no difference. We need to build and maintain this software for ourselves. You can always export your data in full.
PPPS – Exploration Data is currently in private beta as we work out all of the bugs and make it can support the demands of many users at once. Please be patient with us as we increase onboarding capability. Signup here to get an invite as soon as they become available – http://exploration.io/data