Here's The Truth About Why Today's Music Industry Is Broken

This post is sponsored by Kobalt.

It's easy for audiences to find new music. They can download songs, stream the latest bands, and watch on-demand videos whenever or wherever they choose. And for artists and songwriters, there are countless new ways to engage fans and find new listeners.

Sounds like a golden age for music, right? Well, if you dialed into the Spotify debate over the past few weeks, you know that some artists are frustrated, and fans are confused about what to do. Despite huge advances in technology and access, big parts of the music industry are still frustratingly broken.

One of the biggest problems is that the infrastructure for paying musicians and songwriters isn't designed for today's digital world. Experts say the volume of activity - globally and across countless listening environments - demands better systems to track and distribute royalties. And right now, the pipes are clogged.

It can take up to 2 1/2 years for most music creators to get paid for the use of their music. During that time, more than 70% of their money can be swallowed by transactional costs. Worse, there is little to no information about where that money went. No wonder artists and the creative community are frustrated. They want to get paid. And they deserve to be paid on time, transparently, and efficiently.

Companies that specialize in making sure artists get paid for their work are among the biggest growth sectors in music. One of the leaders is Kobalt, which describes itself as a "technology powered, totally transparent, artist empowering, royalty maximizing, music services company of the future." It's a business with multiple capabilities. Both a music company and a tech platform, Kobalt uses its technology to collect, report, and pay on billions of transactions and royalty lines to artists worldwide - among them Foo Fighters, Maroon 5, Paul McCartney, and Skrillex.

"Kobalt is paving the way to save the music industry from itself," Kobalt founder Willard Ahdritz says. "Our experience is that once artists and songwriters see the amount of money transparently flowing through the system, they recognize how critical it is to have the right model and the best technology on their side. And with the help of streaming and the growth of markets and digital devices on a global scale over the next few years, I see the music industry doubling within three years."

Kobalt's major claim to fame is its Portal, the first music-services company to give clients transparent access to 100% of their data in real time. "It's a revolutionary concept in the music industry," Ahdritz says.

Kobalt is becoming a more and more appealing option for artists and songwriters, with the company already representing 40% to 50% of the Top 100 songs in the US and the UK. But it also offers competing music publishers and labels the use of its technology products, like the YouTube-integrated song-detection tool ProKlaim, which monetizes billions of unclaimed video streams every month.

The idea of growing the pie together is a novel concept for an all-too-fractious music business. "We are more interested in helping creators get paid transparently and efficiently than monopolizing the industry on our own," Ahdritz notes. More than 60% of Kobalt's revenues come from other music publishers who use Kobalt technology as their backend. Ahdritz adds: "It is our experience that transparency creates trust, which helps businesses to grow. And we all know the music industry could use a bit more growth and trust right about now."

Trust and growth for the music industry? As the video above says, maybe the future of music really is this simple.

Watch the video above for more information, or go to Kobalt.

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