Snapchat Wants To Launch Its Own Music Label

Garry Knight / Flickr, CC

Snapchat aspires to become its own music label, according to a leaked email from June unearthed by the Sony hackers.

Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton sits on Snapchat's board. 

On June 5, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel met with Sony's President of Global Digital Business, Dennis Kooker. Spiegel was interested in launching a label for Snapchat, according to an email written by Kooker to Lynton.

"He thinks every music service in the market is shit and he wants to be a curator," Kooker wrote of Snapchat's plan. His email suggests Snapchat already has some features that could work well with music.

"He doesn't want to build a music service but he would like to have a record label so he could focus on the artists that he wants to use the platform to promote.  He also wants to participate in the upside that he will create by promoting them on the platform." 

Kooker says he tried to encourage Spiegel to pursue music sampling and prove the concept rather than build a full-fledged label, but Spiegel seemed to have his mind made up. It's not clear if Snapchat is moving forward with its music plans or not.

Here's the full email:

Michael,

I was only able to see Evan for about 30 minutes yesterday but that was enough time for him to express his thoughts and leave us with some things to think about if there is going to a music play within Snapchat. He didn't end up showing some of the developments in the platform that may benefit music but referenced them in the discussion.  First, he thinks every music service in the market is shit and he wants to be a curator.  He doesn't want to build a music service but he would like to have a record label so he could focus on the artists that he wants to use the platform to promote.  He also wants to participate in the upside that he will create by promoting them on the platform.  He later backed off a bit from being a record label to maybe testing the concept first.  Obviously he doesn't understand some of the important nuances around the business about what rights a record label does and does not have.

I appreciate the introduction.  I am going to go back to my team with some of these concepts and see if we can get creative in how we could get something to work here that is in the direction of Evan's vision and get him more exposed to what we can bring to Snapchat.  We have a lot of ideas of our own but I don't think Evan will engage in our ideas until we try to move something forward that he wants to accomplish.

Please let me know if you want to disc [sic]