How SmartLabel aims to change the music industry

Paving the way for an artist-first approach within the music industry, the co-founders behind SmartLabel, Jonathan Oudekerk and Joost Rohde, originally came together with the aim of helping independent musicians better manage their careers.

The two combined their experience, which spans the fields of IT, technology, music, IP rights and more, to launch a platform that offers several services devised to help musicians get their music out into the industry on their own terms. Offering multiple options to do so, from NFTs to distribution, they share the vision behind SmartLabel, how the platform came to be and what impact they hope it will have on the industry.

Jonathan Oudekerk is co-founder and business development executive at SmartLabel. “Growing up, I noticed that many artists did not sort out their business affairs, which impacted their music careers. Many gravitated towards playing live gigs to get paid for their music, but they failed to organise the additional contracts or paperwork needed for wider distribution.” This caught Jonathan’s attention, and he began researching how he could help these musicians better understand what they needed to do to succeed independently. While studying at the School of Audio Engineering (SAE) in Amsterdam, he developed a deeper grasp of the ins and outs of the music industry. At the time, he immersed himself in learning everything he could about copyright, master rights and broader distribution rights for artists.

Gap in the market

While Jonathan was thinking of how he could use his newly gained knowledge for the benefit of musicians and artists, his soon-to-be business partner Joost was busy managing the career of Sexton Creeps, an international musical project from the underground art scene in Groningen. Like Jonathan, Joost grew up surrounded by music, learning the ins and outs of the music business. After working in the IT industry for more than 20 years, mainly focusing on open-source software and programming applications, he decided to take a left turn with his career and become more involved in the music industry.

“Working as the manager for the Sexton Creeps was my first real encounter with the music industry,” he recalls. “I was in charge of everything regarding the band’s operations, from music rights to live performances, venue bookings and publicity. Basically everything that comes with running a band.” Working with them allowed Joost to see how the music industry operated in the Netherlands and Europe. The Sexton Creeps had a very interesting set-up, because they co-created many different tracks with several different artists.

After Joost set up his own studio, he and Jonathan teamed up as business partners, because they realised they had quite a few things in common. Both wanted to assist independent musicians and saw a gap in the market when it came to accessing the information and technology independents need to build a successful music career. “With the knowledge I gained while studying copyright and how the industry works, together with Joost’s background and music experience, we came up with a concept to provide the technical capabilities musicians need nowadays that are not being provided by the music industry,” says Jonathan. Both agreed that the way the music industry currently functions is not transparent or fair, but that the tools to help musicians are there. “That’s really where we saw the use case for a one-stop-shop that puts artists first.”

A one-stop-shop

SmartLabel aims to educate musicians on what steps to take once their music has been created. Offering services and tools linked to master rights, copyrights, how to earn royalties, how to make NFTs, and overall music distribution, the platform supports all musicians, no matter what point they are at in their career.

Built on Jonathan’s and Joost’s combined knowledge of the business side of the industry and the technical innovations available today, SmartLabel helps artists manage the business affairs of their music careers, without being overwhelming. “We wanted to make an easy and accessible tool that could be widely used by all,” says Joost.

Invest in artists, own music rights

Flipping the norm, SmartLabel gives the power back to musicians by letting them be the sole owner of their musical creations if they choose so. The various services and tools developed to help musicians will exist on a single platform, in one place. “We offer multiple options to musicians on how to build and manage their career,” says Jonathan. “For example, via SmartLabel you can distribute your music to all the streaming platforms and blockchains. You can manage all your paperwork via SmartLabel, where we give you all the insights needed to support your music career in a clear, concise, artist-centric approach.”

SmartLabel offers additional information and insights on newer technologies within the music industry, such as blockchain and NFTs. With a dedicated NFT Promotion service, SmartLabel helps artists learn about NFTs, how to create their own, when and how to release them, and how to use them to generate new income streams. For example, when an artist creates a new album, they can choose to sell part of the rights to the album or to individual tracks by minting 100 master tokens and 100 publishing tokens, each representing a percentage of the master and publishing rights, in short the royalties. The artist can sell these tokens to their most loyal fans and use the capital gained as an advance on their future income, to invest in furthering their career.

“We think this is one of the biggest unique selling points we offer at SmartLabel to support independent musicians,” says Joost. Musicians can even include a clause in each NFT so that the creator receives a percentage of the total amount every time the token changes hands. This ensures they continue to benefit from their own work into the future.

Fans who purchase NFTs from the artist also become part of the artist’s community and can support them throughout their career. As a digital record of how and when a fan first began supporting their favourite artist, NFTs can also profit their holders in the future if they increase in value. Owning an original digital asset from a musician gives the fan certain bragging rights, and the potential to trade it for much more than they originally paid. Musicians can also include extra features with each NFT, such as backstage passes, access to unreleased music or signed records.

A platform that takes care of artists first

Jonathan and Joost stress that the NFT service is not just part of the broader craze sweeping the music industry. “We are not riding the NFT hype that’s occurring right now. When it comes down to it, we are building SmartLabel because we want to empower independent musicians. We want to give artists the tools they need to disrupt the music industry positively.” With expert advice, musicians can make the right decisions for themselves and further their careers without relying on several external parties. “We aim to avoid situations you may see in the current music industry, where record labels convince artists to sign away the majority of the master rights to a record or song, and the artist is left unaware of the future implications this could have on their career,” says Joost. “We want SmartLabel to be a platform that takes care of artists first, not just the economic benefits of their career.”

For example, through SmartLabel musicians can create contracts that allow other parties to use certain parts of their songs. Known as synchronisation deals, these contracts can be drawn up on the platform by the musician and give someone else the option to buy the rights to use a song. “SmartLabel is artist-beneficial, not industry-professional-beneficial. Many musicians lack the knowledge to fully comprehend the long-term implications of the contracts they must sign with record labels or producers, and are unhappy with the consequences in hindsight. We want to change that,” explains Jonathan.

A safe haven for music creators

SmartLabel aims to expand its services to include community building, as a safe haven for music creators. The co-founders want to develop the platform into a thriving environment where musicians and artists can build up their community with fans worldwide. “Musicians can even sell the master rights to certain songs to fans if they like,” notes Joost. From forming direct connections with fans to selling merchandise or even investing in and splitting profits from a musician’s work, the sky’s the limit for the community Jonathan and Joost want to launch on SmartLabel. “Usually, musicians don’t have clear insights into what their fans think or want, as they are spread across different countries, social media channels and platforms. We want to enable deeper, more meaningful connections with fan bases, while offering musicians more insight into them.”

Jonathan and Joost envision the platform as an open-source tool that allows musicians to decide who owns what part of a creation, how much, when and how. “We are building the tools for this without taking any cut in it.”