[title size=”1″]Interview with David Brami, CEO, Moozar.com[/title]
MF: David, thanks for taking a few minutes to speak to me today. Thanks for taking part in Sync Summit Paris this past April. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how your company Moozar (http://moozar.com) works with artists to give them another way to connect with – and make money from – their fans?.
DB: My Name is David Branzi and I’m a French lawyer, and I work with a great deal of both tech developers and independent artists. As part of my work, I’ve looked to create better ways to help artists get paid and to finance their lives and work – and Moozar is what we came up with.
MF: So what does Moozar offer to artists? And how does it help them to monetize their music and to connect better to their fans?
DB: We do this through what we call the “Reward Link.” It’s a quick, easy and free. If you’re an artist, you can get started with Moozar by setting up a simple artist page with an email and picture, then link it to your various streaming/social media accounts.
From there, you’ll get a “Reward Link” (like: http://reward-my-music.com/artist-name/# ). You for each work, page, etc. that you can then share with your fans/followers on social networks, the web, on mobile or on merch.
MF: And then what happens?
DB: Basically, once you’ve set up the Reward Link on your social media and on Moozar.com, you can then share it with all of your fans. Then, once a fan, or one of your followers clicks on the Reward Link Button, your followers and fans can then “reward” an artist with a default $0.80 payment to your Moozar.com account via PayPal.
MF: All well and good, so a fan/follower can award artists they like with actual cash, that’s great, but do you think that people will actually do this? Convert a link into a tangible payment/reward?
DB: This is a good question. Think about it – if you really enjoy someone’s music, there’s a tangible desire to reward the artist for their work – and this is a way to do it simply and easily.Certainly not every fan will do this, but even a small percentage will be enough to translate into a tangible, real reward.
MF: Can you give us a tangible example of how this works with an artist?
DB:Yes – Joss Stone is now sharing with her fans and followers from moozar.com what she was used to share on YouTube before, via a “Reward link”.
Now, each view of her work on moozar.com brings to Stoned Records $0.086 on top of the $0.007 paid by YouTube for the advertising. And it cost nothing since the registration on Moozar.com is free of charge and the work is already available on Youtube.
MF: And how do you make money, what’s your business model?
DB: We take a portion of any reward that is provided to an artist, who gets at least 80% of the reward given. When a fan pay through the artist’s admin, the artist gets 100%. If the fan reaches the reward area through a partner site, the artist gets 80% and the partner site gets 20%. If the reward is through a Moozar link, then 80% goes to the artist and 20% to Moozar.
MF: And What are the payout schedules?
DB: Collected money is paid to the artist 90 days net.
MF: Okay – so how do you handle copyrights?
DB: The rewards are donations without a counterparty for the giver and therefore are without legal relationship to an existing copyright.
That said, even if sharing a “Reward link” is open to all artists, without prior authorization of rights holders, our terms of use provide that rewards received should be shared according to the existing use in digital sales if one the right holders requested so to the rewarded artist.
We want to be fair, and the Reward should be shared with those who have allowed the artist to succeed. This provision has also earned us the support of ASCAP.
MF: And what are you doing to further develop the usage of the Reward Link?
DB: We hope that by encouraging artists and all those who enjoy their work as well as those who generate traffic through creative content to share the Reward Link to provide an additional way for artists to gain revenue.
Additionally, we hope that by providing applications and widgets that allow creative content broadcasters and artists to monetize their traffic by displaying the artist’s “Reward Link” button when broadcasting the work to create new opportunities to reward artists.
And, in the future we hope to expand Moozar.com to other types of media like videos, photos, books and articles.
Basically, we think that talent deserves more than a “like,” and by working with artists and content creators and distributors, we look to help them gain tangible rewards.