Page 50 - ION Indie Magazine JULYAUG 2024

Kiki: Thank you, Dean, for sitting down with me for this discussion.

You possess a plethora of information regarding the business of
music and have your finger on the pulse of today’s musicscape as it
relates to independent artists. I’m going to sit back on this particular
interview and give you this platform to answer the question: How

can DIY creators both protect and get paid for their work?

Dean: That’s truly a very big question, Kiki. Let me unpack it firstly by
saying that there has never been a better time for DIY creators to make,

own, distribute, and monetize their creations. We currently represent more
than 70% market share of all music released across all platforms and

digital distributions -- considering the trend of income world-wide is on a
full-scale upward swing to the tune over $50 billion a year. Unfortunately,
a majority of those who represent such a vast portion of the 100,000 songs
per day and over 14 million songs being released this year, most creators

struggle to understand how to:

• Brand their artist name
• Add copyright to their music

• Register and monetize their creations

I frequently visit Instagram, Facebook, etc., and look up artists and their

song creations. Time and time again, they have not secured their domain
with their name that they are performing and penning music under, and
simultaneously have not registered their songs for copyright. They
additionally have not joined a performing rights organization or any of the

many companies that represent the collections and distributions of
royalties from plays and downloads globally.