Friends of AIR
In a global business environment where multinational companies manoeuvre to control an overwhelming percentage of the market, the independent sector needs all the support it can get.
Our Friends of AIR program allows you to get behind and provide support to the Australian independent sector. It also puts you and your company in front of and in contact with AIR’s many members.
All of our valued Friends Of AIR below are already providing great support and services for AIR and the Australian independent music sector as a whole.
If you’re keen to get involved or know more, please contact our Membership Officer – membership@air.org.au
Friends Of AIR:
Amazon Music
Amazon Music is an immersive audio entertainment service that connects fans, artists, and creators through music, podcasts, and culture. Amazon Music brings fans closer to what they love, with curated and personalised playlists, artist livestreams, artist merch, and Amazon Exclusive podcasts. Prime members get access to over 100 million songs in shuffle mode, All-Access playlists, plus the largest catalogue of top ad-free podcasts, included with their membership. Customers can upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited for full, on-demand access to 100 million songs in HD and a growing catalogue of Ultra HD and Spatial audio. Anyone can listen to Amazon Music by downloading the Amazon Music app for free, or wherever they listen to music including Alexa-enabled devices. Learn more at www.amazon.com.au/music
Bandcamp
Bandcamp is an online record store and music community where passionate fans discover, connect with, and directly support the artists they love.
Bandcamp’s mission is to help spread the healing power of music by building a community where artists thrive through the direct support of their fans, and where fans gather to explore the amazing musical universe that their direct support helps create.
When a fan buys something on Bandcamp, an average of 82% of the money goes to the artist or their label — typically in 24-48 hours — and the remainder covers our revenue share and payment processor fees.
Since we only make money when artists make a lot more money, our interests remain aligned with those of our community. It’s a straightforward, artists-first approach, and one we’re happy to say works well. Fans have paid artists and their labels $1.45 billion USD using Bandcamp. In the past year alone, they’ve spent $194 million USD on 13.6 million digital albums, 11.1 million tracks, 1.6 million vinyl records, 750,000 CDs, 300,000 cassettes, and 50,000 t-shirts.bandcamp.com
CD Baby
Over the past 25 years, CD Baby has grown to be one of the largest distributors of independent music in the world. Home to over 2 million artists and close to 20 million tracks that are made available to 150+ digital services around the globe, CD Baby’s complete artist-services platform streamlines the complexities of global music distribution, rights management, and promotion—connecting independent musicians with new listeners and revenue sources so they can enjoy creative autonomy and thrive on their own terms. Founded and run by artists for artists, CD Baby exists to empower artists to build a bigger audience, monetize their rights while maintaining control of their own songs, and establish a successful career in music.
Chartmetric
Chartmetric is an elegant tool for artists, artist managers, and labels. They collect artist-related data from various sources such as Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, iTunes, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Bandsintown, and Youtube. Tracking nearly 2M artists, and updating over 5,000 different charts every day. Chartmetric also provides data for Radio, Film/TV synch, A&R, Touring, and much more. They also just added TIKTOK data from charts to likes/followers!
Curve
Downtown-owned Curve is a royalty system designed by music royalties experts who understand the needs of the music industry today and tomorrow. It is a powerful & complete solution for managing your catalogue’s rights and processing royalties related to both Recorded Music & Publishing.
Curve is an advanced music royalties toolset which caters to multiple types of deals and complex deal scenarios, including, but not limited to, profit share, net receipt deals, crossed contracts, mechanical liability deductions, controlled composition clauses and black box revenue distribution.
It can handle complex royalty rates and terms, and rapidly calculate royalties using massive volumes of income data. For Publishers, Curve also offers work registration features. Ingesting millions of lines of data & producing statements takes minutes & hours versus days & weeks. When it comes to music royalties, Curve covers it all.
AIR Members are encouraged to check the Members portal to access a 25% discount off first year fees.
Disco
Developed by music professionals, DISCO is the industry-preferred platform for file storage, management, sharing, and receiving within music and media. With more than 90 million tracks hosted, DISCO is the go-to for over 12,000 global teams, including major labels and film studios, iconic indies, world-renowned music supervisors, and chart-topping creators.
For independent record labels, DISCO is a strategic platform to manage industry-focused initiatives such as breaking new artists and releases, safeguarding intellectual property, and extending reach to music supervisors, playlist curators, and other influential industry players.
If you’re currently working with common file management, music organization, and email communication tools, DISCO upgrades your workflow with one made-for-music system—so you can concentrate on higher-value tasks to grow your business.
Start your free trial today at disco.ac/signup
Downtown Artist & Label Services
Downtown Artist & Label Services offers music distribution, strategic marketing solutions, end-to-end project management and funding to entrepreneurial artists, labels and their partners, ranging from emerging talent at the forefront of pop culture to the most storied managers and record labels.
The Downtown platform offers enhanced analytics, split pay, and complete music audio and video asset management.
Owned and operated by Downtown Music Holdings, Downtown Artist & Label Services enables artists and their partners to succeed on their own terms, without sacrificing any ownership in their works, control over their strategy, or their creative vision.
Downtown Music Publishing
Since the foundation of Downtown Music Publishing in 2007 and Songtrust in 2011, publishing has been at the core of Downtown’s mission, and as the landscape transformed, Downtown divested its owned song catalogue in 2021 to focus exclusively on providing world-class publishing administration and creative services. Downtown Music’s publishing administration services – Downtown Music Publishing, Songtrust, and Sheer Publishing Africa – currently have nearly 2 million songwriters and almost 5 million copyrights under management.
Representing nearly 100 years of popular music, clients include Miles Davis, The National, Raja Kumari and many others
Downtown Neighbouring Rights
Powered by FUGA’s end-to-end technology, Downtown Neighbouring Rights offers a bespoke, client-centric offering to a wide range of artists and labels from in-house experts with more than thirty years of experience. Through our direct relationships with collection societies in all major territories, our service is efficient, transparent and designed to maximize your royalty collections. Downtown Neighbouring Rights clients include Justin Bieber, Jon Batiste, Sub Pop Records, Lindsey Buckingham and the Estate of Ella Fitzgerald.
found.ee
found.ee is an integrated marketing platform designed to be a digital agency in a box. Helping artists, creators, and music companies collect, understand and utilize owned audience data, found.ee tools power sophisticated data management and programmatic advertising solutions, all in an easy-to-use self-serve web platform.
FUGA
FUGA is the largest full-service B2B music distributor in the world. Mixing deep marketing prowess with continual investment in leading technologies, FUGA’s clients – from Armada, Better Noise and Curb to Mom + Pop, Epitaph, and Ninja Tune – get equal access to its all-encompassing services. FUGA is one of the very few distributors to sit on the highest preferred partner tiers for Spotify, Apple, and all other major DSPs. After its acquisition by Downtown Music Holdings in 2020, FUGA has joined Downtown Neighbouring Rights, Downtown Music Publishing and Downtown Music Services in the newly established Downtown Music division led by President, Pieter van Rijn. FUGA’s global marketing team operates across 17 countries and its partners deliver over a quarter of the world’s new releases. Together with marketing and distribution, FUGA’s holistic product and services suite – including analytics, royalty accounting, neighbouring rights, rights management, and white label services – empowers over 1000 music rights holders globally.
The Gild Group
The Gild Group is an accounting, taxation and business advisory firm with a passion for wealth creation servicing the music industry.
GYROstream
GYROstream is the leading independent and Australian-owned digital music distribution and artist services company, delivering music to Spotify, Apple, TikTok, Amazon, Youtube and 100+ more. Launched in 2018 and based in Brisbane, Queensland with offices in Sydney and Melbourne, the company represents tens of thousands of Australian and New Zealand artists for global distribution. Much more than just music distribution, GYROstream offers additional ad-hoc and bespoke services for independent artists such as PR, digital marketing, playlist pitching, vinyl/CD manufacture, sync opportunities and more.
Awarded The Music Network’s Music Distributor of the Year award in 2021, GYROstream and its artists are seeing increased success in both AU/NZ and beyond. The company distributed five independent releases landing in the 2021 triple j’s Hottest 100, recently achieved an ARIA number one album with Ruby Fields ‘Been Doin’ It For a Bit’, and is achieving global recognition for independent artists and labels through targeted DSP playlisting and promotion with stacks of local and international editorial playlist wins every week. A company that prides itself on premium artist support, GYROstream aims to assist and educate independent AU/NZ artists about effective release strategies to get the best results for their music.
GYRO = GET YOUR RECORD OUT
Holiday Records
Holiday Records is Australasia’s premier vinyl pressing plant having pressed 850+ local and international albums for the world’s biggest artists over the past six years of operation. Holiday Records also offers CD, cassette, music merchandise and order fulfilment service for artists and labels: https://holidayrecords.com/
Media Arts Lawyers
Media Arts Lawyers act for some of Australia’s highest-profile musicians, events, recording and publishing companies. They also represent many emerging artists and aim to be the first point of legal contact for all creative and commercial projects irrespective of budget./
Merlin
Merlin’s membership represents 15% of the global market share. Members consist of independent labels, distributors and other rightsholders, representing tens of thousands of labels and hundreds of thousands of artists from every country in the world. Merlin navigates the music ecosystem by striking premium deals with digital services that enable its members to better control their future. Digital services have the means to efficiently license the world’s most valuable independent music.
Merlin’s members include the likes of Amuse, Armada Music, AVL Group (including CD Baby, DashGo and FUGA), AWAL, Beggars Group, Cinq Music Group, Curb Records, Dim Mak, DistroKid, Domino, Entertainment One, Epitaph Records, Foundation Media, Kontor New Media, KVZ Music, Mad Decent, mtheory, Mushroom Music, Ninja Tune, ONErpm, [PIAS], Pony Canyon, Secretly Group, Symphonic Distribution and Sub Pop.
Merlin has deals with 30 digital partners including Alibaba, Boomplay, Deezer, Facebook/Instagram, JioSaavn, KKBox, NetEase, Pandora, Snap, SoundCloud, Spotify, Tencent, TikTok, Triller, Yandex and YouTube Music.
Merlin has offices in London, New York, and Tokyo.
Find out more at: www.merlinnetwork.org
rightsHUB
Built for the independent sector by people from the independent sector, rightsHUB is an online contractual, asset and metadata platform that simplifies the management of audio, video and all associated copy including artwork, press releases, promotional materials, complete metadata and other information required for the music industry across master, neighbouring rights and publishing.
rightsHUB centralises all of your business in one secure cloud-based location, giving you one point of data entry with multiple delivery points based on your business, you can deliver content to distributors, sync companies, publishers, CMO’s, royalties packages, AI tagging companies, promo services, NR’s companies, licensing services and other end points based on your need.
rightsHUB also provides you with the ability to create and share playlists, track and log all contact information, share and send files directly, chase statements and communicate with all partners from the touch of a button.
Designed by music industry people for music industry people, whether you are a label, manager, publisher, neighbouring rights business or any other type of music rights holder. rightsHUB provides a one-stop solution to manage your data and assets in a clear, concise and affordable way.
We save the industry time, we give you one authoritative database to work from and we work with all clients and trade associations to fix problems and make your life easier.
rightsHUB does not own any of your data, it takes no share of your revenue, we give you complete control and security over your business.
For more information visit www.rightshub.net
Songtrust
Songtrust is the world’s largest global royalty collection platform for songwriters and music publishers. Songtrust’s team and technology are designed to simplify music rights management and empower songwriters, producers, artists, managers, labels and publishers to easily access the royalties their songs earn. To provide a global royalty collection, Songtrust maintains the most extensive and accessible publishing networks in the music industry, covering more than 215 countries and territories. Collectively, over 350,000 individual songwriters and music publishers use Songtrust to manage over 3 million song copyrights, music licensing and global royalty collections.
Soundrop
Soundrop is a digital music distribution service built by creators, for creators. Soundrop makes it easy for DIY creators to reach more fans and collect more royalties through integrated cover song licensing, distribution to the world’s top music platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Tidal, TikTok, Deezer and more), YouTube ContentID monetization, and automated royalty splits.
Ticketbooth
Ticketbooth, a Sydney-based company, has revolutionised the event ticketing industry with its innovative online platform. Known for cutting-edge technology and user-centric solutions, Ticketbooth has worked with some of Australia’s top festivals, performances, and venues. Over time, it has become one of the country’s leading ticketing providers, catering to events of all sizes, from intimate gatherings to large-scale festivals.
In 2019, Ticketbooth joined Leap Event Technology, a global leader in event technology solutions. This partnership expanded Ticketbooth’s capabilities, giving organisers access to an integrated suite of tools, including ticketing, access control, mobile apps, and engagement products. Leap’s global expertise has enabled Ticketbooth to scale quickly, supporting events across Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and beyond.
As part of Leap Event Technology, Ticketbooth continues to provide innovative solutions that help organisers create unforgettable experiences for their attendees. Their comprehensive platform enables organisers to streamline their ticketing, drive engagement, and capture valuable insights before, during, and after events. And the Ticketbooth team is on hand at every stage to provide support, right through to event delivery.
The Orchard
The Orchard is a pioneering music, film and video distribution company operating in more than 25 global markets. With a holistic approach to sales and marketing combined with industry-leading technology and operations.
White Sky
White Sky is Australia’s largest music specialist accounting firm. Founded in 2002 with the goal of assisting artists navigate the financial side of the music industry, White Sky has expanded to now service all areas of the industry including independent record labels, artist managers, festivals and promoters.
Working out of our Melbourne and Sydney offices, our professional team of music expert accountants provide music business entrepreneurs with the information and confidence they need to make the right business decisions and build their businesses.
YouTube Music
Friend of AIR, YouTube Music is a music app made for music listening, on top of the magic of YouTube: making the world of music easier to explore and more personalised than ever.
Whether you want to listen, watch or discover, all the ways that music moves you can be found in one place – not just music videos but official albums, singles, remixes, live performances, covers and hard-to-find music you can only get on YouTube
Xelon Digital
Xelon Digital is an independently owned global music distributor offering services to labels and artists for close to 20 years. We have genre specialists on the ground in Australia, New Zealand, North America, the UK and Europe providing personable support and reliable communication.