UnitedMasters Lets You Distribute Your Music From Your iPhone Now

Independent artist services and digital distribution platform UnitedMasters has announced the launch of its new iOS app, allowing artists to upload their music to major streaming services and more on the go. United Masters calls itself not a mere music company but a Music Tech company, where it plans to upend the traditional record label business and give the power directly to the artists. Founder and CEO Steve Stoute: “The goal of UnitedMasters is to help artists operationalize independence and own their future. The app puts all of that freedom and control in the palm of their hand.” With the app, artists will be able to take advantage of all the services UnitedMasters has to offer while keeping 100% copyrights to the Master tracks. The artists can distribute their music to major streaming services, upload music, and artwork, check which of their tracks are trending or playlisted, track earnings and receive payments, submit songs for brand partnerships and even connect their Instagram, Twitter, SoundCloud and Facebook accounts to track their social growth, all through the app. UnitedMasters president Lauren Wirtzer-Seawood said in a statement about this move, "How music is created and distributed has changed drastically. What was once done in recording studios and record labels is now done in bedrooms, tour buses, and on-the-go. UnitedMasters is creating the framework for what future iterations of the music industry can look like. Providing artists with the ability to easily distribute their music, no matter where they are, is an important step in that direction." The tech journalists and sources hail UnitedMasters as the new age Record Label, helping artists claim their rights back and give them an alternative to exploitative record deals. UnitedMasters takes a 10% cut out of the royalty payments that artists receive through all the streaming sites, while the artists retain the rights to their music. The service also sucks back in all the analytics from these streaming sites, identifies the listeners, builds artists a CRM tool, and helps them retarget their top fans with pinpointed ads for tickets and merch. Stoute explains that the plan is to “Look at music like gaming. You monetize the game to all the people who are most engaged. I wanted to bring that theory and thinking to music.” It’s off those whales, those super fans, where musicians make a lot of their money. And finally, someone built a way to deliver ads for what artists do sell to people who’ve listened to their album 50 times for almost nothing. UnitedMasters was founded by Stoute in 2017 with a $70 million Series A funding round led by Google’s corporate parent Alphabet alongside venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and 21st Century Fox. Stoute previously served as a label executive and managed the careers of Nas and Mary J. Blige. He was recently named to both Billboard’s Digital Power Players and R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players lists.