Business News Deals Digital Labels & Publishers

Audible Magic buys MediaNet

By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 12 January 2021

Audio ID company Audible Magic has bought MediaNet, the white label digital music platform that began life as MusicNet all the way back in the very early days of downloads.

You know, back when downloads were the big innovation. And everyone in the world was setting up download stores for people to ignore while they were logging onto iTunes. They were happy days. Since 2016, by the way, MediaNet has been owned by the Canadian collecting society SOCAN. Why? Hmm. Secret reasons.

Bringing together MediaNet’s business-to-business music services and large catalogue of tracks with Audible Magic’s audio ID set-up means that the combined company can, and I quote, “provide digital platforms a comprehensive range of services to enable and manage the use of music”.

“Rightsholders and platforms will both benefit from our combined solution”, says Audible Magic CEO Vance Ikezoye, who reckons that combination of services will “reduce the time and complexity of managing and paying for the use of music. We see significant upside in enabling incremental revenues for the music ecosystem”.

Confirming the sale from its side, SOCAN’s interim CEO Jennifer Brown adds: “The acquisition of the MediaNet services by Audible Magic creates long-term benefits for SOCAN’s members and clients. Audible Magic is a knowledgeable and skilled company and we’re looking forward to working together to improve the accuracy of reporting to publishers and songwriters”.

Oh yes, as part of the deal there will also be a strategic partnership between SOCAN and Audible Magic to, well, improve the accuracy of reporting to publishers and songwriters. Like Brown just said. You really all should listen more.