Greek-inspired startup helps in getting royalties
Inspired by Orpheus, the legendary musician in Greek mythology, the Orfium startup has turned melodies into technological solutions that will digitally transform the modern music industry.
Starting in Los Angeles in 2015, the company of Drew Delis and Chris Mahoney aspired to be a platform through which new, independent artists would promote their music. However, faced with competition from major players including Spotify, Apple Music and SoundCloud, the US-based Orfium team decided to change its business model and instead developed a platform that identifies online copyright violations. Its clients today are producers, publishers and record companies that concede the right of use to various digital distribution channels such as YouTube.
“The algorithms of artificial intelligence and learning engineering that Orfium has developed utilize both the content (melody and image) and the descriptions, lyrics or comments of users to locate possible melodies reproduced on videos that belong to our clients,” explains Orfium chief technology officer (CTO) Michalis Petychakis. “We therefore help them to collect royalties from the use of their music in case they have not received them,” he adds.
Orfium’s clients include publishers such as Warner Chappell, Sony/ATV, EMI and Kobalt, and record companies such as Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Red Bull Records.
