Berklee College of Music and Kobalt Announce Partnership to Drive The Future of the Music Business

Kobalt provides grant to fund Berklee’s Rethink Music initiative and student research project on new ideas for global music licensing
Kobalt will also provide an annual songwriting scholarship in the amount of $10,000 per annum to be named after Kobalt writers

Boston/New York – Berklee College of Music and Kobalt today announce an innovative collaboration for driving growth in the new music industry. Kobalt is providing a two-year grant for Berklee’s Rethink Music initiative to continue its series of global events and fund a student study in conjunction with Berklee’s newly formed Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship (BerkleeICE). The student-led project will review the ways technology and transparency can help address global music licensing issues and bring artists, writers, publishers, labels and distributors closer together.

Additionally, in an effort to support up-and-coming songwriters, Kobalt is providing a $10,000 merit-based scholarship annually to songwriting majors at Berklee. The Kobalt Scholarship will be named after various Kobalt songwriters each year.

“We are extremely excited and grateful to be working with Kobalt. Kobalt is well known as a leader and forward-thinking company in the music space, and this partnership will allow us to continue to pursue our goal of fostering the new music industry,” said Allen Bargfrede, executive director of Rethink Music for Berklee College of Music. “Through our project work in the coming months on technology and transparency, and via our entrepreneurship events, we expect outputs which will both alter the space and create opportunities for Berklee students.”

Willard Ahdritz, founder and CEO of Kobalt said, “We are thrilled to be working together with this prestigious school and their outstanding young students. They are our future! The motives and objectives of Berklee’s Rethink initiative align closely with our own at Kobalt, and I’m confident that the work we are doing together will produce direction and solutions that will help shape the music industry of the future.”

Berklee’s Rethink Music began in 2010, and in collaboration with academic partners at Harvard Law School, Babson College and IE Business School, the program fosters dialogue and ideas for the new music industry. Rethink maintains its strong affiliation with Midem, the annual music industry trade conference in Cannes, France, and will continue its search for the next music business entrepreneurs and creators through a series of events in 2014-2015, including its annual Venture Day in Berlin, which has quickly become one of the largest events in Europe focused on music entrepreneurship.

Rethink Music is expanding its reach this year, with the global licensing research project led by BerkleeICE’s research lab which is seeking to work closely with other universities including Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and MIT’s School of Engineering. Kobalt is supporting the initiative by providing anonymized publishing data, allowing researchers to better understand revenue sources, royalty matching and licensing terms.

“We’re very appreciative for Kobalt’s support” said Panos Panay, Founding Managing Director of Berklee’s Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship. “Our mission is to foster entrepreneurial thinking, disruptive ideas and innovation through cross-discipline collaboration. Tackling the complexity of music licensing issues - with perspectives from various universities - should prove very insightful and can help inform the future of the music industry.”

Notes to Editors

About Rethink Music:

Created by Berklee College of Music and Midem, Rethink Music began in 2010 and has hosted major conferences in Boston as well as global private working group events and other public projects, including 2014 workshops in the U.S. and Europe and the annual Rethink Music Venture Day in Berlin. Centered around transforming the music industry, Rethink Music projects are designed to bring music stakeholders together to discuss business models for the future, examine copyright challenges in the digital era, and analyse technological innovation in music and its distribution with a focus on fostering positive change for the future of the music industry.

More information can be found at www.rethink-music.com

Facebook.com/rethinkingmusic

Twitter/rethink_music

About Berklee College of Music

Berklee College of Music was founded on the revolutionary principle that the best way to prepare students for careers in music is through the study and practice of contemporary music. For more than 65 years, the college has evolved to reflect the current state of the music industry, leading the way with baccalaureate studies in performance, music business/management, songwriting, music therapy, film scoring, and more. With a focus on global learning, Berklee in Valencia, a new campus in Spain, is hosting the college’s first graduate programs, while Berklee Online serves distance learners worldwide with extension classes and degree-granting programs. The Berklee City Music Network provides after-school programming for underserved teens in 47 locations throughout the U.S. and Canada. With a student body representing nearly 100 countries and alumni and faculty that have won more than 300 Grammy and Latin Grammy Awards, Berklee is the world's premier learning lab for the music of today and tomorrow.

More information can be found at www.berklee.edu

About Kobalt

Kobalt creates technology solutions for a more transparent, efficient and empowering future for rights owners, where artists, songwriters, publishers and labels can trust they will be paid fairly and accurately, regardless of how complex the digital world becomes. Kobalt’s innovative technology includes the world’s most advanced global licensing, collection and payment platform, the YouTube song-claiming tool Proklaim, the global digital music distribution platform AWAL, and the award-winning real-time data and insight reporting Portal. Kobalt’s Music Publishing, Label Services and Neighbouring Rights divisions each offer a modern alternative to the traditional music business model, empowering creators with flexible contracts, ownership, control, and total transparency. With over 250 employees in offices around the world, Kobalt represents over 5,000 artists and songwriters, 600,000 songs and 500 publishing companies, servicing its clients with global licensing management, works and rights distribution, royalty collection and processing, online data and royalty statements, creative services, synch & brand partnerships, record release management and marketing.

Kobalt works with some of the world’s greatest artists and songwriters, representing on average over 40% of the top 100 songs and albums in both the US and UK. Kobalt has an 98.5% client retention rate, including Maroon 5, Lenny Kravitz, Dave Grohl, Max Martin, Bob Dylan, Pitbull, Ellie Goulding, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, One Republic, Simon & Garfunkel, Passenger, Akon, Ryan Tedder, Paul McCartney and MPL Communications, Disney Music Group, Dr Luke, David Gray, Big & Rich, Stevie Nicks, Gwen Stefani, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Noah Shebib, Thom Yorke, The Hives, The Lumineers, Richard Ashcroft, Björk, Kelly Clarkson, Gotye, Skrillex, Herbie Hancock, Moby, Kid Cudi, Joss Stone and the Miles Davis catalog among many others.

More information can be found at www.kobaltmusic.com

About BerkleeICE

Creativity and innovative thinking are the most valuable assets for professionals who wish to excel in today’s competitive business environment. Such skills are particularly critical in the music industry, where new technologies and ideas compel constant change in the ways music is developed, marketed and distributed. These trends are at the core of Berklee’s Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship (ICE), an initiative designed to inspire, educate and launch the next generation of creative entrepreneurs. BerkleeICE helps prepare graduates for careers as entrepreneurs; fosters the creation of new products, services and businesses in the creative industry; and inspires disruptive ideas through musical creativity and cross-discipline collaboration. BerkleeICE was founded in 2013 and is led by founding managing director and entrepreneur Panos Panay.

More information can be found at www. http://www.berklee.edu/focused/ice and @BerkleeICE.