MUMBAI: Horus Music continues to deliver through its unique platform that allows musicians to upload compositions and track the sales and revenues generated in one of the most user-friendly formats available in the ecosystem. Ten years since its inception, the organisation forayed into the Indian market and with the appointment of two young business development managers; the UK-based company will further strengthen to tap into its newer region through asimilar approach and ideology.

The first announcement concerning Malini Hariharan stimulated a series of developments for Horus Music’s ambitions in the sub-continent, starting naturally from India. Hariharan Business Development Manager - takes office at Horus India on the back of the success at the live and entertainment front of the music industry; Universal Music India Publishing being her last major employer. Hariharan joined in May, and the former blueFROG employee cites the ease-of-operations and the clarity of ideas at the leadership level as one of the deciding factors to join the Leicester-based label service. “The encouraging part of working under Nick Dunn (founder and CEO of Horus Music) has been the absolute freedom and the trust he has shown in regards to our professional abilities,” informed Hairharan, whose impressive list of employers also includes Sony Music Entertainment, The Orchard and UMI Publishing.


The first Horus Music India signing – Malini Hariharan

Horus announced the appointment of Trupti Kudalkar – the other Business Development Manager - in the first week of June. However, the initial discussions began in December. Kudalkar comes from the video and content background and the expertise in their respective fields provide the company a unique blend of diverse mindsets working towards the same goal. Kudalkar’s former employer ‘VuClip’ has been Horus’ digital distribution partner and the familiarity with Kudalkar’s work further made the task easier for Nick Dunn and Nina Condron (Horus’ global Business Development manager).
 

Trupti Kudalkar’s becomes the second Business Development Manager at Horus India

The duo says the company’s focus continues to remain towards non-mainstream music. “If you look at India right now, there’s an amazing quantity of content emerging from the country, and most of it is cluttered. For the outside world, the image of Indian music has been consuming Bollywood and the Pandit Ravi Shankar’s content. On the opposite side of spectrum, lies the alternative music scene which has not yet reached the global level, despite the amazing developments in the live scene. Through our publishing division, our endeavour is to take this content and put it in as many places as possible. So, we are just not going to be a distribution channel, we will be creating an impression in the market by providing as many opportunities to these artistes as we can,” explained Hariharan.

Unlike the western industry, the Indian movie industry hires a composer or a music director. In Hollywood, it has been a trend to license the music which has potentially become another source of revenue for these authors/composers, thanks to the concept of music supervision. The virtual absence of a music supervisor to license the sync deals exposes the composers or authors of a composition to unjust and unfair revenue returns. Kudalkar added, in metaphorical sense, on how Horus would focus on unclogging the pipeline of content, thus achieving the wider goals related to the Indian music industry.

In other words, Horus would act as the 'middleman' for the creators and the consumers, further ensuring 80 per cent of the revenue rightfully gets directed to the creator/composer. "Yes," agreed Hariharan "we’d be merely democratising their work."

Horus Music allows the musician/bands to upload their music through several formats, ranging from a ‘Free Format’ to an ‘Album Package’ as well as an ‘Urgent Delivery’. The approach will continue in the Indian market, and the duo believes the absence of record labels in the alternative music scene acts as an advantage for Horus. “We believe in directly dealing with the musicians. The behaviour permits transparency and ease of communication and the model’s success in the UK prompted us better reasons to continue with its original format.”

Nick Dunn’s trust in the dynamic duo can be concluded with the company’s plans to penetrate into the neighbouring markets before the end of the year. “That would be our goal for 2016 too,” added Kudalkar. “Expanding to neighbouring countries continues to remain the next logical step,” informed the duo, whose organisational expansion plans involve hiring a equally enthusiastic and experienced marketing personnel.

The lack of knowledge or ignorance towards the role of a publisher and the complicated policies that revolve around a deal usually scares the musicians away from tying-up with a publication house. “Tie-ups with music schools would be another way of creating awareness about opportunities like publishing at the basic levels for the musicians. Artistes create content, and out of ignorance, fail to collect royalty payments through mechanical and performance royalties,” said Hariharan. The recent IPRS saga has led to several doubts regarding the collection duties, but Horus India believes the company’s policies allow them to not worry about it. “Musicians are basically artists who create content, but more often than not, they are unaware of what happens once the creation reaches consumers. From sync licensing deals to promoting more talent, Horus India will ensure the education about publishing business does not seem confusing anymore.”

Horus Music India’s short-term goals involve discovering the unpublished content in the market, releasing it through its digital partners, (or unclog the pipeline, as they put it) and continue its expansion inside the Indian ecosystem. “First, we would begin with educating the consumers and the musicians about publishing opportunities and its vitality. The fact that an artist can track down the earnings of his uploads and generate the revenue without much hassle needs to be known,” added Kudalkar, who also would be focusing on developing video content with the artistes.