OpenPlay

Really appreciated this conversation with WIN Worldwide Independent Network. One thing that continues to come up across the industry is this: access to data is not the same as control over it. At OpenPlay, we believe the future of independent music depends on infrastructure that puts rights holders back in control. Clear data. Trusted systems. Workflows that actually connect. Because if you cannot trust your data, you cannot scale your business.

One of the most overlooked risks in music operations isn’t distribution. It’s ownership protection. Across the industry, thousands of works remain unregistered with the U.S. Copyright Office. Without registration, rights holders lose access to key legal protections, including the ability to pursue statutory damages in cases of infringement. In other words, unregistered copyrights often mean unenforceable revenue. Cosynd was built to close that gap. Through scalable copyright registration, catalog audit, and ownership documentation tools, Cosynd helps transform fragmented rights into enforceable assets — ensuring that protection and documentation become part of the operational workflow rather than an afterthought. Now integrated into OpenPlay Connect, Cosynd allows rights holders to incorporate copyright protection directly into the broader ecosystem managing their catalog, metadata, and rights, a critical capability as AI-driven content creation continues to accelerate. As Liz Cimarelli, Chief Operating Officer at Cosynd, explains: “OpenPlay Connect is addressing a real operational gap in the industry by creating a centralized, transactional hub where rights holders can access the specialized services they need without adding complexity. Within that ecosystem, Cosynd’s scalable registration and catalog auditing tools help transform fragmented rights into enforceable assets.” By integrating into Connect, Cosynd helps make proactive protection and long-term catalog readiness a seamless part of the modern music business workflow. Discover Cosynd and other providers inside the OpenPlay Connect marketplace. #OpenPlayConnect #Cosynd #Copyright #MusicBusiness #RightsManagement #AI #CatalogManagement

Calling all music innovators!   Are you an artist, manager, student, entrepreneur, investor, or do you work for a label, publisher or tech company and have a clear view of what needs fixing in today’s music industry?   OpenPlay is proud to host CoLab, a Music Business Association Conference event dedicated to solving real music industry problems, from messy metadata and disconnected tools to improving fan engagement and monetization. If you’ve got ideas and want to turn them into real, working solutions, this is your moment.   No coding experience? No problem. With AI and “vibe coding,” anyone can build.   Bring a challenge from your day-to-day work. Find collaborators. Build something new. Compete for prizes and recognition.   Don’t miss it!   Break the silos. Build the future. OpenPlay CoLab @ Music Biz 2026 Tuesday, May 12 • 10 AM – 5 PM ET Register here now: https://lnkd.in/gg7vFat7   #MusicTech #MusicIndustry #CoLab #OpenPlay #MusicBiz

Metadata is often treated as background data. In reality, it’s infrastructure. When metadata is incomplete, inconsistent, or fragmented, it directly impacts discovery, engagement, and ultimately revenue. The issue isn’t that data doesn’t exist — it’s that it isn’t structured, normalized, or enriched in a way that systems can actually use. Music Story helps solve that. Through metadata enrichment, editorial content, licensed assets, and integration services, Music Story enables platforms and rights holders to transform raw catalog data into something that drives real user experience and performance. Now available through OpenPlay Connect, Music Story brings enriched, structured metadata into the same ecosystem managing catalog, rights, and distribution workflows. As Jean-Luc Biaulet, CEO of Music Story, explains: “Interoperability isn’t just a buzzword; it’s about giving catalogs the clean ‘DNA’ they need to move through the ecosystem without getting stuck. At Music Story, we’re excited to plug our metadata enrichment engine directly into this exchange to help overcome technical friction and create a competitive advantage for our mutual clients.” Discover Music Story and other providers inside the OpenPlay Connect marketplace. #OpenPlayConnect #Metadata #MusicInfrastructure #MusicTech

Excited for Bob Barbiere, EVP & GM at OpenPlay, to moderate at Music Biz this year. This panel dives into how connected infrastructure is reshaping how music business actually gets done — moving beyond disconnected tools to systems that truly work together. May 13 | 3:15 PM “How Connected Infrastructure Is Optimizing Music Business Transactions” Join the conversation: https://musicbiz2026.com

Streaming unlocked global reach—but at the cost of ownership. Today, most artist–fan relationships live on platforms artists and labels don’t control. That’s why direct-to-fan infrastructure is becoming increasingly important. MySeat Media Inc. is a direct-to-fan infrastructure platform that enables artists, labels, and creators to launch fully branded mobile and web experiences where superfans access exclusive content, premium experiences, and monetized fan interactions—from music and livestreams to merch and ticketing—all inside a dedicated environment owned by the artist. The result is deeper fan engagement, recurring high-margin revenue, and—most importantly—first-party fan data that the artist and label actually own. Now available through OpenPlay Connect, MySeat Media brings direct-to-fan experiences into the same ecosystem managing catalog, rights, and distribution —effectively closing the loop between content, commerce, and audience ownership. As Steve Shelton ( KSKS ), Co-Founder, President & CEO of MySeat Media, explains: “OpenPlay has become the operating backbone for the world’s leading labels and media companies, and MySeat extends that infrastructure directly to their most valuable audiences. By integrating our direct-to-fan platform into the OpenPlay ecosystem, we empower labels and media organisations to engage, monetize, and own relationships with their talent's superfans through branded mobile and web experiences. Together, we’re enabling labels to generate recurring, high-margin revenue while owning their elite fan data and long-term owned audience relationships." Discover MySeat Media and other providers inside the OpenPlay Connect marketplace. #OpenPlayConnect #DirectToFan #MusicTech #CreatorEconomy

Neighboring rights are not abstract revenue streams. They belong to real, identifiable rights holders attached to a recording. Performers. Recording rightsholders. Entities tied to specific roles on a specific master. And the only way those rights are protected and collected properly is if those individuals and entities are captured correctly at the recording level. This is where things either scale cleanly… or quietly unravel. If neighboring rights holders live in a spreadsheet, a side document, or inside someone's institutional memory, the data becomes fragile. Every registration requires manual validation. Every new release means re-checking roles and ownership. Every reconciliation depends on someone being available to confirm what is "correct." That is not a rights strategy. That is dependency. The shift happens when neighboring rights holders are structured inside the system itself. Inside OpenPlay, the individual rights holders are attached directly to the recording. Their roles, ownership, and entity relationships are visible to the team and reusable across workflows. That means: - Rights holders are not re-entered every time - Registrations pull from validated data - Teams can view neighboring rights exposure instantly - Reporting, distribution, and reconciliation all reference the same source At scale, this is not just about collecting revenue. It is about clarity. If someone asked your team today, "Who are the neighboring rights holders on this recording, and are we confident in that data?" — and the answer would come from memory rather than your system, it's worth a conversation with your ops lead before the next release cycle.

Lyrics are no longer just a creative layer of a song. They are a critical part of modern music metadata — shaping discoverability, fan engagement, delivery quality, and the listening experience across streaming and social platforms. That also makes lyric workflows more operationally important than ever. Speed, accuracy, and consistency matter. Musixmatch helps rights holders manage that process at scale, combining AI-powered transcription with human review to support faster turnaround, stronger metadata, and seamless delivery across global platforms. Now available through OpenPlay Connect, Musixmatch becomes part of a broader ecosystem where lyric management can happen inside the same environment as catalog, rights, and distribution workflows. As Marco Paglia, Co-President of Musixmatch, explains: “Accurate lyrics are a critical component of modern music metadata. We’re excited to partner with OpenPlay as part of the Connect App Exchange, integrating Musixmatch Pro directly into their ecosystem. This gives labels access to AI-powered transcription combined with human review within their distribution environment, enabling faster turnaround, higher accuracy, and seamless delivery to global streaming platforms.” Discover Musixmatch and other providers inside the OpenPlay Connect marketplace. #OpenPlayConnect #MusicMetadata #Lyrics #MusicTech

We are proud to share that OpenPlay is now part of the Friends and Supporters of the Independent Music Publishers International Forum, the global trade and advocacy body representing the interests of independent music publishing companies worldwide. We will work together to keep building a more collaborative and transparent relationship with the independent music publishing community, and to promote best practices in administration, licensing and technology that support the work of composers and music publishers.  Our Co-Founder, Edward Ginis, said: “We share IMPF’s mission to champion a fair and sustainable environment for independent publishers, particularly at a time when industry consolidation is accelerating at an extraordinary pace. We look forward to working closely with IMPF and its members to help ensure independent publishers keep supporting songwriters and sustaining a diverse global music ecosystem.” #MusicTech #Publishing #MusicIndustry #IMPF #OpenPlay

Music discovery workflows were not designed for modern catalogs. As libraries scale to hundreds of thousands or millions of tracks, traditional search methods start to break down. Metadata filters, keyword searches, and manual listening sessions often fail to surface the depth of a catalog — leaving valuable recordings undiscovered. Harmix approaches the problem differently. Using AI-powered search, Harmix enables teams to discover music through prompts, similarity search, video matching, lyrics & story descriptions — allowing sync teams, supervisors, and rights holders to locate the right track far more efficiently. It also includes AI-driven tagging that goes beyond standard catalog taxonomies by learning how each catalog organizes and labels its content, making metadata management easier and search more accurate. Now integrated into OpenPlay Connect, Harmix brings advanced AI discovery directly into the ecosystem managing catalog data, metadata, and rights. As Asar Qadir, EVP at Harmix, explains: “We are honored to collaborate with OpenPlay to define the next generation of music industry infrastructure. By embedding our advanced AI-powered search inside Connect, thousands of labels and publishers can instantly enhance discovery, metadata accuracy, and conversion for licensing without adding any workflow complexity.” By combining AI-powered discovery with structured catalog data, services like Harmix help ensure that the full value of a music catalog becomes discoverable — not just the tracks that are easiest to find. Discover Harmix and other providers inside the OpenPlay Connect marketplace. #OpenPlayConnect #MusicTech #AISearch #SyncLicensing