Interview: Carlos Palop, Founder of UniteSync
NxtNow Music recently had the chance to connect with Carlos Palop, the founder of music rights administration platform UniteSync, for an in-depth interview.
UniteSync was developed by Carlos and Filip Roskot to assist independent artists and small labels collect more money faster, as well as provide lightning-fast digital royalty audits, and for the management of neighboring rights and sync licensing.
Congratulations on the launch of the UniteSync platform. Tell us what initially inspired you to develop it and how long it took you to go from idea to launch.
Thank you. The beginning of UniteSync emerged from the mutual exasperation between myself and Filip Roskot who came from different backgrounds as a musician fighting for publishing royalties and a music enthusiast with technical expertise. Filip Roskot established contact with me through the internet when he worked on developing tools to expand my label's audience. The royalty system proved to be severely flawed for independent artists because of poor metadata and slow processes and insufficient transparency.
We chose to solve this problem in March 2023. I dedicated my efforts to music development and sales outreach while Filip constructed automated systems for scalability. Our company secured agreements with 45 societies across 117 countries during our first nine months of operation before welcoming our initial client in April 2024. The development of our operational platform took less than a year while operating with no external funding and complete concentration on our mission.
UniteSync helps artists maximize their music revenue via music publishing, sync licensing and neighboring rights. How did you decide which services would be available to the platform's users?
We initiated our services with publishing rights because this area contains most of the unclaimed revenue particularly mechanicals and performance royalties paid to publishers. Our work with more creators revealed that most musicians function as both composers and performers of their musical works.
The discovery of this pattern led us to extend our services to include sync and neighboring rights naturally. Our core business focuses on publishing yet we provide users with the option to activate sync licensing and neighboring rights services during their onboarding process. The process of making these rights accessible to independent artists became our solution to simplify their access to their complete range of rights through a single platform.
How would you say that your experiences as an electronic artist/producer and library scientist have helped you in the development and current operations of UniteSync?
The experience has been extremely beneficial. My experience as an artist provided me with direct knowledge about the difficulties and complexities of royalty collection. My library science education provided me with knowledge about information organization because I learned about metadata operations and data system connectivity and verification methods.
Filip joined the project with his technical abilities and his love for music. Through his decade-long experience building complex platforms he helped me develop a system which combines artist-friendly features with technical reliability. UniteSync represents the perfect union of artistic challenges and algorithmic accuracy according to me because this equilibrium enables its functionality.
Tell us about the importance of the Royalty Audit tool and the purpose it serves for artists looking to sign up for UniteSync.
The Royalty Audit tool is where the journey begins. Artists enter their information to receive immediate estimates about the unclaimed money that could be theirs. The experience reveals to artists for the first time that their musical work generates worth beyond their streaming numbers and live performances.
The process reveals to them that something important was missed. It builds trust. We created this tool to deliver quick and costless results with complete transparency. The system enables us to concentrate our efforts on users who will benefit most from our assistance.
With UniteSync now unveiled to the music world, what's next for you, Filip, and the platform?
We will focus on developing advanced tools to enable creators deeper royalty data analysis because our foundation is established and our client base continues to expand. Our main objective involves identifying differences between sound recording stream counts which DSPs and distributors report and the publishing stream counts which PROs and CMOs report.
We are developing methods to detect the time and data gaps which occur between song streaming and royalty payment delivery to creators. Our mission involves revealing missing data while creating automated systems to detect discrepancies so creators can better monitor their earnings. Our infrastructure development continues to support thousands of users while maintaining both transparency and support services.
Follow UniteSync: Website