Social Platform Kuaishou Strikes Multi-Territory Licensing Deal With Merlin

BEIJING, Oct. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Merlin, the independent's digital music licensing partner, and China-based short-form video platform Kuaishou have signed a broad new partnership. This arrangement will make Merlin members' expansive variety of music available across Kuaishou's products around the world, including Kwai and SnackVideo. With more than one billion Monthly Active Users worldwide, Kuaishou encourages its global community to share their activities, habits, and more with the core mission to "embrace all lifestyles" — this partnership delivers a best in class deal to Merlin members, while enabling new and immersive experiences for Kuaishou users, including through a vast diversity of artists and diversity of genres.

Under this agreement, Merlin will grow its global reach and presence in regions across Latin American, Southeastern Asia, and Middle East/North Africa, as well as expand Kuaishou's catalog offering to its worldwide audience. As with all its partners, Merlin will work closely with Kuaishou to be first movers in creating exciting and unique music experiences for users.

Calvin Liu, Head of Kuaishou Overseas Compliance, Communications, and Partnership said, "The deal with Merlin will provide hundreds of millions of our users with an incredibly wide range of independent music, making their experience even better."

"Merlin's member repertoire is one of the most iconic and diverse in the world, and we are delighted to bring this vibrant and expansive catalog to the services of Kuaishou," said Jeremy Sirota, CEO of Merlin. "Independents are the leaders in the social music space, and we look forward to supporting our members in finding new ways to engage longtime listeners as well as find new fans across this platform."

Merlin navigates the music ecosystem by striking premium deals with digital services that enable its members to better control their future. Merlin likewise provides digital services with the ability to efficiently license the world's most valuable independent music. Merlin members account for more than 15% of the global digital music market, representing tens of thousands of labels and hundreds of thousands of artists, with artists from virtually every country in the world.

A shortlist of participating members includes Foundation Media, a multi-purpose media and marketing company specializing in distribution and label services; Kontor New Media, an independent digital distribution company from Hamburg, Germany; MusicYes, an independent music distributor founded by Riccardo Mazzoni, owner of Seven Stars Records and managing digital and publishing rights of top artists of Indonesian Dangdut Music; Secretly, including its own labels and global distribution arm, home to hundreds of distributed labels; and Ditto Music, one of the world's leading music distribution, publishing, record label services and artist management companies, supporting over 500,000 independent musicians and labels across the globe.

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