Interview with Kevin Taylor (Aurign)

24 Jun 2022
5 min read

Sofię_Nalimską

Project Manager

In the modern world, technology has drastically influenced all aspects of our life. It aims at facilitating and enhancing various business processes and personal activities. One of the most demanding spheres is managing music artists’ rights, collecting and handling their royalties. It is a time-consuming procedure demanding much effort and determination. And MusicTech responds to these challenges. Aurign is an Atlanta-based automated music publishing platform developed to make the lives of musicians easier and provide them with “transparency, security, and the publishing royalties they deserve.” The Powercode team collaborated with the founders of Aurign and helped them develop this SaaS solution for music artists and publishers. More about the platform you can read in our case study. We contacted Robert Hatcher, CEO and Founder of Aurign, and Kevin Taylor Jr., Co-Founder of Aurign, and asked them a few questions about their software product.

How have you come up with this idea? Why MusicTech?

As a music producer, I noticed I was missing out on collecting at least 25% of the royalties from my catalog. The problem was simple – the process for negotiating split percentages and song registration was slow, manual, and ambiguous. The status quo required that I spend months chasing collaborators down with emails, phone calls, and text messages, and that’s not even counting the hours of time it took for me to register each song. We were all frustrated that in the age of technology, no one had successfully created a platform to help us navigate this. So my co-founder had an idea to automate this process so that I could simply invite my friends to the split sheets, negotiate our percentages transparently, and click one button to register the song for everyone. This also saves publishers and labels thousands of dollars in salaries for the manual work that was previously required for this process. We quickly discovered that this was a solution that the entire music industry needed desperately and got to work.

How much time did it take from the birth of an idea to its realization?

It has taken the last six years to get to where we are today. The ideas have pivoted from an online recording studio to music publishing automation, and we’re continuing to evolve as we discover what our customers and the industry needs.

What was the most challenging?

The most challenging part of this journey has been finding the resources to continue growing and scaling. We’ve already proven the demand for the product and created traction by helping register and collect royalties for some of the biggest songs in the world, administering nearly 800 songs to date.

What did you enjoy the most? What positive moments can you outline?

The most enjoyable part of this journey so far has been to watch each and every artist and business we’ve helped breathe a sigh of relief when they realize that they can finally collect what they’re due, and spend more time doing what they do best – creating music for the world to enjoy. Every time we register a song for our users, they are able to spend more time with their art and their families and less time worrying about administrative work.

Why should musicians choose your app? What makes it stand out from the rest?

Aurign brings together what many platforms have tried individually. We automate the creation of split sheets and the required publishing information, allow users to invite and negotiate song split equity easily, and help register the song for ALL collaborators with the click of a button so that we can pay them fairly and accurately. Up until now, no one has been able to successfully help artists and businesses through the entire process, from split sheet creation to royalty collection in one platform.

What is your Target Market?

Our goal is to eventually help all artists, managers, publishers, and labels around the world, but for now, we are focusing on those in the United States while we continue to expand our reach. However, we help everyone collect royalties in more than 193 territories worldwide. Aurign operation preview

I know that you invited people to join and test your product. Have you already had feedback?

The feedback has been extremely positive, further proving that this was a much-needed solution for all creatives. Here’s one artist influencer that took the liberty to spread the word on his own.

What are you planning to do next? Are you going to develop the app further, or do you have something new on your mind?

We plan to bring this level of transparency, simplicity, and automation to the NFT space. Everyone deserves to get paid what they’re due, regardless of how the money is generated. We want to make sure all collaborators get paid fairly and accurately in the world of Web3.

If you were asked to describe Aurign in three words, what would they be?

Simplicity, Transparency, and Automation. Aurign simplifies the tedious and complex process of negotiating song splits, brings never before seen transparency to all parties involved, and automates the split sheets, registration, and royalty payments for everyone with a controlling interest in the song. Our software development company Powercode is very grateful to Robert Hatcher and Kevin Taylor Jr. for their kind consent to share their experience with our readers, clients, and partners. We enjoyed working with them on developing this powerful and efficient split sheets and royalty management software. We wish them success and look forward to our further fruitful cooperation.