Have you ever suspected that your music was being used in a variety of media and online content – only, you have no idea on which platform or by whom?
This can be especially frustrating when you consider that you might have a fan base you don’t even know about.
That’s where Pex comes in. But what exactly do they do?
I recently caught up with Amadea Choplin, COO of Pex. Here’s what she had to share with us:
Who are you and what do you do?
I’m Amadea Choplin, the COO of Pex. Our mission is to deliver transparency for creators in a cloudy digital space.
What is Pex?
Pex is a global video and music search engine. We deliver independent video and music analytics and rights management services to enable creators, rights holders and marketers to find, measure and leverage the value of content across the web.
What that means concretely is that we constantly scan more than 30 open social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, but also Giphy, SoundCloud, TikTok and many others to find any derivative pieces of work, down to a 0.5 second copy, of any song of video you plug into our system, in real time.
While your focus may be on who’s uploading your content today, Pex has a historical view on platforms, going back in time to surface your works regardless of the copy date.
How does it benefit artists and rights holders?
For any kind of creator, with that knowledge, you can both better understand your audience and monetize it. This includes:
You will learn which part of your work was re-used the most across the web and what kind of content it was used in. Was your music used on gaming videos and wedding videos, or was it simply copy-pasted in its integrity on different platforms?
You can understand the total reach of your music and videos. For many creators, that means discovering that your audience might be 10x or 100x what you see today.
You can monetize discovered derivative content through systems like Content ID, pursue unpaid sync licenses and royalties, and leverage your newfound audience for branded content, whether you’re proposing your value or pursuing talent acquisition.
You can engage with this newly found audience of “super-fans” down to the individual user, who aren’t just listening to your music or watching your videos, but are interested in re-using it in their own content creation. We see this as the greatest measurement of audience interest , showcasing higher engagement than a mere listen, like or comment on your existing accounts.
You can also leverage the platforms on which your content resonates most. Maybe you have a lot of unknown traction in Russia on VK.com. Maybe everyone is sharing a gif from your video on Imgur. Maybe DJs are using your music on their Mixcloud account.
How does it benefit marketers?
For larger brand and content marketers, we help them understand the general direction of content on the web. Pex has full visibility into all of the public content, channels and users, on all major streaming platforms.
While native platforms can deliver platform-specific KPIs and account specific metrics, Pex provides an independent, global analysis on the performance of any catalog or category of content, throughout the web.
Concretely, that means that we can answer questions like:
What is the market share of my content in the “Music” category on YouTube?
Which unknown creators are gaining traction on YouTube vs. Instagram?
Where is my brand’s content being shared and consumed in a brand safe environment?
What is my video campaign’s viewership on non-US streaming platforms?
How do I measure my brand’s global video viewership in relation to social platform norms?
What is fingerprinting technology? How does it work?
Pex’s proprietary fingerprinting technology maps the characteristic components of any given audio or video recording to transform it into a compact coded representation. That might seem quite abstract but for example, it’s a similar kind of technology that Shazam uses to recognize the songs playing around you.
Pex’s proprietary fingerprinting technology maps the characteristic components of any given audio or video recording to transform it into a compact coded representation.CLICK TO TWEET
Pex’s robust audio and video fingerprinting algorithms enable identification beyond industry standard, even if the media was compressed, cropped, recorded in a noisy environment, or otherwise modified.
We identify content down to 0.5 seconds of audio and video samples. We can hence track complex re-uses of the content even if it is a gif, mash-up or multi-track mix.
Is there anything else I should have asked?
…What next?
Pex is launching its Attribution Engine.
As content spreads across the Internet at an incredible speed, we are exposed to colossal amounts of content produced by various, often anonymous, creators.
This seems great for the consumers of that content, but for creators and platforms, attributing that content to its rightful owner is critical.
For creators and platforms, attributing content to its rightful owner is critical.CLICK TO TWEET
The Attribution Engine (AE) will address this pervasive issue of lack of transparency in digital rights attribution. Pex’s AE will allow any rights holder to declare ownership of their audio and video assets, and open up the database of accurate, up-to-date ownership information to all media sharing platforms and content creators. The AE will be available unconditionally to any and all creators, rights holders and platforms, completely free of charge.
Final Thoughts
I love what Pex is up to and I wish them all the best in their endeavors.
Did you enjoy this interview? Did you get something from it?
Make sure to say “hi” to Choplin on Twitter: @amadeachoplin
And, be sure to leave your comments below.