Artspages hits the Chinese market
As the sole operator on the Chinese market, Norway-based Artspages International is set to make legal music downloads available for millions of users.
Says Artspages International’s Head Dagfinn Bach to NRK: “We’re in a unique position here; we’re the only company that’s been granted a license to operate on the Chinese market. The Chinese market is growing fast and has the one of the strongest technological developments witnessed on a global scale.”
Artspages International is a global partnership of rights owners and technology that aggregates music and associated copyrights from throughout the world, digitises the content and supplies it to B2B customers globally. Artspages describes itself as “a nexus between the arts, media and R&D community facilitating sustainable eCommerce in the culture and content industries”.
Today, Chinese users face a number of restrictions that bar access to legal music downloads, with an extensive government-controlled firewall being the most effective regulation measure. Says Artspages’ Dagfinn Bach: “This firewall makes the project a gigantic experiment that will determine how one can establish a price level for such services. If it turns out to be a gold-mine, then the project can be a potential gold-mine for the rights owners, thus enabling them to make more music”.
According to the company’s press releases, Artspages International supplies a number of services for the Chinese market:
- licensing & delivery of recordings
- licensing & distribution of related printed materials (sheet music etc.)
- B2B brokerage services between collecting societies, producers of audio & video content, distributors (cable, broadband & mobile) and other individual rights holders
- innovative new content search & retrieval tools
- filtering & distribution services for all arts information
- facilitation of the booking of events, venues & performing artists
Recently, Artspages completed an emission that yielded additional funds amounting to NOK 3,5 million (USD 492 226) to the share capital.
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