Project Mufi.
Sharing and selling music license





DESIGNER

Ruixin J. Zhang


INTRODUCTION

Lots of music producers make money by selling their music to other artists, other independent musicians, or to some music license websites nowadays. However, starting a career in this field is difficult for most independent music producers. They don’t have sufficient funding, and some can’t even make a living during the first couple of years. The project Mufi intends to help independent music producers to share their music, promote their music, and see their music on a subscription basis, so to support them to grow sustainably.

THE CHALLENGE

Create a social network platform for independent music producers to sell their music licenses.

THE OUTCOME

A desktop website that offers artist music channel with sales insights to sell their music license.

Starting as an independent music producer

Independent music producers are those who make music thoroughly on their own. One of their income is to sell their beats to artists or professional music production companies. The price of the tracks ranges from 10 dollars to tens of thousands of dollars (depending on how much “hype” the artists have). However, starting a career in this field is difficult for most independent music producers. For those beginners, it is hard to find music artists or professional companies. So one of the most common ways of making money is to sell their music to some music license websites, and they can only get a little share from it. However, most of those websites don’t respect the type of music license and re-sell their beats to others without explaining.

Youtubers, Tiktokers, independent film/game producers

On the other side of the music world, the music “consumers” are struggling to find the right music for their videos, films, or games. The license has been a tricky problem always. For those people, getting a music license from some official music production companies can be very expensive. Therefore most of them try to get a music license from some third party website. With the complex nature of “License” itself, it has been causing lots of legal issues. The group desires a quicker and cheaper way to find good music and music license.

A social network platform for independent music producers

The main goal of this social network platform is to gather independent music producers into the platform to share their music and sell their music licenses. The websites can offer services like license legal protection and promotion. The independent music producers can have more control of their music and earn money continuously. In this way, they can maintain sustainable growth and a healthy career path in the long-term.

DESIGN THINKING

Business Model

A place to explore music from independent music producer

For Youtubers, Tiktokers, independent film/game producers, and music lovers, Mufi offers playlists with new music from independent music producers.

Top picked music playlist

This is a list of music the users can listen to. Users can see the composer, the style, the length, and the price of the music. Users can add the pieces they like to the shopping cart.

Music album

Showing music album vividly for mobile app experience.

Artists

A dedicated place for music artists to show off their muisic.

A place to purchase music license

For people who would like to purchase a music license, this page offers them a list of editor’s picked pieces from top artists. The artists' list can be rotating from different artists, the site should promoting new artists that just joined. In the long-term, this section can provide personalized content based on what users normally purchase.

Music library

This is a list of music the users can listen to. Users can see the composer, the style, the length, and the price of the music. Users can add the pieces they like to the shopping cart.

Music filters

There are three types of filters - mood, genre, and SFX sounds. Under each type, there are multiple choices. Users can select multiple filters.

Music player

The black music player is floating in the bottom of the page (cross the whole platform).

A place to share and sell music

For music composers, the sites offers them a individual music channel to store all the mucis pieces. They can set up their way of selling their music (with a price or with contact information to negotiate). They can follow up on the activties, and check on how much they earn on the sales board.

My music channel

This is a dedicated shared space for music artists to upload their music, present their music catalog, and sell their pieces.

Activities side panel

Recent activities on license purchases and likes.

Highlighed music & songs

Users can highlight some of their music (video or audio).

Sales board

This page shows how much money music artists get for selling their licenses. The page also highlights the popular music pieces and all the related transactions.

DISCUSSIONS

value & impact

The project offers a potential new way of supporting independent music composers to sell their music licenses and help them maintain healthy growth in the long run. For modern video makers, independent filmmakers, and game makers, the platform can support them in finding the right music more easily and cheaply.