The Future of Indie music? The Looplay Team Talks to Startacus
by Startacus Admin
In the information age, getting your creative works into the public forum is not difficult, from Youtube to Soundcloud. But, how can you manage your work? Licensing? Getting stolen from? Well, our collaborator ‘Looplay’, aims to change that.
So, in a nutshell, tell us; what is ‘Looplay’? 
“Looplay is an independent music discovery platform where artists can trade their music directly to their fans choosing their own path and self-manage their property rights in one place.”
Can you tell us about your journey, and how Looplay has gotten to where it is today?
“It has been a long and hard way to get where we are today. Like any other startup, we started with an idea about how the music business should be in the digital era, and we then started the journey to build it. In our case we’ve been far away from the path which is often followed by most of the startup entrepreneurs because honestly we’re not business people but creators and developers. Instead of preparing lots of documents and searching for investors, we decided to go straight ahead and apply our time designing and developing in order to be able to have a working app rather than a business plan. So our budget was literally our own savings and whilst developing the app we also raised funds from family & friends who actually believed in the project and ourselves. Right now we have a working app on beta and at this point the goal will be to raise funds, grow the team and look forward to build something cool that makes the difference.”
What sort of demographic would you be aiming to target as both users and clients of Looplay?
“Looplay is focused on free musicians and any musician in the world can join in. At this early stage our most relevant targets are up and coming, amateur and semi-pro musicians but of course also those who are not happy with the actual music business model (actually a big bunch of them)! On the other side we want to engage the listeners (a huge target) by providing them with a very special role in the platform as rather than simply being fans they can become “selectors”, having their own followers and even earn money acting as resellers of their favourite artists.”
Will your service cost anything? Will the site take a fee from artists/users etc.?
“Looplay is free to use with a limit of 2 hours upload for musicians and is completely free for fans or “selectors”. We believe that content is the most valuable asset today so we won’t take any fee from the artist music sales. In fact the artists actually set the price and 100% of their music sales goes directly to their Paypal accounts. Moreover, in the future we’ve planned to release a freemium plan where artists will be able to pay a subscription to get some valuable premium features oriented to the most pro users.”
What are your plans for the future of Looplay?
“In the short term our goal is to develop a consistent environment for the new generations of music makers with exclusive specific profiles, connecting everyone involved in the music business such as net labels, booking agencies, sponsors, etc. where everyone can play the game generating a new brand of music trading adapted to the digital era. In the long run the big deal is to compile, organize and categorize the best independent music book ever seen in which the property rights are owned by the artists and make it available and ready to be used for 3rd parties.”
If any of our Collaborative community wanted to get involved, how would they go about it and should they contact you? If so; How?
“We are digital culture lovers so we currently believe in the power of networking. Of course that means we’re fully open to collaborate with anyone who shares the same ideals of building a better stage for the future of music, anyone who wants to share ideas, knowledge, feedback or just to have a friendly chat is more than welcome. Anyone interested can reach our team so don’t hesitate to poke us through mail, Skype or any of our social networks, we will be happy to meet you ;) Here are our contact details:”
fran@looplay.com
ivan@looplay.com
Skype: ivanmuzik
facebook.com/looplay.music
twitter.com/looplay
If you're interested in brand new startups like Looplay, then check out or Collaboration Section, where startups and entrepreneurs can get inspiration and support from fellow startups, entrepreneurs and even investors.
If music and creativity are more your thing, why not check out these other articles?
Self Starter Drums up interest in unique 'Drumkit in a box' Instrument
An interview with Leestock Music Festival - From small (but very important) beginnings
Top 5 Websites for Creative Inspiration
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Published on: 9th September 2014
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