I received some questions from an investment group looking at investing in TuneRights Sweden AB. I thought maybe YOU would also be interested.
       ~Ray 

1. What do you think about collective commons (free) distribution like Jamendo?

 - Jamendo is awesome. I intend to publish all of my music from now, with a license that makes it impossible for the normal consumer/fan to encounter any legal problems when using my music in a non-commercial setting (ie. sharing with friends).

TuneRights is relatively neutral on the entire piracy issue. We DO believe artists should be able to choose how their music is used. And we don't think it is okay when people or companies disregard an artists wishes.  As an investor on TuneRights.com, looking for good music to support, one should examine the artists licensing choices to see that they correspond with one's view of a good investment.

TuneRights does not require that artists make one decision or another. How the artist chooses to promote sell or otherwise use her music is entirely up to the artist.

2. Is there potential for fraud? Say, hiding revenue from TR...

Indeed. In this first version of TuneRights, artists are, themselves, responsible for depositing revenue into the TR infrastructure. The money is then divided amongst the appropriate shareholders.

From the TuneRights Wiki
"The song manager is responsible for reporting money to TuneRights when a song has earned money. This is done by noting which song has earned money and making a deposit. When the money has been deposited, all shareholders will immediately be credited in their "TuneRights credit account". When reporting money, the song manager is required to provide a sales report indicating where the money was earned. Most services provide sales in .xls format. This should be saved as a pdf and uploaded when depositing money. In the event that a sales report is not available, the following data can be entered and submitted as a sales report.

Unique tune identifier:
Type of income (retail sales, streaming, commercial license, etc..) :
Period of income (from date, to date) :
Amount of income in Euro:
Declaration of truth: I hereby agree..."

Furthermore, artists sign contracts, which could potentially be used in court.

Furthermore(2), there is a peer-2-peer rating system, similar to other social marketplaces. Investors can rate the "song manager". This will help investors protect one another.

ALSO, we are in discussions with music distribution services who are interested in reporting money directly to TuneRights. This would make it next to impossible for artists to not report all of the money. The interim stage would be that the distributors would actually provide us with sales reports, which we can show investors.

Another fraud issue, is ownership of rights. We are setting up a process, both legal and technical, which makes it very difficult, and un-desirable for people to try to cheat our system.... registering songs that they don't own. We're discussing the passport as an identity verificiation requirement. Serious stuff.

More questions?