LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Flipagram, the fast growing app that allows anyone to create short photo-video stories set to music, today announced a sweeping series of global licensing deals with top record companies, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music, Merlin and The Orchard, and music publishers, including Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group and BMG. With the assistance of the National Music Publishers Association, Flipagram has made a licensing agreement available to its independent music publisher members. These landmark deals give Flipagram’s users access to millions of music clips, from the most popular to the most obscure songs, to use in their Flipagrams.
“With these deals, our users get unprecedented access to a comprehensive catalog of popular, classic and indie song clips to use as the soundtrack to their Flipagram stories,” said Farhad Mohit, founder and CEO of Flipagram. “And our music partners benefit from having their music featured and available for purchase in the tens of millions of Flipagrams being created and shared each month worldwide.”
Landmark Licensing Agreements
The licensing agreements announced today – landmark rights packages from major and independent music labels and publishers – are the first of their kind and allow full-catalog use of song clips in Flipagram photo-video stories.
“Universal Music Group has a long track record of working with innovative new digital services like Flipagram to engage fans and provide new commercial opportunities for our artists,” said Francis Keeling, global head of digital business at Universal Music Group. “We’re looking forward to watching millions of Flipagram’s users express their creativity in videos set to our artists’ music.”
“We are pleased to be making Sony Music content available through Flipagram,” said Mark Piibe, executive vice president of global business development and digital strategy at Sony Music Entertainment. “We see great promise in mobile apps that, like Flipagram, harness the creativity of users and put it to music. The addition of our large catalog of many of the world’s most popular artists to Flipagram provides meaningful value for users who want the highest quality music to complement and enhance their visual storytelling.”
“We’re constantly seeking out innovative ways for fans to connect the music they love with the lives they lead. At the same time, we’re always striving to ensure that the value of music is properly recognized. Flipagram is a dynamic, thriving service, and we’re pleased that its users will be able to play new music from artists such as Icona Pop, Flo Rida and Nate Ruess as the soundtracks to their personal stories,” said Paul Sinclair, executive vice president of digital strategy and innovation at Atlantic Records.
A Social App with a Beat
Flipagram is the first social application to incorporate music into the core of its offering because it is the only one solely focused on short visual stories where music fits naturally – as opposed to apps for sharing individual photos, text messages, micro-videos, or links, where music is an afterthought.
“It is natural for Flipagram to work well with music because every good movie has a great soundtrack,” said Mohit. “We’ve been surprised by how quickly so many ordinary people have become creative audio-visual storytellers using our app.”
With tens of millions of monthly users worldwide, Flipagram has been one of the fastest growing apps in the world. Easy to create, and fun to consume, Flipagrams are highly social, short video stories that offer more narrative space than Vine or Instagram looping videos, but are shorter and less cumbersome to create and share than longer length YouTube or Facebook videos.
A New Way to Promote and Discover Music
Flipagram offers an innovative way to promote and discover music by encouraging short clips to be used as the soundtrack of people’s photo-video stories. In this way, each Flipagram can be seen as a short user-generated music video accompanied by links to buy or subscribe to stream the full song.
“As artists and performers, there’s no greater thrill than having our music be a part of others’ lives,” said Fifth Harmony’s Ally Brooke. “It’s so fun to see how the Harmonizers use Flipagram to create their own life soundtracks and share their cherished memories through social media.”
About Flipagram
Everyone has stories worth telling. Flipagram’s mission is to give everyone the power to create and share amazing, visual stories that can inspire, entertain and inform. Flipagrams are easy to create, fun to consume and by allowing photos, videos and music to tell the story, they transcend language, giving people all over the world the ability to share their stories and to have a voice. With tens of millions of users monthly worldwide and growing, Flipagram is quickly becoming a go-to platform for musical artists, influencers, brands and millions of ordinary people to easily tell their stories in a way that resonates and inspires action. Flipagram is available on iOS, Android, Amazon and Windows platforms.
