DOWNLOAD: Guvera CEO Claes Loberg

Labels have seen many of these type of supposed ‘game changers’ over the years and they have been wise enough to take the cheque from the VCs before the funds
dry up.

While signing two of the big 4 (Universal and EMI) is a major coup, doesn’t it just mean that Guvera has signed over substantial advance payments?

I have heard this comment before - but in reality the big 4 music companies see new ‘game changers’ every single day of the week but its only a very small percentage that they actually sign a deal with.

We have had to prove our model to them, they have checked all our technology, they have to be comfortable with our security and delivery mechanisms, they have done due diligence, they have tested everything about us and drafted a contract that has taken 18 months to complete that effects every area of our business proposition.

We haven’t paid significant payments to these companies — we have paid ‘fair’ payments that reflect what we plan to do with our business.

How do you value the content for brands? How are they charged?

The brands/advertisers create campaigns with ceilings on the amount they want to spend per customer ie: a brand says, “I want to spend $4 per 24-30 year-old-girl that downloads music in Sydney.

This means anyone that fits the profile of a 24-30 year old girl in Sydney will be able to download $4 worth of content from that channel.

In this way, Guvera allows the brand to buy the outcome they want rather than the traditional advertising approach
of spend dollars and then research how much of it was seen by the target
audience.

Instead brands say they only want to spend ‘this much for this exact audience’.

In what way does it benefit the artists say compared to iTunes?

iTunes is a massive business providing growing revenues to the music industry — but it is miniature in comparison to the size of the illegal music download market where people can download free from Bit Torrent and Limewire — where the artist makes no money. Guvera’s target is to convert a small percentage of the illegal downloaders — to come to Guvera, still get it free, but allow the artist to be paid their work.

We won’t convert everyone — because some people download a tonne of stuff and use those illegal networks to get it quick. But we are banking on the fact that many of us out there would use a service like Guvera if it means that our favourite artists will get paid for producing the stuff we love to download.

The launch this month coincides with freeallmusic.com. How is the Guvera model different?

I don’t know a lot about freeallmusic.com — but from what I understand it asks you to watch an ad and then get a free song. Any venture is hard to get off the ground, I take my hat off to entrepreneurs that try and I don’t want to make it any harder for them with any uneducated opinions.

But having said that, the difference from what I see is that Guvera has been designed to remove the concept of disruptive ads such as having to watch an ad to get content, so I’m not 100 per cent convinced that the model as I understand it makes sense, but we’ll see how they go.

Our difference is that Guvera offers the consumer the ability to search for any music, then find an advertiser that will pay for it, then visit their channel and download that song and any of the other songs that the brand has on their channel. So rather than the brand being disruptive or annoying, it actually becomes a tool to discover new content. The brand becomes useful, interesting and valuable to the user experience.