Soundstripe Acquires Innovative Sync Licensing Startup The Rights

Soundstripe, the Nashville-based music licensing solution for creatives, agencies, and brands, has acquired The Rights, a technology startup founded in 2021, to streamline the sync licensing process for music labels, publishers, and supervisors. The acquisition will help Soundstripe accelerate its development of the music industry’s most robust click-to-license platform, slated to launch in the first half of 2025.

Founded by music tech industry veterans Tres Williams and Keatly Haldeman, The Rights has built an innovative technology platform that simplifies and automates the arduous process of fulfilling sync licensing requests. The platform also provides tools for rights holders to set pricing and secure approvals from multiple parties in a single transaction. 

“The Rights and Soundstripe share a deep commitment to empowering creatives and rights holders with solutions that make music licensing faster, easier, and more accessible,” said Soundstripe co-founder Travis Terrell. ”This acquisition represents a significant step forward in our shared mission to simplify and scale the licensing process for everyone involved.” 

“We are thrilled to bring our innovative technology platform to Soundstripe and its large user base of creators, agencies, and brands,” said Tres Williams, founder and CEO of The Rights, who will join Soundstripe in an advisory role. “Combining forces will accelerate our mutual goal of unlocking music licensing at scale, allowing artists and rightsholders to benefit from the increasing demand for sync licensing in online media, advertising, podcasts, and other creative productions.”

This acquisition follows Soundstripe’s November announcement that it is partnering with music tech companies Orfium, Tuned Global, Music Reports, and Cyanite to expand its music licensing platform. The advanced metadata ingestion and automation tools built by The Rights will complement these integrations and enable a seamless licensing experience for music from Soundstripe’s growing slate of new rightsholder partners.

“By combining The Rights’ innovative technology with Soundstripe’s scale and expertise, we’re creating the music industry’s most robust ‘click-to-license’ platform, set to launch this spring,” said Angela Abbott, Soundstripe’s Global Head of Music Partnerships. “This platform will provide rights holders with a seamless, transparent solution while unlocking meaningful revenue opportunities for their music makers, reflecting our long-term commitment to empowering artists, publishers, and labels with tools that drive sustainable success in the evolving world of sync.”

About Soundstripe
Soundstripe is the premier music licensing company for everyone from independent creators and small businesses to international brands and agencies. Founded in Nashville in 2016 by three professional musicians as a platform to support freelancers, Soundstripe has expanded to serve filmmakers, in-house and agency marketing professionals, and other creatives worldwide.  Soundstripe has facilitated more than 18 million licensed downloads for over one million users globally. 

Soundstripe caters to some of the industry's leading brands including Microsoft, Pepsico, and Nike. It also has provided music for some of the most innovative teams in film and television, such as the Soundstripe-exclusive cover recently featured in Season 3 of Bridgerton. Soundstripe artists have collectively won 12 GRAMMYs, achieved 30 certified-Gold/Platinum records, and landed four Billboard #1s.

About The Rights
The Rights is a leading innovator in the music industry, dedicated to eradicating the friction inherent in music licensing. As former Head Of Business Affairs for iHeartMedia, The Rights founder & CEO Tres Williams licensed songs for countless projects and directly experienced the dysfunction endemic to the sync industry. Keatly Haldeman, President, The Rights, was co-founder and CEO of Dequency, the world’s first web3 sync marketplace, and co-founder and CEO of Riptide Music Group.