Blokur

Blokur is a London-based music-rights and data company focused on improving the accuracy and usability of music information across digital services. Founded in 2017 by Phil Barry, a former recording artist, the company was created in response to persistent problems in the music business involving incomplete or inaccurate ownership data, weak connections between recordings and the underlying musical compositions, and difficulties ensuring that creators and rights holders are paid correctly when music is used. The company’s platform applies data-engineering methods and subgraph-matching technology to connect recordings with their underlying works, writers, publishers, and other relevant rights information. This type of work is important because a single recording can relate to multiple compositions, contributors, territories, licenses, and collecting societies. By improving the links between these data points, Blokur aims to support more reliable music reporting, rights administration, licensing analysis, and royalty-related processes for digital products and services. Blokur operates internationally rather than as a conventional record label or consumer-facing music brand. Its customers and partners are connected to music delivery, digital distribution, licensing, collective management, and rights administration. The company has partnered with audio-delivery businesses including 7digital and Tuned Global. It has also received support or funding from Innovate UK and Ascension, and in 2022 began building a copyright hub for IMPEL Collective Management Limited. The company has also used its data capabilities for public research. Its Songwriters’ Review reports analyze the performance of songwriters by examining their shares in highly streamed songs. The 2020 edition identified Tones and I as the leading songwriter under the report’s methodology, reflecting her sole-writing credit on “Dance Monkey.” The 2021 edition, sponsored by The Ivors Academy, named Olivia Rodrigo the leading songwriter following the success of her album Sour. These reports helped present music-rights data in a format accessible to the wider music industry and public. In December 2023, The Mechanical Licensing Collective announced its Supplemental Matching Network, a group intended to complement and extend The MLC’s existing data-matching processes. Blokur was one of the initial participating companies. Its inclusion reflected the company’s role as a specialist provider of music-data matching and rights-identification services. Blokur is therefore best understood as an infrastructure and professional-services brand within the global music-rights ecosystem, rather than as a label, publisher, streaming service, or artist brand.

Blokur was established in 2017 in London by Phil Barry, a former recording artist. Its founding premise was that the music industry’s payment and licensing problems were closely connected to the quality of the underlying data. Music services and rights organizations must often reconcile recordings with compositions, writers, publishers, territories, and ownership shares, but these relationships can be incomplete, inconsistent, or represented differently across databases. Blokur was created to address that problem through specialized data engineering and matching technology. The company’s platform uses subgraph-matching techniques to model and connect relationships between sound recordings and the musical works that they embody. In practical terms, this enables more systematic identification of the composition behind a recording and supports the analysis of whether relevant licensing and reporting information is present. The company’s work is relevant to digital music services, audio-delivery platforms, collective management organizations, publishers, and other businesses that need dependable rights information. Blokur developed partnerships with audio-delivery companies 7digital and Tuned Global. These relationships placed the company within the technical infrastructure that supports the delivery of music to digital products and services. Its funding and support network has included Innovate UK and Ascension. In 2022, Blokur began building a copyright hub for IMPEL Collective Management Limited, a project that further connected its technology with collective rights administration. Alongside its platform and infrastructure work, Blokur developed an analytical and communications role through its Songwriters’ Review. The 2020 report assessed the strongest-performing global songwriters by considering their shares in highly streamed songs. Tones and I ranked first in that edition under the report’s methodology, with the result linked to her position as sole writer of “Dance Monkey.” The 2021 edition was sponsored by The Ivors Academy and named Olivia Rodrigo the leading songwriter after the success of Sour. The reports translated complex streaming and songwriting information into rankings intended to illuminate how songwriting contribution relates to global music performance. Blokur’s role in industry-wide rights-data initiatives became more visible in December 2023, when The Mechanical Licensing Collective announced its Supplemental Matching Network. The network initially included five companies, among them Blokur, to provide additional data-matching capabilities alongside The MLC’s own processes. This participation reflected Blokur’s specialization in identifying and connecting music-rights information rather than exploiting a consumer music catalog of its own. Blokur’s history is consequently defined less by conventional product launches or brand advertising than by the development of music-industry infrastructure. Its activities address a persistent structural challenge: making fragmented rights information more complete and actionable so that digital music uses can be reported and licensed with greater accuracy. Publicly documented information does not establish detailed revenue figures, ownership structure, or a complete leadership roster, so those areas remain unspecified.

• 2023

  Participation in The MLC Supplemental Matching Network

  [1]Blokuren.wikipedia.org

  Blokur became one of the initial companies participating in The Mechanical Licensing Collective’s Supplemental Matching Network.

• 2022

  IMPEL copyright-hub project begins

  [1]Blokuren.wikipedia.org

  Blokur began developing a copyright hub for IMPEL Collective Management Limited.

• 2021

  Second Songwriters’ Review

  [1]Blokuren.wikipedia.org

  The second report, sponsored by The Ivors Academy, named Olivia Rodrigo its leading songwriter.

• 2020

  First Songwriters’ Review

  [1]Blokuren.wikipedia.org

  Blokur published its first report ranking global songwriters according to their shares in highly streamed songs.

• 2017

  Blokur is founded in London

  [1]Blokuren.wikipedia.org

  Phil Barry founded Blokur to address problems in music-rights data, reporting, licensing, and creator payment.

A specialist music-rights data and infrastructure provider that uses technology to improve the matching, reporting, and licensing of recordings, compositions, and related ownership information.

• Music-rights data and licensing infrastructure

  Blokur music-rights data platform

  Blokur’s core platform applies data engineering and subgraph matching to connect sound recordings with the compositions, songwriters, publishers, and rights information associated with them. The system is intended to improve the identification of works, music-use reporting, licensing analysis, and the administration of rights across digital products and services.

• Music-industry research · 2020

  Songwriters’ Review

  The Songwriters’ Review is a recurring analytical report that evaluates songwriter performance using songwriter shares in highly streamed songs. The 2020 edition placed Tones and I first under its methodology, while the 2021 edition, sponsored by The Ivors Academy, identified Olivia Rodrigo as the leading songwriter.

• Collective-management infrastructure · 2022

  IMPEL copyright hub

  Blokur began building a copyright hub for IMPEL Collective Management Limited in 2022. Publicly available reference material describes the project but does not provide a complete technical specification or confirmed commercial launch status.

• 2023

  Participation in The MLC Supplemental Matching NetworkStrategy

  Background

  The Mechanical Licensing Collective sought additional specialist data-matching capabilities to supplement its existing processes.

  Action taken

  Blokur joined the initial group of companies in The MLC’s Supplemental Matching Network.

  Aftermath

  The participation positioned Blokur as an external specialist in music-rights data matching within a major collective-management initiative.

  Source

• 2022

  Expansion into collective-management infrastructureStrategy

  Background

  Blokur’s core expertise in rights-data matching could be applied to the infrastructure needs of collective management organizations.

  Action taken

  The company began building a copyright hub for IMPEL Collective Management Limited.

  Aftermath

  The project broadened Blokur’s documented role from music-data analysis and platform services into copyright-management infrastructure. Further results and financial details are not publicly established in the supplied sources.

  Source

• 2023

  Blokur joins The MLC’s Supplemental Matching Network[1]Blokuren.wikipedia.org

  Other

  The Mechanical Licensing Collective included Blokur among the initial companies in its Supplemental Matching Network, designed to enhance and complement The MLC’s existing matching processes.

• 2022

  Blokur begins work on an IMPEL copyright hub[1]Blokuren.wikipedia.org

  Other

  Blokur began building a copyright hub for IMPEL Collective Management Limited, extending its work in rights data and collective-management infrastructure.

• 2021

  Blokur releases the 2021 Songwriters’ Review[1]Blokuren.wikipedia.org

  Other

  The second Songwriters’ Review was sponsored by The Ivors Academy and identified Olivia Rodrigo as the leading songwriter following the commercial performance of her album Sour.

• 2020

  Blokur publishes its first Songwriters’ Review[1]Blokuren.wikipedia.org

  Other

  Blokur released a report ranking global songwriters according to their shares in highly streamed songs. Tones and I led the report under its methodology, based in part on her sole-writing credit for “Dance Monkey.”

1. 1Blokuren.wikipedia.org