Flou’s legal drafting process in action.
Earlier this year, we first profiled Flou, an upstart company founded by Puerto Rican music attorney Alexiomar Rodríguez. Flou has a strikingly sensible mission: to transform the generally chaotic way music contracts and agreements are created, negotiated, and maintained throughout their life cycles. Several months later, the company has successfully road-tested its platform with several early takers – and shared the early results with Digital Music News.
As any DMN reader can attest, the music industry is rife with legal warfare. Copyright battles, contract disputes, and even corporate espionage cram our pages daily, spanning the frivolous to the momentous. Garnering less attention is the contracting process itself, which can often devolve into a chaotic mess of wasted time, expensive legal bills — and if you’re really unlucky, full-blown legal battles that mar the creativity and partnerships involved.
Alexiomar Rodríguez, a music attorney who’s been in the weeds of these contracts for years, has set out to change that reality. Rodríguez’s answer is Flou, an all-in-one platform designed to streamline music contract management — from creation to execution and beyond. The company offers industry-specific templates, AI-assisted collaboration features, e-signature approvals, centralized storage, deliverables tracking, and a range of reminders during the pre- and post-signature phases of a contract’s lifecycle.
As part of its pitch, the company paints a stark contrast between the messiness of current contractual processes and the relaxed orderliness of automated templates, collaborative drafting, and AI-assisted agreement terms. On Flou’s site, the former features a stressed-out dragon surrounded by a swirl of papers; the latter features a happy dragon with a neatly arranged document interface. It’s Flou’s model in a nutshell.
Of course, the music industry is complex and demands a lot of different legal contracts to cover that complexity. But Flou and Rodríguez are determined to address that complexity with a wide range of music industry contracts, including work-for-hire agreements, production contracts, and artist-label contracts. Part of the company’s challenge will be to address all of those scenarios and their nuances, while staying on top of constant changes in agreements and partnership structures.
Regardless of the specific contracts, the game plan is the same: by translating complex legal obligations into manageable tasks, Flou simplifies compliance and reduces legal risks. The platform also offers educational resources to help users navigate the complexities of music agreements.
“The value proposition is the same for indie labels, publishers, and artists’ teams,” Rodríguez told DMN. “Flou saves money on legal fees, saves time by automating your music contracts, and eliminates all the stress and sleepless nights.”
All of that sounds great in theory. But is it working?
Partnering with Digital Music News, Flou decided to share their early client stories with us. It’s a rare look into the early steps of a young company, with some early success metrics suggesting broader industry-wide changes.
So who were the first takers?
Flou has the backing of mega-companies like Warner Music Group and Concord Music. But the real proof-of-concept is coming from smaller shops that desperately need simplified legal solutions.
For starters, larger companies are understandably hesitant to trigger extreme overhauls in their contracting processes, while smaller companies have the luxury of being more flexible.
Flou’s initial focus isn’t industry giants, but that’s exactly the point. Rodríguez says Flou is working closely with smaller outfits as its platform grows, an approach that also allows the company to refine its offerings during its developmental and ramp-up phases.
With that, here’s a look at two companies that have thoroughly road-tested Flou and relayed back some serious savings (and gains): Sash Media Group and One Music Global Publishing.
Case Study One: Sash Media Group
Sash Media Group, an Atlanta-based company focused on music production and record label services, faced a common challenge for new businesses: managing legal contracts without incurring exorbitant fees and extreme time drains. Founded by Grammy-winning producer Samuel Ash, the company works with top-tier artists in the US and Latin America, necessitating well-crafted contracts that protect all parties involved.
The Giant Challenge of Legal Organization
As a startup record label, Sash Media Group desperately needed a streamlined, affordable way to create and manage contracts. Traditional legal services, while comprehensive, often come with hefty price tags. Recognizing the importance of legally sound agreements, Ash tapped Flou as a potentially cost-effective solution that would equal the contractual quality that a serious attorney or law firm could offer.
Adding to the complexity for Flou, Sash’s unique business model required customized contracts that deviated from standard templates. There were numerous variations and special cases that demanded a flexible and adaptable legal solution.
Not an easy first client, but Sash Media Group initiated a partnership with Flou in an attempt to resolve those easily-stage issues. Fast-forward a few months, and the pilot has produced some substantive benefits, including lowered legal costs.
Despite being at an earlier stage of development, Flou has an extensive library of pre-approved templates in both English and Spanish. That met Sash’s initial contractual needs to get the partnership started.
“Creating agreements is quick and easy, allowing us to focus on working with the artists instead of trying to figure out all the paperwork,” Samuel Ash described.
Right off the bat, there was the classic challenge of dealing with PDF contracts. “Like many of our users, Sash had contracts they had previously paid a lawyer to draft, which were sent in PDF format,” Rodríguez relayed. “We helped convert those contracts into templates, turning them into automated Q&A forms so they no longer had to rely on manual ‘find and replace’ edits.”
Overall, the newfound efficiency enabled Sash to prioritize its core mission of producing and marketing music, resulting in a nice win. Focusing on the game plan, Rodríguez detailed how Flou’s platform met a number of Sash Media Group’s specific requirements.
Here’s what Rodríguez emphasized in the partnership:
An Ever-Growing Library of Templates: Flou provided a considerable selection of up-to-date, lawyer-approved contract templates in plain language, ensuring clarity and legal compliance.
One System for Contracts: Flou offered an all-in-one solution, covering the entire contract lifecycle from drafting to signing and beyond, eliminating the need for multiple tools and streamlining the process.
Lots of Support: Flou’s implementation team provided a considerable level of support, assisting Sash Media Group in creating a customized template within its first week of signing up.
And the Big Win: Lower Legal Costs: By leveraging Flou’s self-serve platform, Sash Media Group significantly reduced their reliance on external legal counsel, resulting in substantial cost savings.
That last gain is a big win for smaller outfits, many of which lack the big-level budgets of their larger competitors. It’s a major part of the Flou model and why Rodríguez initially wanted to focus on smaller plays.
The real kicker is that Samuel Ash reported saving over $3,000 in legal fees, a significant amount for a fledgling business. That’s not a six-figure windfall, though it offered a nice savings start that can be scaled – with the company planning to reinvest those funds into music production and marketing efforts.
Beyond the monetary savings, Flou’s platform simplified the contract management process, saving valuable time and resources. Samuel Ash emphasized the platform’s ease of use: “We saw the value within the first week of subscribing.”
Case Study Number Two: One Music Global Publishing – A Powerhouse In Latin Christian Music
In the vibrant Latin Christian music scene, One Music Global Publishing has emerged as a serious player for the genre’s top songwriters. This boutique publishing company, based in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, currently boasts a catalog of over five million monthly listeners on Spotify alone.
Already representing a range of established and up-and-coming songwriters, One Music is now focused on solidifying its position in the Latin Christian genre. That means continuing to build strong partnerships with the songwriters that are connecting the most with this audience.
One Music’s popularity has been growing in a solid genre – that’s the good news. But the company also found itself drowning in the complexities of managing contracts and ensuring the equitable distribution of royalties. The company felt that the traditional manual contract process was time-consuming and prone to errors, hindering the company’s efficiency and diverting valuable resources from strategic initiatives.
This is a growth-stage mess that Rodríguez was seeing first-hand while practicing law in Puerto Rico. The situation made One Music an obvious choice for an early client.
Taking things further, One Music also wanted to get its songwriters more involved in the contracting process itself. In short, One Music wanted a tool to empower its publishing team to take control of contract creation and management.
One Music’s requirements were clear: a self-service platform that would streamline the entire contract lifecycle, from drafting to signing and beyond. The platform needed to be user-friendly while enabling quick adoption and integration into their existing workflow. Additionally, real-time visibility into the status of contracts was crucial for identifying and addressing any bottlenecks.
At this point, Flou was already gaining traction as a contract management solution, so they were plucked as the answer to One Music’s needs. Flou’s implementation team jumped in with an onboarding process that included heavy support to get things off the ground.
With a focus on self-servicing, One Music’s publishing team gained the autonomy to create split sheets and other essential contracts using pre-approved templates and simple Q&A forms. This eliminated the need for constant legal intervention, freeing up valuable time and resources. The platform’s real-time tracking capabilities also provided a clear overview of contract statuses, enabling the One Music team to address any delays proactively.
Sounds great, though Rodríguez told DMN that One Music presented some unique challenges that tested Flou’s model.
For example, the label manages both authorized and unauthorized versions of their music, particularly those involving language translations (Spanish and Portuguese are favorites) and remixes (welcome to the modern fan economy).
Flou also helped One Music continue expanding into label and distribution services, which demanded more contractual support. “We had to add more contract templates,” Rodríguez explained.
After the transition towards automation and templating, One Music relayed some early-stage wins.
The biggest win was this: One Music witnessed a staggering 50% reduction in contract turnaround time. This newfound efficiency translated into a significant boost in productivity, allowing the team to focus on strategic initiatives rather than administrative tasks.
Joan Bonilla, founder and CEO of One Music, is now looking to expand the partnership. “Flou has revolutionized our contract management process,” he remarked. “Creating split sheets is now quick and foolproof, allowing us to focus more on expanding our songwriters’ business and less on paperwork.”
The benefits extended beyond time savings. Flou’s centralized platform eliminated the need to juggle multiple systems and manual filing, reducing errors and enhancing overall efficiency. Joan himself found more time to engage in high-value activities such as attending industry events and negotiating favorable deals for his clients.
Rodríguez says that Flou has enabled One Music to focus on its core mission: championing the voices of Christian Latin songwriters and building enduring legacies in the world of music.
Where Flou Is Headed Next
After working with these initial clients, Rodríguez is understandably pleased with the proof-of-concepts. Substantial cost and time savings are core to Flou’s model, but big wins also came in the form of self-service functionality, collaboration, and template flexibility.
In many cases, Flou quickly encounters the exact problem its model is trying to solve: a mountain of disorganized paperwork, digital or otherwise. “Most music companies still use MS Word, DocuSign, and spreadsheets to manage contracts, which leads to missed renewals, decentralized storage, and bottlenecks,” Rodríguez described.
“Our goal is to be the go-to solution for managing all contract-related paperwork in the music industry. So we are open to collaborating and integrating with all types of music companies and solutions.”
That said, Rodríguez feels the biggest challenge for companies is the growing volume of legal and contractual paperwork, based on initial client feedback and what he’s witnessing in the marketplace. That problem is particularly acute for companies that are shrinking in size in response to investor and Wall Street demands.
After working ‘in the wild’ and hearing actual client needs, the model is now expanding substantially towards developing APIs, white label solutions, and a self-service portal that labels and publishers can offer to their artists, producers, and songwriters.
Flou has also been focusing on AI applications, particularly around clause-specific training, advanced contract reviews, and deal suggestions driven by music data analytics.
“Music companies are shrinking in size, but still have to manage a huge amount of paperwork,” Rodríguez said. “Right now, Business & Legal Affairs departments are paying $65,000 to $75,000 a year, plus benefits, bonuses, and profit-sharing programs, to hire contract administrators.”
“Our overarching goal is to shrink the workload around contracts and shift companies more towards their core competencies – developing great music from legendary artists!”
