Home to Music Industry Legends
Behind the music you enjoy on the radio or through streaming services, there are companies with a prominent role in keeping the tunes playing and ensuring that the artists and producers are rewarded with their royalties. Memory Lane Music Group (MLMG) was founded in 1921 by Larry Spier, Sr., whose business rapidly grew to become the Music Publisher for all of the top artists of that era, including pop standards you know and love: You’re Nobody Til Somebody Loves You, Blueberry Hill, Me and My Shadow, and many more.
Today, Memory Lane Music Group is headed by Mark Spier, the third generation President and Owner, and an expert in copyright law and licensing. One hundred years after its initial founding, Memory Lane Music Group has grown into a full-service independent music publishing company with a catalog of songs recorded across multiple genres, by artists including Louis Amstrong, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, all the way to Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, Kenny Chesney, Roberta Flack, Rod Stewart, and Michael Bublé. Memory Lane Music Group has a reputation as one of the most trusted names in indie music publishing, and is ranked in the NMPA’s Top 100 Independent Music Publishers.
In 2009, Mark recognized that royalty processing was an untapped market with special needs related to digital content distribution. Mark knew that a generic software program could never replace an experienced and knowledgeable royalties department. To deliver this comprehensive and accurate royalty processing service and meet this market need, Mark founded Royalty Solutions Corp. (RSC), offering full-service royalty accounting and licensing services. Some of the most critical services included record label royalty accounting, artist royalty accounting, producer royalty accounting, master use licensing, synchronization licensing; and business management services to record labels, music publishers, artists, producers, entertainment attorneys, and business managers in the music industry.
Mark identified another underserved need in 2016 and launched TuneLicensing (TL) as a sub-division of Royalty Solutions to enable Record Labels to license cover songs by pre-paying royalties.
Strengthening the Foundation - Goals
Before working with Strategic Response Systems, Memory Lane Music Group had a small, in-house system with a basic internet connection, a server, and no remote connectivity. Strategic Response Systems was called in on an emergency basis when a server containing critical data failed one day and had no viable backup. Strategic Response Systems arrived on-site the same day and restored the server with zero data loss within a few hours. Thus began a rich 20-year working relationship that expanded as Mark launched two additional companies over the years – Royalty Solutions Corp. and TuneLicensing.
Strategic Response Systems was able to bring a much-needed IT overhaul that brought MLMG up to 21st century standards and keep it and the new companies current with timely upgrades and improvements as the years went on.
Strategic Response Systems top priorities were to:
- Upgrade outdated systems, and secure data.
- Provide hosting services, including email, Oracle, Microsoft SQL, Record Maestro, and Music Maestro applications, and work transparently with the software vendors to provide application-related support to MLMG and RSC.
- Support customer growth and productivity by eliminating downtime during data migrations and moves.
- Ensure high security for all company applications, workstations, and users.
Managed Services and Cloud Services - increasing productivity and focus on business goals
As the Managed Service Provider and Cloud Service Provider for MLMG, RSC and TL, Strategic Response Systems has delivered:
- A robust platform - Shifting from reacting to IT problems to proactively utilizing the best-in-class technology and systems – fault-tolerant, mirrored systems running on a private cloud running on enterprise-class equipment, fiber backbone, and enterprise-grade firewall protection, multi-factor authentication, and restricted access from predefined physical locations, and implementation of backup strategies.
- Zero downtime migration - Seamless migration of all in-house data to the cloud system, enabling all users to continue working productively during the migration process, and even physical moves, by configuring on-premises firewall and router equipment and ensuring that all user computers were able to access the data center from new physical locations without a problem.
- Zero security breaches - Implementation of balanced security objectives and controls to secure data and applications from internal and external threats and align security with business.
“We moved offices twice in the last 20 years, and both times Strategic Response Systems was able to keep us connected from our offices to the data center without interruption. SRS even worked with our building management and its networking team to resolve any wiring and data connectivity issues,” said Spier. “Even more remarkable is that in 20 years of service, we have had no security breaches. Support requests were handled on time, giving us the confidence that we could get in touch with them anytime via email, text message, or phone,” he added. “Strategic Response Systems serving as both our MSP and Cloud Service provider ensured that we would get quick response times and allowed us to just focus on our core business.”
Bottom Line: What are the Key Measures of IT Service Success?
Every one of our customers has unique business goals and IT needs, and therefore we tailor our services so that they can be successful at what they do – without having to expend the effort to manage their own IT systems.
“Strategic Response Systems provided us with all the advantages of an in-house IT team without the payroll expense,” said Mark Spier, President and Owner. “They have always provided us with support within minutes of an urgent phone call, regardless of the time of day or night. We don’t get a support ticket; we get a call-back. It feels like they are part of the company because of how invested they are in our operations running smoothly," Spier continued, “Working with Strategic Response Systems helped us get out in front of IT emergencies and get systems in place to prevent any data loss scenario.”
At SRS, we measure our service success from our customer’s perspective rather than technical specifications and equipment checklists. What matters most to our customers is never having to worry about IT and being able to focus on what they do best - serving their clientele, scaling their operations, and thriving.
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