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This new tech start-up enables businesses to stream music without breaking the law

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Music tech start-up QSIC allows businesses to create playlists and stream music legally into their venues.

Businesses using streaming services licensed for personal use only in Australia are doing so illegally – regardless of having a streaming license – because of the different royalty calculations needed when music is played to a larger audience.

This new service is a complete end-to-end platform and once a business signs up, it pays a monthly fee to gain access to millions of tunes or thousands of custom playlists in order to continuously play music.

The QSIC platform has capability to deliver branded curation effortlessly to subscribers which can then be distributed to Australia-wide subsidiaries, giving businesses visibility across their entire network.

What exactly does QSIC do?

By creating direct deals with major and independent labels to provide legal streaming, QSIC protects the artist, ensuring they are being paid correctly and that venues are legally accessing their songs.

“A single stream of a song at home is likely to reach an audience of a couple of people. When in a store or at a venue, the audience size is far larger and the royalty rate needs to be adjusted accordingly,” said Matt Elsley, QSIC Director and co-founder.

“Effectively, venues using streaming services licensed for personal use in Australia are doing so illegally. Our clients can relax in the knowledge that the music they are playing is 100 per cent above-board and artists are being paid accordingly,” he added.

Matt Elsley, CEO QSIC
Matt Elsley, CEO QSIC

“We digest all research available regarding music and bottom-line management, we then take a solid data-driven approach to understanding what works best for a specific business and its patrons or customers and then we go on to deliver bespoke content,” explains Nick Larkins, QSIC Director and co-founder.

“A real focus for us is making life as easy as possible for our clients and making sure they are getting exactly what they want.”

As well as branded curation, there are a number of other features for businesses included in the service such as API access, music scheduling, consumer analytics, digital-signage integration, head office control, audio-advertising functionality, multi-zone audio and much more.

Nick Larkins, COO QSIC
Nick Larkins, COO QSIC

How far has the company come?

Founded by long-time friends Nick Larkins and Matt Elsley in January 2011, the duo now boast almost an entire street of Melbourne venues subscribing to the service, cementing their position as trailblazers in this space.

The QSIC client list is growing at 300 per cent each quarter and includes a variety of notable venues run by hospitality juggernauts Sand Hill Road (Garden State Hotel, Prahran Hotel, Terminus Hotel and more), the Publican Group Australia (State of Grace, The Wharf, Public House, The Guildford Hotel and seven others) and Colonial Leisure Group (Botanical, Lucky Coq, Raffles, Print Hall, Portsea Hotel and twenty one others across Australia), as well as retailers Boost, Toyota and Mecca Cosmetica & Mecca Maxima to name just a few.

“QSIC’s ability to scale right up to our huge, multi-zone venue without issue was impressive,” says Matt Mullins, owner of Garden State.

“We are also able to play different music in each of our venue zones so there’s a different atmosphere created in each which was an integral part of our brand strategy.

“Not only that, but our staff have needed little to no training in using the platform because it’s so easy to use,” he continues.

QSIC packages start at $120 per month for continuous background music and the platform includes a mobile app as well as social media integration. The service is designed to run on any PC/Mac, iOS or Sonos and has offline usage.