Ben Cockerham (born 1980) co-founded royalty processing companies
RightsFlow
RightsFlow is an American company that provides organizations, bands, songwriters and individuals with music licensing services and royalty payment solutions. It was founded in 2007.
RightsFlow is based in New York City. It was co-founded by Pa ...
and Source3,
both known for simplifying the complex process of U.S. copyright compliance. Cockerham also is a composer, arranger and musician in musical groups out of Brooklyn, NY.
Entrepreneur
Cockerham holds a Bachelor's from
Baylor University
Baylor University is a private Baptist Christian research university in Waco, Texas. Baylor was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas and one of the ...
in music composition, and a graduate degree from
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, ...
's Music Business (MUBG-MA) – Master of Arts Program. While at NYU, he worked at digital music service
eMusic
eMusic is an online music and audiobook store that operates by subscription. In exchange for a monthly subscription eMusic users can download a fixed number of MP3 tracks per month. eMusic was established in 1998, is headquartered in New York ...
where he met colleague Patrick Sullivan. They later joined
The Orchard working for founders
Richard Gottehrer
Richard Gottehrer (born 1940) is an American songwriter, record producer and record label executive. In 1997, he co-founded the Orchard with longtime business partner Scott Cohen, an independent music distribution company.
His career began as ...
and
Scott Cohen, to implement innovative global licensing, revenue and marketing opportunities for musicians and labels. Cockerham also managed day-to-day
music licensing
Music licensing is the licensed use of copyrighted music. Music licensing is intended to ensure that the owners of copyrights on musical works are compensated for certain uses of their work. A purchaser has limited rights to use the work without ...
for film, TV advertising, and
royalties collections. In 2006, he co-produced
Hard Rock International's ''SERVE2'' project – a
compilation album featuring previously unreleased tracks from
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He has released 21 studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is an originat ...
,
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
,
Jackson Browne,
Joss Stone
Joscelyn Eve Stoker (born 11 April 1987), known professionally as Joss Stone, is an English singer, songwriter and actress. She rose to prominence in late 2003 with her multi-platinum debut album, '' The Soul Sessions'', which made the 2004 Mer ...
and other influential artists – to benefit
WhyHunger
WhyHunger (formerly known as World Hunger Year, or WHY) is a non-profit registered 501(c)(3) organization working to end hunger and poverty by connecting people to nutritious, affordable food and by supporting grassroots solutions that inspire s ...
, distributed through The Orchard via
iTunes.
In 2007, Cockerham and Sullivan parlayed their first-hand knowledge for simplifying the complex process of U.S. copyright compliance to found RighstFlow,
also providing support for online entities including
Muzak
Muzak is an American brand of background music played in retail stores and other public establishments. The name has been in use since 1934, and has been owned by a division or subsidiary of one or another company ever since. In 1981, Westing ...
, The Orchard,
CD Baby
CD Baby, Inc. is an online distributor of independent music. The company was described as an "anti-label" by its parent company's Chief Operating Officer Tracy Maddux. The CD Baby music store was shut down in March 2020 with a statement that " ...
, and DiskMakers. Google acquired RightsFlow in 2011 to streamline music royalties processes for its YouTube platform.
In 2014, Cockerham and Sullivan, together with YouTube's Scott Sellwood, formed a startup called Source3 as a 3D printing rights management company that expanded into recognition technology for intellectual property, trademarks and copyright. In June 2017, Facebook acquired Source3 to fight piracy of illegally-shared content, and to support the development of Facebook's Rights Manager tool.
Bandleader
While attending NYU, Cockerham began establishing himself as a composer for film, television, and video games with fellow graduate student Nathan Madsen, and formed his own
indie rock
Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...
band, Sublunar Minds, after placing a
Craigslist
Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums.
Craig Newmark began the ...
ad and auditioning trumpeter/harmonica player Frank Vigilante, also a key grip for major music videos and film. Cockerham fronts the band on vocals and guitar, as heard on the 2009
LP ''Get Hit in Your Soul'', and 2012
EP ''The Last of the Natural Light''.
Cockerham met classically trained percussionist Britton Matthews, also a native Texan with a music degree from Baylor University
in NYC in 2004 through Facebook. They married in 2007 and formed singer-songwriter
folk-pop
Folk-pop is a musical style that may be 1) contemporary folk songs with large, sweeping pop arrangements, or 2) pop songs with intimate, acoustic-based folk arrangements. Recording production values created a unblemished style that appealed to ...
duo The New Benjamin Britton, with Matthews on vibes and marimba and Cockerham on a Novax 8-string guitar, the same model created for the jazz funk guitarist
Charlie Hunter.
They toured in 2012 with Drunken Barn Dance, an alt-folk band helmed by attorney/musician Scott Sellwood and released an all-original album ''Raise A Glass Broken Land'' in 2013.
Later that year Cockerham debuted an EP of instrumental jazz recordings as bandleader, pianist, composer, and arranger of his 9-piece troupe Savoy in Color, titled ''The World You’re in Is Perfect'', heavily influenced by the
Gil Evans
Ian Ernest Gilmore Evans ( né Green; May 13, 1912 – March 20, 1988) was a Canadian–American jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest orchestrators in jazz, playing an important role ...
-
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musi ...
collaborations of the 1950s & '60s. The group began to perform publicly in NYC in 2014, and features session horn players Joe Ancowitz and Geoff Countryman who also appeared on
Ghostface Killah
Dennis Coles (born May 9, 1970), better known by his stage name Ghostface Killah, is an American rapper and a member of the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan. After the group achieved breakthrough success in the aftermath of ''Enter the Wu-Tang (36 C ...
's 2014 album ''36 Seasons''.
Discography
*Sublunar Minds
** ''Get Hit in Your Soul'' – CD – 2009
** ''The Last of the Natural Light'' (EP) – CD – 2012
** ''Lit Again in Our Time'' – CD – 2018
*The New Benjamin Britton
** ''Raise A Glass Broken Land'' – CD – 2013
*Savoy in Color
** ''The World You're in Is Perfect'' (EP) – CD – 2013
** ''Hear Today Then'' (EP) – 2015
References
External links
Ben Cockerham websiteSource3 website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cockerham, Ben
1980 births
Living people