The Future of What

2024 was yet another transformative year for the music industry, bolstered by the widespread embrace of AI integration, challenges to the cornerstone that DSPs have become, and maturing integrations in gaming & VR. In our final conversation of 2024, we speak with Vickie Nauman of CrossBorderWorks about how as music consumption becomes more passive, more interactive experiences enabled by exciting new tech may define the music industry in the year to come!

With the ever-changing landscape of the music industry, as well as new expectations from today’s artists, it’s time for us to check in on how the management field has evolved to meet the needs of today’s music makers. In our latest podcast, we talk to 10 and 8 Management’s Nicholas Mishko about what managers can do to best support their artists in the 2020s, when artists should enlist a manager & for what reasons, what new tech & revenue streams managers need to be aware of, advice for those looking to break into management, and beyond!

The misuse of generative AI tech has already tested the status quo of music distribution & streaming, with DSPs being flooded with thousands of fraudulent tracks meant to siphon royalties away from rightful artists & rightsholders. AI:OK is a new initiative which takes a multi-pronged approach to ensuring that the music industry is ethical in its use of AI. In our latest podcast, we talk to AI:OK founder & CEO, Dr. Martin Clancy about the initiative’s origins and goals, as well as the immediate outlook on AI’s impact on our industry.

Research divisions within music companies often operate to advance the products & services they offer. In the case of Deezer’s most recent research on identifying & tagging songs, it may improve the ways our business fights against bad actors. This month, we talked to Deezer's Head of Research Romain Hennequin about his team’s origins, its most recent paper which delves into how self-supervised learning (SSL) may help accurately identify AI-generated tracks uploaded to streaming services, and much more!

#iVoted is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that hosts concerts on election nights & during early voting periods to help drive voter registration & turnout. After hosting the largest digital concert in history during the 2020 Presidential Election, which data from MIT touts as bolstering voter turnout by an estimated 7%, #iVoted is gearing up for a series of events leading up to and on Election Night 2024. The org’s Founder & CEO, Emily White, joins us on the podcast to talk about how it has evolved since 2018, how her music industry background informs how #iVoted operates, the ways it uses data to most effectively plan events in target areas, and much more!

Following up on her op-ed for our Keeping Tempo series, we’re thrilled to have Jessica Vaughn of Head Bitch Music on our latest episode of The Future of What! In this interview, Vaughn discusses the ways our industry has evolved (both for better and worse) in its support of women & marginalized communities, how her industry origins as an artist influenced her to pursue an executive career and institute change from the inside, her current roles in the sync/custom music space, and much more!

Since the digitization of the music business began, new tech applications and methods of consumption have helped to redefine how our industry operates. In recent years, the highest profile changes have been the implementation of AI algorithms and the rapid adoption of music consumption through short-form video platforms. We spoke with Miquido’s Chief AI Officer, Jerzy Biernacki about the benefits of AI applications on personalized music experiences like curated playlists & song recommendations, and how music trends on TikTok are changing how labels search for & market new talent!

Ray Bush founded The Music Royalty Co. (MRC) in 2014 after identifying opportunities to modernize royalty calculations in the face of music data’s exponential explosion as streaming began to take off. A decade later and the company has remained an expert in complex royalty calculations for labels, publishers and distributors, while also evolving to meet the accountancy needs of music companies. In our latest podcast, we speak to Bush about the company’s first decade, how the global music industry has financially grown in that same time, the impact of having a dedicated royalty service, and much more!

The events of the last few years, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic, have had a major effect on how people across the globe view work-life balance and traditional ways of working. In our latest episode, we discuss how to best support today’s workforce with two experts in the avenues of HR and workers’ rights. First off, we speak with WorkFour Director, Jackson Kerchis about how his organization is raising awareness in the U.S. about reduced work-time initiatives and how they stand to benefit both employees & employers. Then, we discuss how companies can best support their employees and answer their questions around wellness, as they either navigate their new work-life balance or return to the office, with Natoya Brown, SVP of People Inclusion & Culture for Universal Music Group.

The complex web of unique identifiers associated with an artist and their body of work can make it extremely difficult for them to interact with publishers, sync officers, and other parties they work with. Switchchord aims to eliminate this friction by allowing artists to document ownership of their music and map out the legal & business relationships they engage in via legally verifiable, decentralized digital identities. We spoke with company founder and CEO, Cole Davis about how the technology works and what opportunities it opens up for artists!

The Digital Media Association (DiMA) represents the world’s leading audio streaming companies and streaming innovators, providing community, resources and advocacy for its member companies. This month, we spoke with newly appointed DiMA President and CEO, Graham Davies about DiMA’s mission, his first few months at the helm of the organization, and what the Association is working towards through the rest of 2024!

The music industry has proven time and time again that inclusive practices lead to better productivity and a higher quality of work in all business segments. That’s why Ralph Torrefranca of Angry Mob Music has sought for more diversity in high-level songwriting rooms by starting the New Normal Writing Camp in 2023, which featured 70% female artists & writers and 50% women producers from more than 12 cultural backgrounds in its inaugural edition. In our latest podcast, we spoke with Torrefranca about his op-ed, “Why Diverse Writing Rooms Must Become An Industry Standard,” what led him to start the writing camp, and his plans to further support diverse writers going forward!

The fight against all forms of music fraud has been a major watershed moment for intra-industry collaboration, as was seen in the Music Business Association’s establishment of its Spin Fraud Task Force and its hosting of the Trust & Safety Symposium in January 2024. Now a few months away from that event, our latest The Future of What podcast explores how music professionals & companies are developing internal tools & best practices to fight fraud, while also learning lessons from others who have dealt with bad actors in the finance, film, game industries and beyond. Be sure to listen for insights from Symphonic Distribution CEO, Jorge Brea and Ethixbase360 consultant, Virna Di Palma!

Merch sales is one of, if not the primary, revenue generator for artists at certain levels of their careers. Tie this into the fact that merch proudly worn or displayed by their fans helps spread the word about their music, and it becomes all too essential for today’s artists to have a strong merch strategy. This important need is what led Vanessa Ferrer to found Merch Cat, a POS & inventory management tool that helps artists track what merch they sell each night on tour, easily identify what merch items & types of products are most popular among their fans, and unify sales across the merch table and a fan-centric shopping app. We spoke with Ferrer about Merch Cat’s story, the importance of using sales metrics to understand your fanbase, why every artist should have a holistic approach to merch sales, and beyond!

With almost a decade of experience securing copyrights for artists & rightsholders, Cosynd identified that music producers were being potentially priced out of registering their backlog of work with the U.S. Copyright Office. This led them to develop a new group registration service, allowing producers to save time & money by registering groups of beats and other musical elements instead of individually registering each element. We spoke with Cosynd CEO, Jessica Sobhraj about this new initiative, the company’s mission of supporting creators’ legal protections, the importance of registering music with the Copyright Office, and much more!

While looking into higher-ed music business programs, David Fritz and Steven Ship found that the segmented approach to curriculums was helpful for new students, but it did not help artists and songwriters who needed to know the ins-and-outs of how the industry works for their already established careers. This led them to start Creative Intell, which offers practical classes that give students insights and step-by-step guides on everything from recording and releasing a cover song to tracking all of their income streams. In our latest podcast, we discuss the platform’s founding, the feedback from early users, future plans for expansion and updates, and more!

With more artists creating and releasing more music now than ever, there is a major need for new revenue streams and funding options to help artists take their careers to the next level. This month on The Future of What, we speak with two representatives from companies that do just that: Nick Struzenski of Vault, a bespoke catalog brokerage & artist funding service, and Matthew Tilley of beatBread, which provides funding for artists & labels alike powered by data science. Tune in for conversations about their companies’ offerings, why the need for funding is so prevalent right now, how new technologies like machine learning are making it easier to provide funding, and more!

RAMPD (Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities) was founded in 2021 as a collective of artists, performers and music professionals with disabilities seeking to raise awareness of disability culture in the music business. Since then the organization has worked to advocate and create opportunities for disabled music professionals and ensure they have access to inclusive & accessible spaces, including partnering with the GRAMMYs to make the annual awards event more disability-inclusive. This month, we spoke with RAMPD’s founder, Lachi & President, Precious Perez to learn about RAMPD’s story and what the group is working on in 2024!

Sync placements have become a highly lucrative revenue stream for artists and rightsholders alike in recent years, as the production teams behind tv shows & movies constantly search for the perfect tracks to set the scene in their latest project. With that expanded attention to this part of the business comes a lot of extra paperwork, something that until recently sync licensing teams did not have help with. This month, we spoke with Trevanna Tracks’ CEO, Jennifer Freed and COO, Selina Meere to learn more about the company’s origins, its all-in-one solution for logging & organizing complex sync project data, and the importance of centralizing this data to increasing sync teams’ productivity!

The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) was founded at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as a lifeline for small live music houses, pulling together federal grant money to ensure that venues would remain afloat until it was safe for artists to tour again. Since then, the organization has shifted focus to develop a member services suite, tackle major issues like the ticketing debacle, and address the needs of venues on a local level. We spoke with NIVA's Executive Director, Stephen Parker about the organization’s history and recent advocacy work, as well as the variety of issues indie venues still face.