The Future of What

Music rights company Chordal has achieved a major licensing milestone, clearing 51,000 songs in the first six months of their InstantClear technology being live. In their TikTok’s commercial library integration alone, over 15% of those tracks already saw sync revenue. To achieve this success, they’ve leveraged the collaborative nature of the music industry to create a single environment where stakeholders can easily connect with one another through the songs they share rights on. In this conversation, Chordal Co-Founder & CEO Grayson Sanders explains how the platform works, the UGC issues that they are helping to mitigate through their TikTok partnership, and more!

Global artists and genres are no longer region-locked, having seen astronomical growth in recent years thanks to the age of digital connectivity. Recently, Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl appearance – combined with the rise of other Latin artists from all different regions such as Chris MJ and Groupo Frontera – have further bolstered the visibility of Latin genres. This special episode features interviews with Emilio Morales & Christopher Hernández of Bad Bunny’s publisher, Rimas Publishing, and Joaquín Fernández Esquivel of Latin marketing agency Chinelo Creative. Both conversations touch on specific examples of how culture & genre spread globally, advice for today's artists, marketing insights, and more! Link to the article by Kevin Kelly, cited by Joaquín: https://bit.ly/4lu7vxr

In celebration of Symphonic Distribution's 20th anniversary under the leadership of Jorge Brea & Janette Berrios, we bring you a special episode of The Future of What featuring the couple alongside our host Portia & her husband Slim Moon! The pairs discuss how they met their partners, as well as the origins of both Symphonic and Kill Rock Stars, touching on the opportunities & challenges of working in the same industry and workplace as your spouse. Jorge & Janette also speak on Symphonic's growth in the Latin market, the company’s emphasis on education, and keeping up with new technologies such as AI.

Songtradr was founded by artist & producer Paul Wiltshire as a solution for independent artists to upload their own tracks to be licensed all in one place, in response to him facing these struggles in his own career. Since then, the platform has expanded and tailored its strategy to the complexity of the music business by acquiring companies like 7digital, Big Sync, MassiveMusic and Bandcamp. In this episode, Songtradr CRO Paul Langworthy breaks down some of these industry complexities, touching on fragmentation, how connection doesn’t always require transparency, the looming threat of licensing infringement, and the importance of paying attention to new market players.

Music law is important for everyone in our industry to be familiar with, no matter your role or experience level. This episode features Matthew Wilson and Michelle Davis of Arnall Golden Gregory LLP, two entertainment lawyers who champion this belief by spreading their own wealth of knowledge to others via mentoring & education programs. The two discuss their respective backgrounds and involvement in academia, Music Biz’s #NEXTGEN_U Student Summit, the parallels between current & past legal proceedings in music copyright law, and more!

To keep pace with change, adapting to new technologies is essential. Good Boy Records has not only adapted, but created their own tech — an AI-powered legal platform called Clearnote. This platform was developed by Good Boy’s founders & their VP of Operations, Cameron Siasi, to meet the demand for a more streamlined legal process for industry attorneys, especially in an age where tens of thousands of songs generate legal paperwork on a weekly basis. In this interview, Cameron breaks down Clearnote’s contract creation & storing capabilities, and how the platform serves as an example of ways AI can improve efficiency in our industry.

After noticing artists spending more than they were getting at agencies, Danny Garcia developed SongTools to let music creators take control of their marketing campaigns via playlisting and ad tools. Though originally delivered primarily to artists themselves, SongTools has expanded to integrate within distribution platforms, producing success for partners like Symphonic where they drove a 70% client retention rate within 30 days. Here, Danny discusses the approach SongTools is taking to educate artists, how their playlisting ecosystem works & why it is important, along with how the platform navigates the influx of Gen AI music.

While traditional label models still dominated in 2014 when David Dann founded Mind of a Genius Records, the pendulum has swung in favor of artists and distribution deals in the digital era, setting the stage for the creation of Green Tea Distro. GTD provides support to artists at all stages and budgets, offering services from song development to monthly workshops to day-to-day A&R support. David joins us on the podcast to share his extensive artist development knowledge, including tips on audience building in an oversaturated market where we see before we hear, and the factors at play creating a youth-driven music industry.

After analyzing nearly 7 trillion streams and 70 trillion data points in the past 18 months, Beatdapp continues to advance the industry’s fraud protection efforts with their new Trust & Safety Operating System. Marking a milestone for Beatdapp, this platform is their first to provide for all sectors of the music industry while also being portable to gaming, creator platforms, streaming video, television and publishing. In this interview, Beatdapp’s Morgan Hayduk and Andrew Batey break down the five unique capabilities of the OS, the partnership behind their customer due diligence, the future of tracking AI, and how even the smallest of details – such as the version of an AI platform and device used to commit fraud – are pertinent in intervention.

Two years after the formation of the Music Fights Fraud Alliance (MFFA) and almost one year into Michael Lewan’s appointment as Executive Director, the organization has reached many milestones – including helping put together this year’s iteration of our annual Trust & Safety in Music Symposium! In this episode, Michael details the specific issues the MFFA tackles, what the alliance has accomplished since he joined last February, and discussion points he’s helped program for the symposium. He also touches on why it’s important for our industry to come together during a time when there is a high demand for anti-fraud measures across all sectors.