Music Ally Focus

Ep. 136: AI is promising fundamental changes to the business of music and its creation. But what about the part where music is connected to the fans? Virginie Berger is a long-established music-tech industry expert and like many people working in innovative areas of the music industry, she’s been doing deep research into the role AI will play now, and in the future. In this episode, Music Ally&#39...

Ep. 135: YouTube's Nur Ozdamar joins Music Ally's editor Joe Sparrow to explain how her Artist & Label Development team for Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) supports the careers of artists and its label partners. She describes the help that they provide, how they choose which emerging artists they eventually partner with – and how her team consider the changing face of music con...

Ep. 134: Lior Tibon is former COO of TIDAL, and now co-founder of music financing platform Duetti, which aims to let smaller and mid-range artists sell part or all of their catalogue. He’s got experience in both the investment and streaming sides of the industry and so we talk about two things that are distantly, yet directly, connected: the recently mooted artist-centric payment systems that divi...

Ep. 133: we’re joined by Paul Sampson, CEO and founder of Lickd, the licensing startup that supplies music to creators on YouTube and other platforms. We seem to be shifting into an era where a new and widespread use of music is emerging – where music is a component of a wider experience: for instance in the background of short/long videos, live streams of gaming, or as part of users building inte...

Ep. 132:  Making vinyl records requires a lot of heat and energy, and uses plastics that are bad for the environment. But vinyl records are an old technology - so how might a modern record be made? Sven Deutschmann is Managing Director of Sonopress, a company that makes vinyl records and other physical media. He showed Music Ally’s Editor Joe Sparrow a new type of disc and spoke about a new proces...

Ep 131: We have been puzzling over the impact of AI-generated music and how it will align with the laws that have made the music business, well, the music business. Eliane Ellbogen is an intellectual property lawyer at Fasken law firm in Montreal, and has spoken at a number of conferences about the legal implications that accompany AI Music. She joined Music Ally's Editor Joe Sparrow, who lobb...

Ep. 130: Andrew Batey and Morgan Hayduk are both co-CEOs & co-founders of Beatdapp, a platform which processes huge quantities of data to detect streaming fraud for clients like labels and streaming platforms. Editor Joe Sparrow welcomes them back to the podcast to update us on the state of streaming fraud – and they have some truly shocking statistics to share. They chat to Joe about the rece...

Ep. 129: Dan Stein, AKA DJ Fresh, and Declan McGlynn are co-founders of Voice-Swap, the AI-powered service that, as the name suggests, allows you to swap your singing voice for that of one of their chart-topping singers’ voices. They chat to Music Ally’s Editor Joe Sparrow about why they think producers, artists and writers will want to use AI to transform their own voice to sound like one of thei...

Ep. 128: We’re joined by Kris Ahrend, CEO of the Mechanical Licensing Collective. He gives us an overview of the state of  mechanical licensing in 2023, the big issues from the MLC’s perspective, and the changes he’d like to see happen. He also talks about data transparency, what he thinks artists and songwriters want (and what the MLC are doing to increase clarity for them); the recent Phonorecor...

Ep. 127: In this special episode, Music Ally’s Head of Insight, Stuart Dredge talks to our Editor Joe Sparrow, and focuses squarely on AI and music in 2023 – a topic that has caused so much excitement, confusion, innovation, and concern all at once.  Stuart breaks down the ambitions and possibilities – as well as the ethical and legal issues – that AI music is bringing to the music business:  ❱ AI...

Ep 126: in this episode Editor Joe Sparrow is joined by musician and music education facilitator Elizabeth J. Birch, and the CEO of UK charity Youth Music Matt Griffiths. They join us to talk about the experiences of disabled musicians in the UK music industry – and the work done by Elizabeth and Youth Music to improve it. Elizabeth is a champion of accessible music-making, and shares her knowledg...

Ep 125: In this episode Stationhead co-founders, Murray Levison and Ryan Star speak to Editor Joe Sparrow about the platform’s role as a gathering place for superfans, and what fans are seeking in a platform that mixes music, community and commerce. Superfans are well know for their all-encompassing support of an artist, and their desire to form a community to celebrate them. Stationhead started o...

Ep. 124: in this episode we’re joined by Christine Barnum, CD Baby’s Chief Revenue Officer – we’re talking about music streaming fraud, how the company tries to spot it, and what the fraudsters are doing to try to avoid being detected. Christine’s job is a form of fraud whack-a-mole: trying to spot suspicious streaming activity before paying rightsholders.  We talk about her efforts in “fraud, tru...

Ep. 123: Music Ally’s Editor Joe Sparrow chats to Cat Henry, executive director of the US-based nonprofit philanthropic organisation Live Music Society. Cat talks about the society’s mission, which it describes as “to recognise and protect small venues and listening rooms across the United States so that live music can remain accessible to all.” Small venues can be one of the most enjoyable and va...

Ep 122: Alex Mubert, founder of the Mubert AI generative music platform talks to Editor Joe Sparrow about using AI to make music, the impact creative musical AI will have on rightsholders, and whether we will have to redefine what music itself is – in an era where infinitely-long pieces of music can be tailor-made for each listener. Most of us have come to terms with the fact that generating music...

Ep. 121: We speak to two people from TikTok who have helped turn classical music into viral content. TikTok has captured the attention of people in every area of the music industry, who now look to the short-video app for A&R, marketing, music discovery, audience-building and fan-nurturing. Darina Connolly, Head of Artist & Label Partnerships, talks about TikTok’s direction and strategy, a...

Ep 120: We're joined by Piers Henwood, a Grammy and Juno-nominated artist manager and musician. Artists today are under increasing pressure to do, well, lots of stuff: write, record and release music, create TikToks, collaborate, communicate with fans, go on tours, and so much more. A while ago, Piers wrote a guest post on Music Ally about “ the implications of the pressure placed on artists t...

Ep 119: Every time our Head of Insight appears on the podcast, people say how useful they find his analysis – so we're bringing Stuart Dredge back again to answer a thorny question: “is music streaming like radio?”. Stuart explains why this simple-sounding question is actually quite complex and how it could raise a number of fundamental legal issues around payments to artists and rightsholders...

Ep. 118: In the latest Focus podcast episode we’re joined by Keatly Haldeman of the blockchain music sync licensing platform Dequency. Attention has moved away from web3 tech and shifted via the metaverse to AI; so we thought it was time to check in and see how web3 tech has progressed away from the pressure of all that hype. Keatly still thinks that web3 and blockchain tech will transform the mus...

Ep 117: We’re joined by David Martin, CEO of the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) – the UK trade body representing the specific rights and interests of music artists. We’re talking about two of the key needs that emerging artists have: that is to say – a guiding hand at the right time, and making money from merch. Artists have become increasingly vocal about one particular reality of touring, name...

Ep 116: Music Ally Editor Joe Sparrow is joined by A Greener Future CEO and cofounder Claire O’Neill. AGF created the world’s first event sustainability standards and now offers consultancy, training, certification and membership to the events industry. We talk to her about how live events can become greener and more sustainable – and how there’s a lot more to it that simply cutting down on carbon...

Ep. 115: We’re joined by Cliff Fluet – someone who has worked with, or advised, music-related AI platforms for a decade. He talks to Music Ally Editor Joe Sparrow about the bigger-picture possibilities and repercussions that AI could have on the music industry – he calls it "the most consequential tool the music industry could use" and one that "could solve a number of its biggest c...

Ep. 114: In this special episode we’re checking in on The Music Business Academy (MBA) for Africa –  a training program geared towards developing the next generation of music industry executives in Africa. It’s developed by Creative Industries Initiative For Africa in partnership with Music Ally and Dr. Carlos Chirinos of the Music Business Department at the New York University. Having been involv...

Episode 113: we’re joined by Shain Shapiro, PhD  – a music and cultural policy thinker whose work focuses on the idea of music cities. Shain's upcoming new book This Must Be The Place introduces and examines music’s relationship to cities. Not the influence cities have on music, but the powerful impact music can have on how cities are developed, built, managed and governed. It’s a fascinating...

Episode 112: In this episode we’re joined by two people from Splice, the music-making platform and sample library: CEO Kakul Srivistava and Mark Thomas, Splice's VP of sounds. Sampling has been used by musicians for decades as a way to create music, and finding the right sounds and snippets of music is a complex and time consuming task. We talk about music creation in the 2023 environment when...