January 5, 2026 • 58 mins
Cliff Fluet (partner at Louis Silkin, joint head of Media & Entertainment; Chair of Music Technology UK; founder of Eleven Advisory) joins Michael Nevins to unpack how music, tech, and IP are colliding in the age of AI.
We cover: why MusicTechnology UK focuses on funding + ecosystem building, why Cliff believes AI is a paradigm shift on the scale of electricity, and his core argument: “Copyright isn’t the problem. Licensing is the answer.”
Plus: the case for focusing on outputs vs inputs, the music industry’s data problem, and practical advice for founders and people breaking into music tech.
- Cliff Fluet (Louis Silkin): #MusicTech #AI #Copyright #Licensing #MusicIndustry #startups
00:00 - Start
00:23 - Intro: Cliff Fluet (Louis Silkin, MusicTech UK, Eleven Advisory)
01:54 - From hi-fi salesman to Warner Music: Cliff’s origin story
04:00 - Warner Music in the CD boom → internet flips the industry
04:47 - New media at Warner: early streaming + disruption
05:51 - The jump to radio: “I’ve got to go on the other side and get some rights from you.”
06:57 - Private practice: advising mobile + early streaming (Pandora → DSPs)
07:58 - Why “legal + strategic” (and founding Eleven Advisory)
09:22 - Building MusicTech UK: the what and the why
12:56 - The #1 problem for music tech startups
16:03 - Community + “space & place”: H.O.M.E. + Tileyard Studios ecosystems
19:48 - Does the UK get enough credit for music innovation?
23:58 - AI as a revolution (not an evolution)
33:47 - AI training data + copyright: can we “unscramble the egg”?
34:23 - Key thesis: “Licensing is the answer” (outputs vs inputs)
38:13 - Flying the plane while building it: contracting in uncertainty
44:13 - The music industry’s biggest blind spot: data
48:16 - Disruption vs curiosity: what founders get wrong
51:56 - Career advice: curiosity wins
54:25 - What Cliff is listening to now
56:23 - Cool tech: Bria & Uhmbrella
57:07 - Closing: “help write music’s next verse.”
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It's the Kick and Snare Podcast.
Let's count it off.
Welcome to Kick and Snare.
I'm Michael Nevins, your host of the Kick and Snare podcast.
(00:23):
My guest today is Cliff Fleway.
Cliff is an attorney and partner at Louis Silkin, where he's the joint head of the mediaand entertainment practice.
But wait, there's more.
Cliff is also chair of music tech UK, music technology UK, to say it all out loud.
Music tech UK should be familiar to many of you if you've listened to any of my otherepisodes, because I've interviewed many of their members and also one of their founders.
(00:48):
He's also the founder of Levin Advisory.
I'm sure there's more, we're going to let Cliff tell us.
So welcome, Cliff.
Thanks for joining.
Thank you for having me.
My pleasure.
So I'd like to focus on uh three main areas today.
They'll say this for the sake of our listeners and our watchers.
I'm sure we'll jump around a bit and that's okay.
(01:09):
But I'd like to focus on your professional pursuits, your career background.
Second, I'd like to learn more about your role with MusicTech UK, which uh is not brandnew but has changed.
And so I want to get into that.
And then I'd also like to get into more general things like, you know,
Spend some time getting insights on the state of music and other IP rights in the age ofAI, which you live in every day, and zoom in on your advice for entrepreneurs and others
(01:38):
who are looking to make their lives better in the space.
So that's where I'd like to jump off.
OK.
So your career spans law, media, tech.
Tell us your story.
You know, how it began and how it's going story is something I'd love to jump into.
(02:01):
Well, I was born a pole, no.
So I have been an attorney, qualified about 30 years ago.
But my first orbit around the of music tech was when I was at school, I worked everySaturday selling hi-fi.
(02:21):
So I sold the hi-fi to audio files for several years.
was an area of London, a bit like Fifth Avenue in New York used to sell electronics inLondon, would be Totten Court Road.
And I went to the biggest electronic store and, um, hi-fi.
And I got to play with all the gear that I could never afford.
And it was really cool and really fun.
(02:43):
And, um, I was a pretty good salesperson because I used to read the, um, manuals and thebrochures and things like that overnight.
And as I found out, it's really easy to sell something if you know what it is.
Makes sense.
that's what I did.
So I grew up with a huge fan of music.
I grew up someone who really loved tech, music tech and gear and things like that.
(03:05):
um But I thought that actually rather than selling high five for a living, being a lawyermight be a bit more of an interesting and challenging career.
My phrase was and then was, you know, life's a game, law's the rules.
And if you want to win the game, it's quite helpful to know the rules.
So um I studied law.
uh
(03:27):
And that was the first time I'd heard about these things called in-house lawyers.
And infamously, I was told about this world of in-house lawyers at record labels.
And they had fridges in their office with beer in it.
And they're really sexy.
And I asked the question, why does a record company need a lawyer?
(03:49):
Which is a thing I've heard over and over again.
um And that was parked in my brain, qualified.
I'm just a few weeks qualified and I see an ad for something which was known as anewspaper for a job at a record label.
It was my favorite record label.
It was Warner Music, the one that most of my biggest, the artists I was the biggest fan ofwere signed to.
(04:14):
So I applied and I got in.
So yeah, so I ended up in the music industry in the mid 90s, probably the apex of theindustry, the apex of the CD boom.
But then um the internet arrived and that's where my world flipped upside down.
ah To quote the Fresh Prince, if you're allowed to do that these days.
(04:38):
uh yeah, so I became one of the first people at Warner Music Group focused on new media.
ah And frankly, lots of people ran from it screaming.
Sure.
Figuratively, but sometimes literally.
(04:58):
as well as having to do all the fun small labels and corporate and sync and licensing andall those fantastic things.
Um, the most important thing and the most fun thing was dealing with this world of newmedia and getting to work with the earliest iterations of streaming of UTC and all of
those businesses.
So that was my plan and I really enjoyed it.
(05:20):
I really loved it.
Got to meet many of my favorite artists, got to work with many of my favorite artists andyou know, I was very lucky time.
But I could tell very, very clearly, as clear as day that things were going to change andthey were going to get really, really bad.
And I decided that had to go and work on the platform side.
(05:46):
The world of music, world of records, very, comfortable.
But I set up my exit interview.
I've got to go on the other side and get some rights from you or we're all screwed shallwe say.
Precise wording that I use but there you are.
So I went into the radio business and I spent five years in the world of radio.
(06:10):
The world of records and world of radio were intimately linked but neither tended to knowabout each other very much at all in any way shape or form.
uh
And really what we wanted to do was have an opportunity to be able to go and commercializeand actually get these rights.
So it's been five years.
What's now global radio was then capital radio, which was the largest pure play commercialradio group in Europe.
(06:34):
And that's where I learned about sponsorship and advertising and monetization andinfrastructure, licensing rights, and all the things that people at labels don't have to
do.
and have the opportunity to be able to grow up.
So I spent five years in records, five years in radio, and for last 20 years, because Iwon't do this in real time, um I was trying to find some decent lawyers and I was trying
(07:00):
to find people I could instruct.
And in a slightly um frustrated moment, I complained to one of the firms that I wastalking to that I really, really, really wanted to um have an opportunity to work with
some lawyers who could focus on the future rather than what is.
happening right now.
(07:20):
And one thing led to another and then I did the strangest thing and spent 10 years as anin-house lawyer went back into private practice.
And that was at the time of 2005.
I worked with lots of big mobile companies and then the earliest days of music streaming.
So started working with the very earliest streamings from Pandora all the way through toall of the big DSPs and then Vivo and then Pledge.
(07:47):
influences and really my whole raison d'etre has been about how do you make money when themusic industry has gone through such significant seismic change.
The last thing about what I do in relation to now was a few years in I realized thatactually because I'd spent so much time in industry and I knew so many people, people
(08:08):
wanted my strategic insight probably as much if not more than the legal stuff.
people were sort of giving me some terms and conditions and then sort of handing me abusiness plan and I was able to charge for one and not the other.
So I decided to set up an advisory firm and that was Born 11.
It is a spinal tap gag.
(08:28):
uh
You took one of my questions out of my mouth.
yeah, it's for the tap.
It's what we have scheduled.
My wife and I are attending this evening, in fact.
Fantastic.
time difference, just very slightly ahead of you.
(08:49):
Um, yeah, spoilers, spoilers.
Um, but that was an opportunity for me.
And one of my first clients at 11 was the world's first creative AI music company, uh,company called Duke deck.
And I've worked with companies across music recognition, AI.
(09:11):
catalog acquisitions, distribution, immersive technology, blockchain, you name it, as astrategic advisor and a lawyer in a quantum state.
So that's what I do, and that's what I do all day.
One of the issues you mentioned as well as music tech in the UK.
So a year ago, just over a year ago, uh a gentleman by the name of Matt Cartmell, who Ithink you've spoken to uh on various occasions before, he came to me.
(09:40):
and said, Cliff, why isn't there a music tech UK?
There's a music tech Germany, there's a music tech France, there's a music tech Estonia.
Why is there not a music tech UK?
And I was like, I just do not know the answer to that.
I don't have a good answer to that question.
So he said, well, if we set it up, would you chair it?
And I said, no, because I chair lots of things and I sit on lots of boards.
(10:02):
And also I didn't want this to be about me.
I wanted this to be about the ecosystem, but I'll help.
So it was launched.
and it grew and in a very very short time got well over 100 members and as it's grown Ifinally succumbed and said look I'll give it some governance and leadership and some
strategic because it's doing really really well so right that's my time at Mistake.
(10:26):
Got it.
So thank you for sharing all of that, first of all.
And I've found, because I've spoken with Matt quite a bit, and now several members ofMusicTech UK who have fairly diverse businesses, in fact, with some, they share some
common challenges, that's for sure, but they're all approaching the industry a little bitdifferently, rightly so.
(10:53):
You started as a founder.
You now are recently named the chair.
uh What led you to make that transition to be, I guess, more deeply involved or at leastmore essentially responsible for the charter?
Tell me where it is and where you think it should go.
I mean, look, being a bit of a stickler for governance, when I was at what was CapitalRadio, it was a listed vehicle and I was the company secretary, so I was the of the
(11:21):
general counsel and company secretary, so you're kind of the conscience of the board.
You realize that actually there's two things that a good board should do.
One is provide governance, surety to the stakeholders and ecosystem and making sure thatif they're paying advertising or they're paying dividends or they're buying shares that...
They've got some trust into the organization and understand that, you know, it's not goingto be something where it's going to get threaded away or anything like that.
(11:51):
But and also too is to represent the voice of the stakeholders over me.
And then number three, to give it strategic direction.
You know, if you are a founder, if you're a CEO, it's a pretty lonely job.
And actually the relationship between a chair and CEO, when it works well, it's
It's someone that will back you, it's someone that will mentor you, and it's someone thatwill give you some really good pointers.
(12:15):
But I also want to say that it is a team game, right?
We have a band, not a cellist.
So I also brought in a Kickass board from places like Spitfire Audio and SonorusConsulting and Beatport.
And then we've got a much wider advisory board where we've got people from Tube Global andIlluminate and you name it.
(12:36):
We've brought in a really good bunch of people.
None of these people are being paid.
None of these people are doing it for their own aggrandizement or clients or anything likethat.
They're doing it because actually they want the ecosystem to thrive.
And that's the kind of people I love working with.
that's the great people we've got at MusiTech UK.
(12:57):
So I've asked several members of Music Tech UK, because I've been fortunate enough to beable to interview them here.
uh So I have a view in terms of what they see as the biggest challenge facing music techstartups right now, particularly those in the UK.
So we should focus on that perspective.
How would you answer the question?
(13:17):
What is the biggest single challenge or the top two that you see for your membership?
I think the top one, the top two and top three is funding.
It has to be.
We live in a world where technology investments, particularly post pandemic, were nearinfinite.
(13:38):
Huge opportunity to demonstrate in the pandemic that whilst live music was hurt, theopportunity to be able to scale, to grow and develop through social platforms and...
extend your career and your fan base and your data or et cetera, et cetera, was, waslegion.
So if you're a tech company during that, what it was crazy.
(14:00):
But when it comes to music tech, has a number of significant challenges.
It has, you know, highly fragmented ecosystem.
You've got an ecosystem with very, very unaligned outcomes and or incentives that I'm notjust talking about masters in publishing.
I'm talking about promoters and I'm talking about PROs and I'm talking about investors.
(14:21):
uh We are cursed and blessed with working in music.
So if you work in music or in and around music, if you work in something where everyone'sgot an opinion, that opinion tends to trump fact very, very quickly.
And I suspect people who work at a football club or a baseball club feel exactly the same,right?
(14:42):
You know, I don't like you because no, no, no, this is a business, right?
This is how we make money.
This is how we tell tickets and blah, blah, blah.
Yes, we lost the last five games, we're still in but do know what mean?
And as it's one of those things that because most people consume it and most people bringit in they conflate that with that knowledge and I use that in air quotes for those are
(15:02):
sure radio to to expertise very very quickly so and then of course we've got this otherissue about a highly fragmented way of Being able to work with the biggest stakeholders,
you know
lot of these companies want to work with labels, they want to work with DSPs, they want towork with PROs, and frankly, none of them know how.
(15:24):
And that's an observation, not a criticism.
But one of the things that we are laser-focused on at MusiTech UK is how do you build anecosystem where people and founders can work together?
How we can get a referral network so people can have proof of concepts or pilots with eachother, allow people to achieve product-market fit, and maybe even a tiny bit of revenue.
(15:47):
That's what unlocks funding.
So it's not a chicken and egg situation.
We've got an egg.
We need to break that egg.
It needs to do some stuff.
And then it has to have some value to someone in order for it to be of significant value.
One of the other things I've heard from members, which I didn't initially expect, was astrong sense of community within MusicTech UK.
(16:12):
And that was a really nice thing to hear.
was heartening, I guess would be the right word, that even outside of the sort of statedmission goals, et cetera, which I'm happy for you to go deeper on, the very idea that they
could come to uh a common place physically, meet with each other, ask questions.
(16:34):
get a little smarter, get some advice, seemed to be something that came up over and overagain.
And I'm sure that you're a part of providing that environment.
And at least that's what I've gathered from some of the folks.
Would you mind speaking to that at all?
Well, I mean, I to give huge credit also as well to a gentleman by the name of Andy Allen.
(16:54):
And Andy, whose day job is the founder and CEO of BSI Merge, he has a space in East Londoncalled the House of Media and Entertainment, which spells home.
And he has created a home for MusiTech UK.
So any MusiTech UK members can just rock up there.
We have events there every week.
(17:15):
We have gatherings.
We have a space.
And that does help foster a sense of community.
We also host events with our partners and ecosystem holders.
So we have some of my offices, we have some offices in relation to professional advisors,platforms, you name it, who just want to meet interesting people.
So that whole sense of place and space are the two core consistence of community.
(17:42):
And once those things can exist on Slack group or WhatsApp chat, culture dead,
Actually, if you've got a place where people can bump into each other and have the kind ofhappy accidents that we're starting to see, that's so important building any ecosystem.
I helped build a music studios tech ecosystem in London called Tile Yard Studios, whichoriginally started as seven tiny studios daisy chained together.
(18:10):
There's now over 200 creative businesses, 150 music studios there.
It's the world's largest concentration of music.
studios in a space near King's Cross.
building an ecosystem is a contradiction in terms.
You grow it.
It's more like farming than building.
(18:30):
And you have to create the conditions.
You have to put things next to each other that are going to spark.
You're to have opportunities for people to cross-pollinate.
And no, that's not a euphemism.
And work together.
And you'll see these things grow.
And at Tile Yard, have one of the world's biggest companies, Apple.
who has an extraordinary base there to the newest and hottest of startups in ticketing,merch and MRT, as well as a whole bunch of creators and curators and people that want to
(18:59):
bring value.
And businesses that have grown massive like Spitfire Audio have grown, started atTarniard, grown all the way to Exit to Delights of Splice and been really, really
successful.
growing an ecosystem, having that sense of space and place and building that together.
And you use of course digital tools to amplify that to make it more efficient.
(19:24):
But, but, it is something completely
Understood.
That's good to hear.
That's a good story.
And I think certainly what I've heard from members is that it works and it's happening.
so even in a short period of time, you seem to have accomplished a lot as a group.
congratulations on that.
(19:45):
you.
Yeah.
So this is another topic I've raised with Matt Cartmell and others in your group.
I'm tuned into digital.
audio tech and the industry in uh a way that lay people certainly aren't.
And I'm aware of the great research, the great development, the great ideation, thecreativity that's coming out of the UK music tech scene.
(20:16):
Do you feel that it's, as a group, as a country, getting its due?
in terms of music innovation, do people look to the UK to the degree that they should?
Well, think historically they did.
mean, you know, it's where...
I mean, Abbey Road is where stereo was invented.
Right.
Indeed.
(20:36):
EMI was making incredible things happen.
Yeah.
50 years ago.
Right.
But again, you know, and if you talk about, you know, where did Spotify grow?
Where did SMS grow?
Where do these core technologies and digital, mobile and streaming, et cetera, et cetera,et cetera, you know, they may be founded elsewhere, but they are grown in the UK.
(20:57):
know, so of course, you've got everything from the infrastructure, it's capital city,there's a vibrant investment market.
And of course, you've got major conurbations of the labels.
uh And even when I was at Warner Music.
the US would often use the UK as a petri dish and it wouldn't be able to test thingsbefore you start, you know, because it is, of course, a country, not a continent, unlike
(21:19):
the USA.
So you have an opportunity to be able to do that.
And then, of course, there's our heritage in music, you know, I say to often to lawmakers,why should we help the music industry?
Because it's one of the only things that we are the best in the world at.
We are the
(21:40):
third largest net exporter of music in the world.
It's the US, it's Japan, and then it's the UK.
But if you take a relative size of Japan and the UK, we are by far, for pound, the mostsuccessful country in the world when it comes to music and music innovation.
(22:00):
One in 10 tracks to the stream are from a British or UK artist.
So yeah, we're kind of a big deal.
But at the same time, what we don't have is, you we don't have the equivalent of a Sony,and I'm not talking about Sony music, but Sony Corp, which has a huge electronics
heritage.
And in the US, of course, you've got the Valley, where lots of them are music fans andlots of them like tech and they come together.
(22:26):
So what we need to do is be able to understand and reinvigorate us as the center andleaders in music and music tech.
of the many
Companies I have either advised or observed in the UK They all get bought by US or Chineseor Swedish companies Right on top and that's something you have to change as well
(22:52):
Understood.
So for individuals or companies who are interested in getting involved with MusicTech UK,it's MusicTechnology UK if I say it all the way out.
Google it, get involved, join up, they're a friendly organization.
They have lots to offer you.
If you're not already in, you should be, let put it that way.
(23:15):
So I'll move forward on some topics.
We have not really touched on AI yet, which has got to be part of the conversation.
I believe it's
It is.
I'm reminded of the fact that some of the best research happening right now is coming outof Queen Mary University.
(23:35):
David Ronan and I at RoEx, let me make sure I get the name out there for David's sake,discussed this in our conversation.
Those who are paying attention to music retrieval, audio, and AI will certainly be awareof this.
really strong bright spot for uh UK music tech scene.
(23:57):
uh But I've been thinking about this, you you advise clients in this intersection,overused word, forgive me, of, you music, creativity, IP, tech for 25 years.
And you've seen a lot of disruption in that time, SFI, and uh they always, you know, rockthe world when they happen.
(24:18):
And I was really intrigued by something I read that was attributed to you.
correct me if it's wrong, but I'm gonna paraphrase it that I think it was in 2023, youeither wrote or recorded as saying that, you know, with AI, we find ourselves at the cusp
of another evolution, if not revolution, and that this was akin to, you know, steam orelectricity in terms of its fundamental effect on society.
(24:45):
a couple of years have passed.
So first of all, did I get that right in essence?
Good, yep, almost
Well, you know, I did read some stuff and maybe made some notes, but I wanted to make sureI got it right uh without reading the entire thing.
So a couple of years have passed.
uh Where do you think we are in that evolution, at least as it goes to uh media andentertainment?
(25:06):
Well, I think the reason why I am, you some people say it's a complete overreaction totalk about in that way, but I don't see it that way.
If we look at, you know, and again, I do believe this is a revolution.
Species don't tend to survive evolution.
uh So everyone says, it's just an evolution.
(25:28):
I'm not sure evolution is your friend.
uh I come from the island.
the only islands in the world where the dodo existed.
I say, look, evolution's not great, right?
But revolutions and industrial revolutions are survivable.
But my goodness, what changes?
Religion, news, knowledge, government, education, medicine, religion.
(25:52):
Do you see those things being changed by algorithms?
Because I do.
Hmm.
So this is not a new format.
This is not a new technology.
It's a paradigm shift that you have digital technologies which can reproduce and youstreaming technologies which can distribute.
(26:12):
This is not just a tool.
It's a paintbrush that can paint itself.
That's a new one.
And I think the earliest reference, people go back to Alan Ture.
again, a Brit, talking about a world where through a series of typed exchanges, you couldinteract with the computer so naturally you wouldn't know it's a machine.
(26:40):
There you are in natural language.
We're there.
Tick.
We're there.
Sure.
But if we talk about the opportunities to be able to re-understand and re-establish whatit is to work, know, the biggest conversations are is what is copyright?
What is learning?
What are tools?
What are repetitive jobs?
(27:01):
That's industrial revolution stuff.
And that is why it is there.
And then when you've got the change on knowledge and I'm not going to get too politicalhere, but truth.
we end up in a very, very, very different place and paradigms will change.
So that is why I'm firmly of the belief it is equivalent to those transformationaltechnologies.
(27:27):
There was a before and there was an after.
And I think that the danger is that people think when you use the word AI, you just meanchat GPT in the same way that Pupri said when you talk about the internet, they talk
about, you know, explorer, right?
That's just one window.
These algorithms, these pesky algorithms have been changing stuff since 2012.
(27:50):
Yeah, it's interesting.
was early in mobile technology and I spent a lot of time as essentially a paid evangelistwithin Group WPP to educate our clients on mobile.
So this was uh before the iPhone.
So this uh is pre-smartphone.
we took a very, especially Nokia was advertising heavily in those days.
(28:14):
And we took a very sort of positive view of what we saw as a transformational change.
that we put one of these devices in everybody's hands, something spectacular could happen.
And I think in some ways it did in terms of its effect on uh economies and places thatdidn't have wired telco infrastructure and things like that.
So it started out well.
(28:37):
I don't think it ended well.
Well, the thing that uh I remember, particularly with regard to something like Twitter,Americans would say, was that this unleashed the Arab Spring and it brought people
together and it meant that we could think what we were thinking together in real time.
And these wonderful things called Facebook, where you could see what your friends cancelout to what your mom was up to.
(29:02):
Right.
Only possible thing.
And of course the irony of digital is it leads to binary outcomes and that actually theissue we have is that we have to move from a ones and zeros perspective and much more
think about quantum.
I'm not talking about quantum computing.
I'm talking about things existing contemporaneously and simultaneously in a synchronousway.
(29:29):
And we behave asynchronously but our effects are bound together.
And look, you know, I think the parabola of these things means that ultimately we'll getthere.
But when, don't know.
But if people want to say to me that AI and algorithms and it's all, wow, when do youthink it might interfere with an election?
(29:58):
When do you think it might lead to wide-scale disinformation?
So that is one I believe is a revolution and that's why it's a revolutionary world that welive in right now and that my sincere hope that this is part of the kind of usual spasms
of a society trying to wrestle with key concepts of truth and key concepts of self.
(30:28):
and it's going to come into key concepts of work.
Most people's self-image and self-respect comes from the idea of work.
What happens if you strip that from people?
What does that become?
What do do?
Once we realize that actually we are not about repetitive tasks, when we understand thatwe're much more about, we don't have to do that, task-based things, when the agentic bots
(30:55):
come in and be able to do that kind of...
which represents the vast majority of what all of us do all day, repetitive administrativetasks essentially are brought together from that.
What happens when we're freed from that?
Dot, dot, dot.
Do we explore?
Do we develop?
Or do people rise up?
And again, these are revolutionary times.
(31:17):
These are the times that we have to be able to really focus on a North Star.
that's why eat that.
And the last thing I'll say with that before it gets too dark is all
fear comes from ignorance.
All of our worst traits as human beings come from ignorance.
Be that in relation to race or religion or politics or hatred is from the divide it is youare not me therefore you are my enemy.
(31:44):
Now if we can move to a world where we actually understand that we work together in thisquantum state, this non-binary way, and I don't mean it in that way, of us being able to
have these asynchronous beings with a synchronous outcome.
then it can work brilliantly.
And actually we could work to a world of universal abundance.
And we could come to the work of eliminating cancer.
(32:04):
We could come to the world of being able to eliminate poverty and relieve us from tediouswork and allow us to think about higher things.
I'll let you and my listeners judge where we are in that continuum right now, but that'swhat I think we need to be thinking about.
Right.
I think that's very well said.
And I appreciate your positing a potential positive version of this and a hopeful version.
(32:32):
I already, again, not to veer too far into politics, we are seeing what happens whenpeople feel
shut out or like they're not being productive or their jobs are being taken or whatever.
That's already been playing out certainly here in the US and I imagine elsewhere as well.
And it doesn't always, it typically does not have good outcomes and it certainly shapespeople's way of thinking and how they vote and who they rally behind.
(32:56):
And we see already extreme negative effects of those things.
So hopefully AI is a catalyst for the more positive outcome than more so than thenegative.
So with this, you know, it's probably too early to talk about who the winners and losersare because of AI in the entertainment marketplace.
uh And it's also difficult.
(33:18):
You know, I would love to say, you know, what's the status quo right now for copyright andfor rights holders, but it's, you know, we're all watch.
It's very fluid right now.
So it's difficult to say.
uh But while some of the legislation, some of the copyright law is not moving fast enough.
Um, you know, I wonder, it's difficult to sort of do business at the same time.
(33:42):
You know, I'm sure you were shocked as I was to read about the IC, ICMP's researchindicating that, you know, the, big player, big tech players, Google, Microsoft, Meta,
OpenAI, X have been scraping copyright protected music from a variety of places.
Um, which of course, you know, in my belief, at least infringes on songwriters, composersand other rights holders.
(34:06):
Um,
It makes me wonder, you know, is it too late?
Can we unscramble this egg?
Or is the damage done?
And are we inevitably moving towards fair use?
mean, what are you able to predict or to make any guesses about this now?
Yeah, can, let's, and again, one of the benefits of uh being old is seeing things and, youknow, all things have happened before and all things will happen again.
(34:40):
And my concern is whenever a new technology comes along, uh the music industry tends topull something out of its bag called allowing perfection to be the enemy of the good.
Mm.
So uh there are so many uses of copyrighted music right now that not being collected, notbeing attributed.
(35:04):
That doesn't mean we stop it from happening.
What we do is we create licenses.
You have public performance licenses, have background music licenses, you have streaminglicenses.
All of those things were highly illegal before they were licensed.
So for me, copyright is not the problem.
Licensing is the answer.
ah I'm fully aware how copyright works, but copyright really is at its best when it'srewarding creators, where it's allowing people to profit from their endeavors and not
(35:38):
necessarily where it's just about stopping things for the sake of that.
Otherwise you wouldn't be able to play music in your car.
If you had to go and get a license for every time you did that.
And secondly, yes, allegedly, these big organizations have been, we say, scraping, right?
So one of the things that if you read some of the histories of Disney, Michael Eisnerdecided that he was going to sue Apple because the original iTunes ad said, mix, burn.
(36:11):
And his view was rip meant rip you off.
Mm.
He didn't realize that that was just a technical process before that shifting, which inthe UK for very long time is completely illegal, by the way.
m
For those who don't remember, RIP was generally referred to ripping a CD where you tookthe contents of a CD, made your own copy, let's say for personal use, et cetera, et which
(36:34):
should be legal, uh and uh was challenging and probably never the best word to use forthat process.
Exactly.
But that's the issue, right?
So and they have been learning at a huge level.
And in the same way that you take these things in deliberately or inadvertently.
(36:57):
The legal test when a chiron was sued by the Marvin Gaye estate on thinking out loudwasn't have you heard Marvin Gaye before was have you copied and caused me economic harm?
That was the question.
So personally, and it is a completely personal perspective, I think at the moment weshould be focused on the outputs.
(37:23):
I do believe that people should be able to, if you create something using some of thesetools that happens to do that.
And the point about this, Michael, is I can make copper enrichment with chalk, with penciland paper, an iPhone.
You can ban those things.
You hit the harm.
So and I see a lot of focus on inputs.
(37:45):
I'm not seeing anywhere near the same energy, creativity or money being spent on licensingthe outputs.
So what we need to move too fast are sustainable ways in order to be able to attributevalue to music.
Otherwise we're all screwed.
Understood.
(38:06):
It'll be like the early days of the internet where the music industry made the square rootof you know what
Yeah.
So that's, I think you're, you're bringing a really interesting perspective to this.
So when it comes to the day to day practical things that you have to do as a result, theentire industry is essentially, um, I'm to make some metaphors here, flying the plane
(38:32):
while we're still building it.
And this seems necessary, right?
You still have to do contracts.
You still have to do licensing deals.
How do you approach contracts when
copyright is unsettled and the methodologies for uh compensation down the road, uh know,collection tracking, etc.
(38:52):
is still unsettled.
uh It'll continue to evolve.
But how do you protect your clients?
How do you uh arrive at a fair methodology for making this all work?
Well, I mean, we're at that stasis at the moment where the nature is that, you know,unless I'm acting for a production library that has all the rights brought out and has the
(39:15):
masters and publishing and has all the relevant rights from the creators and performers,et cetera, et cetera, that they can grant those rights.
But those rights aren't being granted.
But there are companies that I'm working with.
So, for example, in the voice generation space, not music voice.
but voice generation space that are building new models of value.
(39:37):
and one of them, know, voiceover artists, oh, it's the death of voiceover artists.
And we said, okay, well, let's track the world of a voiceover artist.
You do 50 to 100 auditions a year, you get three jobs, you get paid once.
How about we clone your voice and it goes into a marketplace with every use and everylanguage and every iteration of art that you get.
(40:02):
wow, really?
Or there's an extraordinary company called Bria, B-R-I-A, who have, with total permission,trained on some of the world's best and largest photographic libraries.
It will generate an image for you, and whichever image you choose to purchase, it can thenreport back to the rights holders on a pixel-by-pixel basis, based upon what percentage of
(40:27):
the revenue it's gone into that.
The tools we need to do, and I...
uh I'm almost tired of the number of people who said we can't have multiple stakeholdersown control elements of a piece of music and then I asked them to explain to me how
publishing works.
(40:48):
Right, it's already happening today, yeah.
Yeah, makes sense.
we have, and I'm going to use a word that everyone hates, well, I'm not going to usestatutory licensing, but we have collection licensing, have blanket licensing, have opt-in
licensing, so many ways across the music industry, yet no one can tell me that there isn'ta way to get this stuff licensed that is.
(41:11):
What needs to happen is we need to lift the throttle on control and focus upon gettingpaid.
You know, I've come up with a very, very, very complicated
assessment of the music industry and licensing.
When I say licensing is the answer.
When we've licensed a technology, platform, Muse, we've made money.
(41:34):
And every time we haven't licensed a platform, we've made no money.
That's it.
And I can't find any other recorded example of that being wrong.
Do technology, I have to imagine that technology companies generally want as leastrestrictive licenses as they can get because they don't necessarily know everything about
(41:59):
how and when they will use some of the content that they've licensed, right?
We can't this is is the point but again, you know, this is kind of Schrodinger's IP,right?
um It's there and it's not so these are you know, delete all IP certain tech bro oligarchssaid right just try infringing one of their trademarks Try and access one of the databases
(42:22):
Try and some user there some of their design rights.
I mean some of their confidential information
Right, exactly.
You can't touch our data.
I IP, you mean inconvenient.
know, there's this concept in patent law, which is fair, reasonable, andnon-discriminatory.
(42:43):
Which is once a patent has been out for number of years, you are under a duty to licenseit on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms.
The deal on patents is you will be given an exclusivity, will be given a monopoly onpayment, but you have to move the state of the art and science forward.
to other people need to be able to use that technology.
(43:03):
Please don't tell me, and these technology companies abide by that in every single othercomponent in their devices.
What they don't like dealing with is an asset which may have five, six, 10 constituentparts, and one of those constituent's parts can just say no, for the sake of saying no.
(43:24):
And that's where blanket license, collective license, and all of these other things thatwe use all the time.
You'll get people that, no, no, no, we can't have statutory licensing.
Well, how does radio work?
statutory license.
Yeah.
How can I do a cover version?
(43:44):
All these things that don't exist in music, they'll tell you that, but it's not true.
Spoiler alert.
Right, Understood.
I love your perspective on this.
uh So thank you for sharing all that.
So I'm going to shift gears just a little bit.
Certainly the Music Tech UK membership is diverse and in terms of the business models andthe sectors that they're playing in, from AI generated music to immersive live
(44:13):
experiences, it's a pretty broad range of things.
What trends are you watching that are interesting?
uh
What are the areas that you think are ripe for disruption and development?
Um, I'll just start with one word.
Um, as the Americans will call it data, you know, sort of data, we would say data waswithin Australian estates, we data.
(44:38):
Um, you know, um, biggest companies in the world.
Apple, Google, meta, yeah, for that, that flicks data, data, Our data is
garbage.
Secondly, I say that the music industry, I think one of its original sins is that it'streated data as if it's music copyright.
(45:06):
If it's useful for you, I'm going to stop you being able to use it because it's mine.
Without a global repertoire database, without the opportunity for music to travelunencumbered, you don't unleash the trillions of dollars that the mobile phone companies
did years ago when they set up the global standards in mobile and decided that we're goingto cooperate.
(45:28):
over data packages.
Right.
Interoperability is huge for like MIDI.
When MIDI was introduced, suddenly the music instrument uh industry went boom, you know,because suddenly all those synthesizers, sequencers, drum machines could all communicate
with each other over a common language.
Absolutely.
(45:48):
So if we can sort that out and it's not a magic bullet and then we start applying thosedata to solve our industry's biggest problems and that's the problem for everyone.
Discovery, payment, play listing, the opportunity to be able to connect with your fans,the opportunity to able to sell more.
(46:08):
These are all data problems.
Got it.
Yeah, that's very interesting.
Certainly, you know, a company like Muse, where I work for us, and Muse was in thebusiness of aggregating data that labels had, but hadn't normalized even within their own
label groups in some cases, and aggregating and normalizing that data for the entireindustry at the time.
(46:31):
And it meant you could go away and commercialize it for the first time.
Right.
And while Muse uh was a good business, the fact that the industry had not decided to dothat on their own was always sort of amazing to me uh because I always had the uh history
of MIDI in mind when I think it was Roland that originally developed it.
(46:52):
And then they basically gave it to the industry and created a nonprofit to run it.
I'm sure I'm butchering that, but that's the essence of it.
They realized that a uh strong protocol
would be enough to float all boats in the industry and that they would benefit from thatand that they needed the others to be successful.
the fact that a company like Muse uh existed, it was a good thing, uh but it wasindicative of a bad thing in a way that the labels were not able to do this on their own.
(47:20):
You couldn't call a label and get a good list.
They had to send us CDs in order to be able to do this physical product.
remember well.
Which we were very happy to receive the CDs.
We had a fantastic library.
uh
which we could borrow from when we wanted to, but it was always surprising to me that theindustry as a whole was not doing this sort of normalization and aggregation of data in
(47:43):
their own way.
So it's interesting.
Are there personal stories that uh you can share from working with disruptive companies orstartups?
I realize that there are.
challenges when entrepreneurs come in and maybe don't understand the landscape well enoughand don't understand what labels will won't do what publishers will want to do that kind
of thing.
(48:03):
But I'm curious, you you work with with a lot of disruptive players.
which left or are leaving, I guess would be a way to put it, sort of a lasting impressionon you.
Um, look, I mean, one of the things I'm often asked is why do you spend all the time withthese startups and they don't make money and most of them fail.
(48:28):
The truth is you learn from them.
learned from them.
there's a bravery and there's an outdoors, perspective that's really that we could learn alot from.
think one of things that's really important to understand is companies that enter ourecosystem.
where they're willing to engage with advisors and the rest of the ecosystem do really,really well.
(48:51):
Those are the companies that make the ones that grown.
The ones that just want to disrupt for the sake of disrupting, haven't tended to do verywell.
uh So I think that that again is one of the reasons back to using a weave back to MTUK,getting people having working great people around them, having great community, having
(49:11):
people they can work with and collaborate with.
That is a key difference.
So I think that that for me is what really stands out is those that want to really reallylearn how the ecosystem works You know all too many times that you Michael have to say to
someone look if I came to you and I said Michael I want to set up a studio I Don't knowhow it works.
(49:33):
I don't know cost I don't know it's delivered I know the technology with but I'm gonnadisrupt the studio market you had every reason to roll your eyes
Yeah.
I see the equivalent of that too many times.
However, I've got a hypothesis, I've got a thought that something here might innovate thebusiness model.
(49:58):
I'd like to help you get me there and formulate that.
Could you help me?
And that's what the guys at Tarniart did.
We completely innovated the business model of studios.
So I think that that curiosity is the most important.
Understood.
(50:19):
With that bit, you've answered a few of my questions already.
ah What are the mistakes that people make and how can they avoid them?
And what advice would you give to somebody who's building a business uh in music techright now?
What about...
(50:39):
I've done some of it already, I think, but please, I don't want to cut you off.
Give me something here that you, you feel strongly about.
Don't hire the wrong lawyer and hire the right lawyer.
It is about working with the ecosystem.
I've seen so many people literally over the last 30 years, I'm going to take the majorlabels down.
(51:00):
They appear to be very much there.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
How do you work with them?
How do you bring value?
How do you create new models?
How do you think that, which is what Daniel and Spotify people did.
If you can bring people value, what the iTunes did in relation to the completely wild westthat was in relation to peer-to-peer and provide better experiences.
(51:26):
ah Jobs wanted to through his device and through his iLight platform, which rebranded hisiTunes.
wanted to give people a seamless consumer experience and make people pay for music wheneveryone was downloading it for free.
Daniel wanted to create an experience that was better than piracy.
Using this new technology on the nodes that would be these streams could be delivered inan extraordinary way.
(51:50):
These are additive.
And I think that that is what we should be looking for in the next generation of startups.
Right.
Thank you for that.
Another question I like to ask you is individuals.
It's an industry that many people want to get into.
(52:11):
They may not always know what they're in for.
I want to be next to artists or I'm a musician.
want to be working at a label that used to be...
That's my favorite one.
Yeah.
I'm a cheater
As a guy who did management for a while, I know that it's a tricky business and notsomething you should probably tread into lightly um or easily.
(52:35):
You want to be careful.
uh But a lot of people still want to work in this business.
uh And I think that technology is certainly creating more opportunities in some cases andmay have eliminated some others as it will typically do.
Do you have advice for individuals in terms of how to get their feet wet, how to get theirfirst job?
(52:56):
how to network to the places that make sense.
Oh, that's a very, very wide question.
mean, I think it is I used to second appearance of this word in this podcast, which iscuriosity, right?
Reaching out to the right people, reaching out to the right industry things, reading thedaily bulletins that you and I read, connecting with that understanding, learning, etc.
(53:23):
Right.
The more you learn about the ecosystem, the more likely you are going to be able to tackleit head on.
back to my story about you know if life was a game laws are rules and you stood a reallyreally good chance of learning the rules you know i have the equivalent sometimes of
dealing people right when i'm beat you at chess i have no idea of any of the rules but i'mgonna win
(53:45):
There's a bit too much of that going on.
Yeah.
A little bit of uh perhaps hubris or arrogance in some cases, which is never a good lookwhen you're trying to get your start.
I think curiosity is huge.
I, as somebody who's hired and managed quite a few people over the course of my career,those who come in and haven't already figured out what the company does and how it does
(54:09):
it, haven't started to understand the ecosystem, were generally disqualified, at least byme, right out of the gate.
Very hard to have confidence in somebody without a strong sense of curiosity because we'reparticularly in tech.
You have to be learning new things all the time.
Shifting gears.
What are you listening to these days?
(54:30):
What am I listening to?
Too many podcasts about the news, but that's another subject.
What I am genuinely loving is the opportunity to be able to rediscover a lot more of themusic of my youth.
So when you're young, you tend to listen within your tribe, you tend to listen to what youknew.
(54:50):
And actually one of the things I've really enjoyed is going back and
listening to all those obscure songs and sounds of the seventies that I didn't listen tothat weren't on top 40 radio.
actually you realize just quite how, you know, delicate and integrate the pattern of it.
Hmm.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
It's the fact that you can hear about something and quickly dial it up and get it ondemand.
(55:12):
And I hope stream it often or actually purchase it in some other fashion.
uh If you really turned on by it, we are in some ways living in the best period of, of, ofall for, for consuming music.
Uh, yeah, I was also fascinated by, I spoke with, uh, Gary Jones at Medi Music as part ofthis project and, uh,
(55:34):
He shared some very interesting information about how men and women react differently tomusic from their Halcyon days and things like that.
It's fascinating stuff, but the idea that music discovery is wide open now with a common,I wish that there was more meta content available within most of the streaming platforms.
It's still really spotty and not very good.
(55:54):
uh But if you're willing to Google an artist and explore their material and then go findit, if there's no better time now to
bounce around with all sorts of uh music either from past or present.
uh So uh we mentioned already how to get involved with Music Tech UK for those who want todo it.
(56:14):
So I won't spend much more time on that.
And is there a favorite music tech innovation that you've seen in the past year that youthink is worth sharing?
Is there anything that you just watch and went, oh man, this is cool?
Yeah, this is quite a few.
think one of the things that you know back to our mandated topic of AI I've been reallyinterested in this attribution based technology.
(56:40):
So things like Brea and working with a company called umbrella UH MBRE LLA umbrella um Andumbrella have extraordinary technology which can detect what the elements are or
AI generated music.
Not necessarily to stop it, but actually to get us on the step of attribution.
(57:01):
It's really, really extraordinary and actually makes you understand that sounds are atapestry and we can learn a lot when we unpick that.
Fantastic, yes.
And it fits well with your vision of what we need to be doing rather than uh licensing,than working on attribution, rather than stopping it from happening.
So I appreciate that.
(57:22):
So thank you very much for this.
We're a little over time, but it feels like we covered a lot of good stuff.
So I'm excited.
I won't be editing too much out because I think so much of it was so good.
Any final thoughts you want to share before we go?
No, not for all of the doom and gloom.
We are privileged to work in this world of music.
We're privileged to help write its next verse.
(57:47):
I hope that we're at a bridge rather than end of anything really, and that it'll be reallyexciting to see where it leads to.
Got it.
Well, I really appreciate your time today.
This was a lot of fun for me.
And I learned a lot listening to you and you changed my thinking on some things, which isalways good because I am curious and it drives me every day.
And that's why I love doing these interviews.
(58:08):
So thank you very much for joining me.
If I can ever be helpful to you in any way, by all means, let me know.
And to our listeners, uh follow Cliff and
figure out what he's doing and learn more about Music Tech UK by all means.
I'll share some links in the show notes.
And uh thank you again for joining.
(58:29):
Thanks for having me Mike.
It's the Kick and Snare Podcast.
Let's count it off.
Welcome to Kick and Snare.
I'm Michael Nevins, your host of the Kick and Snare podcast.
(00:23):
My guest today is Cliff Fleway.
Cliff is an attorney and partner at Louis Silkin, where he's the joint head of the mediaand entertainment practice.
But wait, there's more.
Cliff is also chair of music tech UK, music technology UK, to say it all out loud.
Music tech UK should be familiar to many of you if you've listened to any of my otherepisodes, because I've interviewed many of their members and also one of their founders.
(00:48):
He's also the founder of Levin Advisory.
I'm sure there's more, we're going to let Cliff tell us.
So welcome, Cliff.
Thanks for joining.
Thank you for having me.
My pleasure.
So I'd like to focus on uh three main areas today.
They'll say this for the sake of our listeners and our watchers.
I'm sure we'll jump around a bit and that's okay.
(01:09):
But I'd like to focus on your professional pursuits, your career background.
Second, I'd like to learn more about your role with MusicTech UK, which uh is not brandnew but has changed.
And so I want to get into that.
And then I'd also like to get into more general things like, you know,
Spend some time getting insights on the state of music and other IP rights in the age ofAI, which you live in every day, and zoom in on your advice for entrepreneurs and others
(01:38):
who are looking to make their lives better in the space.
So that's where I'd like to jump off.
OK.
So your career spans law, media, tech.
Tell us your story.
You know, how it began and how it's going story is something I'd love to jump into.
(02:01):
Well, I was born a pole, no.
So I have been an attorney, qualified about 30 years ago.
But my first orbit around the of music tech was when I was at school, I worked everySaturday selling hi-fi.
(02:21):
So I sold the hi-fi to audio files for several years.
was an area of London, a bit like Fifth Avenue in New York used to sell electronics inLondon, would be Totten Court Road.
And I went to the biggest electronic store and, um, hi-fi.
And I got to play with all the gear that I could never afford.
And it was really cool and really fun.
(02:43):
And, um, I was a pretty good salesperson because I used to read the, um, manuals and thebrochures and things like that overnight.
And as I found out, it's really easy to sell something if you know what it is.
Makes sense.
that's what I did.
So I grew up with a huge fan of music.
I grew up someone who really loved tech, music tech and gear and things like that.
(03:05):
um But I thought that actually rather than selling high five for a living, being a lawyermight be a bit more of an interesting and challenging career.
My phrase was and then was, you know, life's a game, law's the rules.
And if you want to win the game, it's quite helpful to know the rules.
So um I studied law.
uh
(03:27):
And that was the first time I'd heard about these things called in-house lawyers.
And infamously, I was told about this world of in-house lawyers at record labels.
And they had fridges in their office with beer in it.
And they're really sexy.
And I asked the question, why does a record company need a lawyer?
(03:49):
Which is a thing I've heard over and over again.
um And that was parked in my brain, qualified.
I'm just a few weeks qualified and I see an ad for something which was known as anewspaper for a job at a record label.
It was my favorite record label.
It was Warner Music, the one that most of my biggest, the artists I was the biggest fan ofwere signed to.
(04:14):
So I applied and I got in.
So yeah, so I ended up in the music industry in the mid 90s, probably the apex of theindustry, the apex of the CD boom.
But then um the internet arrived and that's where my world flipped upside down.
ah To quote the Fresh Prince, if you're allowed to do that these days.
(04:38):
uh yeah, so I became one of the first people at Warner Music Group focused on new media.
ah And frankly, lots of people ran from it screaming.
Sure.
Figuratively, but sometimes literally.
(04:58):
as well as having to do all the fun small labels and corporate and sync and licensing andall those fantastic things.
Um, the most important thing and the most fun thing was dealing with this world of newmedia and getting to work with the earliest iterations of streaming of UTC and all of
those businesses.
So that was my plan and I really enjoyed it.
(05:20):
I really loved it.
Got to meet many of my favorite artists, got to work with many of my favorite artists andyou know, I was very lucky time.
But I could tell very, very clearly, as clear as day that things were going to change andthey were going to get really, really bad.
And I decided that had to go and work on the platform side.
(05:46):
The world of music, world of records, very, comfortable.
But I set up my exit interview.
I've got to go on the other side and get some rights from you or we're all screwed shallwe say.
Precise wording that I use but there you are.
So I went into the radio business and I spent five years in the world of radio.
(06:10):
The world of records and world of radio were intimately linked but neither tended to knowabout each other very much at all in any way shape or form.
uh
And really what we wanted to do was have an opportunity to be able to go and commercializeand actually get these rights.
So it's been five years.
What's now global radio was then capital radio, which was the largest pure play commercialradio group in Europe.
(06:34):
And that's where I learned about sponsorship and advertising and monetization andinfrastructure, licensing rights, and all the things that people at labels don't have to
do.
and have the opportunity to be able to grow up.
So I spent five years in records, five years in radio, and for last 20 years, because Iwon't do this in real time, um I was trying to find some decent lawyers and I was trying
(07:00):
to find people I could instruct.
And in a slightly um frustrated moment, I complained to one of the firms that I wastalking to that I really, really, really wanted to um have an opportunity to work with
some lawyers who could focus on the future rather than what is.
happening right now.
(07:20):
And one thing led to another and then I did the strangest thing and spent 10 years as anin-house lawyer went back into private practice.
And that was at the time of 2005.
I worked with lots of big mobile companies and then the earliest days of music streaming.
So started working with the very earliest streamings from Pandora all the way through toall of the big DSPs and then Vivo and then Pledge.
(07:47):
influences and really my whole raison d'etre has been about how do you make money when themusic industry has gone through such significant seismic change.
The last thing about what I do in relation to now was a few years in I realized thatactually because I'd spent so much time in industry and I knew so many people, people
(08:08):
wanted my strategic insight probably as much if not more than the legal stuff.
people were sort of giving me some terms and conditions and then sort of handing me abusiness plan and I was able to charge for one and not the other.
So I decided to set up an advisory firm and that was Born 11.
It is a spinal tap gag.
(08:28):
uh
You took one of my questions out of my mouth.
yeah, it's for the tap.
It's what we have scheduled.
My wife and I are attending this evening, in fact.
Fantastic.
time difference, just very slightly ahead of you.
(08:49):
Um, yeah, spoilers, spoilers.
Um, but that was an opportunity for me.
And one of my first clients at 11 was the world's first creative AI music company, uh,company called Duke deck.
And I've worked with companies across music recognition, AI.
(09:11):
catalog acquisitions, distribution, immersive technology, blockchain, you name it, as astrategic advisor and a lawyer in a quantum state.
So that's what I do, and that's what I do all day.
One of the issues you mentioned as well as music tech in the UK.
So a year ago, just over a year ago, uh a gentleman by the name of Matt Cartmell, who Ithink you've spoken to uh on various occasions before, he came to me.
(09:40):
and said, Cliff, why isn't there a music tech UK?
There's a music tech Germany, there's a music tech France, there's a music tech Estonia.
Why is there not a music tech UK?
And I was like, I just do not know the answer to that.
I don't have a good answer to that question.
So he said, well, if we set it up, would you chair it?
And I said, no, because I chair lots of things and I sit on lots of boards.
(10:02):
And also I didn't want this to be about me.
I wanted this to be about the ecosystem, but I'll help.
So it was launched.
and it grew and in a very very short time got well over 100 members and as it's grown Ifinally succumbed and said look I'll give it some governance and leadership and some
strategic because it's doing really really well so right that's my time at Mistake.
(10:26):
Got it.
So thank you for sharing all of that, first of all.
And I've found, because I've spoken with Matt quite a bit, and now several members ofMusicTech UK who have fairly diverse businesses, in fact, with some, they share some
common challenges, that's for sure, but they're all approaching the industry a little bitdifferently, rightly so.
(10:53):
You started as a founder.
You now are recently named the chair.
uh What led you to make that transition to be, I guess, more deeply involved or at leastmore essentially responsible for the charter?
Tell me where it is and where you think it should go.
I mean, look, being a bit of a stickler for governance, when I was at what was CapitalRadio, it was a listed vehicle and I was the company secretary, so I was the of the
(11:21):
general counsel and company secretary, so you're kind of the conscience of the board.
You realize that actually there's two things that a good board should do.
One is provide governance, surety to the stakeholders and ecosystem and making sure thatif they're paying advertising or they're paying dividends or they're buying shares that...
They've got some trust into the organization and understand that, you know, it's not goingto be something where it's going to get threaded away or anything like that.
(11:51):
But and also too is to represent the voice of the stakeholders over me.
And then number three, to give it strategic direction.
You know, if you are a founder, if you're a CEO, it's a pretty lonely job.
And actually the relationship between a chair and CEO, when it works well, it's
It's someone that will back you, it's someone that will mentor you, and it's someone thatwill give you some really good pointers.
(12:15):
But I also want to say that it is a team game, right?
We have a band, not a cellist.
So I also brought in a Kickass board from places like Spitfire Audio and SonorusConsulting and Beatport.
And then we've got a much wider advisory board where we've got people from Tube Global andIlluminate and you name it.
(12:36):
We've brought in a really good bunch of people.
None of these people are being paid.
None of these people are doing it for their own aggrandizement or clients or anything likethat.
They're doing it because actually they want the ecosystem to thrive.
And that's the kind of people I love working with.
that's the great people we've got at MusiTech UK.
(12:57):
So I've asked several members of Music Tech UK, because I've been fortunate enough to beable to interview them here.
uh So I have a view in terms of what they see as the biggest challenge facing music techstartups right now, particularly those in the UK.
So we should focus on that perspective.
How would you answer the question?
(13:17):
What is the biggest single challenge or the top two that you see for your membership?
I think the top one, the top two and top three is funding.
It has to be.
We live in a world where technology investments, particularly post pandemic, were nearinfinite.
(13:38):
Huge opportunity to demonstrate in the pandemic that whilst live music was hurt, theopportunity to be able to scale, to grow and develop through social platforms and...
extend your career and your fan base and your data or et cetera, et cetera, was, waslegion.
So if you're a tech company during that, what it was crazy.
(14:00):
But when it comes to music tech, has a number of significant challenges.
It has, you know, highly fragmented ecosystem.
You've got an ecosystem with very, very unaligned outcomes and or incentives that I'm notjust talking about masters in publishing.
I'm talking about promoters and I'm talking about PROs and I'm talking about investors.
(14:21):
uh We are cursed and blessed with working in music.
So if you work in music or in and around music, if you work in something where everyone'sgot an opinion, that opinion tends to trump fact very, very quickly.
And I suspect people who work at a football club or a baseball club feel exactly the same,right?
(14:42):
You know, I don't like you because no, no, no, this is a business, right?
This is how we make money.
This is how we tell tickets and blah, blah, blah.
Yes, we lost the last five games, we're still in but do know what mean?
And as it's one of those things that because most people consume it and most people bringit in they conflate that with that knowledge and I use that in air quotes for those are
(15:02):
sure radio to to expertise very very quickly so and then of course we've got this otherissue about a highly fragmented way of Being able to work with the biggest stakeholders,
you know
lot of these companies want to work with labels, they want to work with DSPs, they want towork with PROs, and frankly, none of them know how.
(15:24):
And that's an observation, not a criticism.
But one of the things that we are laser-focused on at MusiTech UK is how do you build anecosystem where people and founders can work together?
How we can get a referral network so people can have proof of concepts or pilots with eachother, allow people to achieve product-market fit, and maybe even a tiny bit of revenue.
(15:47):
That's what unlocks funding.
So it's not a chicken and egg situation.
We've got an egg.
We need to break that egg.
It needs to do some stuff.
And then it has to have some value to someone in order for it to be of significant value.
One of the other things I've heard from members, which I didn't initially expect, was astrong sense of community within MusicTech UK.
(16:12):
And that was a really nice thing to hear.
was heartening, I guess would be the right word, that even outside of the sort of statedmission goals, et cetera, which I'm happy for you to go deeper on, the very idea that they
could come to uh a common place physically, meet with each other, ask questions.
(16:34):
get a little smarter, get some advice, seemed to be something that came up over and overagain.
And I'm sure that you're a part of providing that environment.
And at least that's what I've gathered from some of the folks.
Would you mind speaking to that at all?
Well, I mean, I to give huge credit also as well to a gentleman by the name of Andy Allen.
(16:54):
And Andy, whose day job is the founder and CEO of BSI Merge, he has a space in East Londoncalled the House of Media and Entertainment, which spells home.
And he has created a home for MusiTech UK.
So any MusiTech UK members can just rock up there.
We have events there every week.
(17:15):
We have gatherings.
We have a space.
And that does help foster a sense of community.
We also host events with our partners and ecosystem holders.
So we have some of my offices, we have some offices in relation to professional advisors,platforms, you name it, who just want to meet interesting people.
So that whole sense of place and space are the two core consistence of community.
(17:42):
And once those things can exist on Slack group or WhatsApp chat, culture dead,
Actually, if you've got a place where people can bump into each other and have the kind ofhappy accidents that we're starting to see, that's so important building any ecosystem.
I helped build a music studios tech ecosystem in London called Tile Yard Studios, whichoriginally started as seven tiny studios daisy chained together.
(18:10):
There's now over 200 creative businesses, 150 music studios there.
It's the world's largest concentration of music.
studios in a space near King's Cross.
building an ecosystem is a contradiction in terms.
You grow it.
It's more like farming than building.
(18:30):
And you have to create the conditions.
You have to put things next to each other that are going to spark.
You're to have opportunities for people to cross-pollinate.
And no, that's not a euphemism.
And work together.
And you'll see these things grow.
And at Tile Yard, have one of the world's biggest companies, Apple.
who has an extraordinary base there to the newest and hottest of startups in ticketing,merch and MRT, as well as a whole bunch of creators and curators and people that want to
(18:59):
bring value.
And businesses that have grown massive like Spitfire Audio have grown, started atTarniard, grown all the way to Exit to Delights of Splice and been really, really
successful.
growing an ecosystem, having that sense of space and place and building that together.
And you use of course digital tools to amplify that to make it more efficient.
(19:24):
But, but, it is something completely
Understood.
That's good to hear.
That's a good story.
And I think certainly what I've heard from members is that it works and it's happening.
so even in a short period of time, you seem to have accomplished a lot as a group.
congratulations on that.
(19:45):
you.
Yeah.
So this is another topic I've raised with Matt Cartmell and others in your group.
I'm tuned into digital.
audio tech and the industry in uh a way that lay people certainly aren't.
And I'm aware of the great research, the great development, the great ideation, thecreativity that's coming out of the UK music tech scene.
(20:16):
Do you feel that it's, as a group, as a country, getting its due?
in terms of music innovation, do people look to the UK to the degree that they should?
Well, think historically they did.
mean, you know, it's where...
I mean, Abbey Road is where stereo was invented.
Right.
Indeed.
(20:36):
EMI was making incredible things happen.
Yeah.
50 years ago.
Right.
But again, you know, and if you talk about, you know, where did Spotify grow?
Where did SMS grow?
Where do these core technologies and digital, mobile and streaming, et cetera, et cetera,et cetera, you know, they may be founded elsewhere, but they are grown in the UK.
(20:57):
know, so of course, you've got everything from the infrastructure, it's capital city,there's a vibrant investment market.
And of course, you've got major conurbations of the labels.
uh And even when I was at Warner Music.
the US would often use the UK as a petri dish and it wouldn't be able to test thingsbefore you start, you know, because it is, of course, a country, not a continent, unlike
(21:19):
the USA.
So you have an opportunity to be able to do that.
And then, of course, there's our heritage in music, you know, I say to often to lawmakers,why should we help the music industry?
Because it's one of the only things that we are the best in the world at.
We are the
(21:40):
third largest net exporter of music in the world.
It's the US, it's Japan, and then it's the UK.
But if you take a relative size of Japan and the UK, we are by far, for pound, the mostsuccessful country in the world when it comes to music and music innovation.
(22:00):
One in 10 tracks to the stream are from a British or UK artist.
So yeah, we're kind of a big deal.
But at the same time, what we don't have is, you we don't have the equivalent of a Sony,and I'm not talking about Sony music, but Sony Corp, which has a huge electronics
heritage.
And in the US, of course, you've got the Valley, where lots of them are music fans andlots of them like tech and they come together.
(22:26):
So what we need to do is be able to understand and reinvigorate us as the center andleaders in music and music tech.
of the many
Companies I have either advised or observed in the UK They all get bought by US or Chineseor Swedish companies Right on top and that's something you have to change as well
(22:52):
Understood.
So for individuals or companies who are interested in getting involved with MusicTech UK,it's MusicTechnology UK if I say it all the way out.
Google it, get involved, join up, they're a friendly organization.
They have lots to offer you.
If you're not already in, you should be, let put it that way.
(23:15):
So I'll move forward on some topics.
We have not really touched on AI yet, which has got to be part of the conversation.
I believe it's
It is.
I'm reminded of the fact that some of the best research happening right now is coming outof Queen Mary University.
(23:35):
David Ronan and I at RoEx, let me make sure I get the name out there for David's sake,discussed this in our conversation.
Those who are paying attention to music retrieval, audio, and AI will certainly be awareof this.
really strong bright spot for uh UK music tech scene.
(23:57):
uh But I've been thinking about this, you you advise clients in this intersection,overused word, forgive me, of, you music, creativity, IP, tech for 25 years.
And you've seen a lot of disruption in that time, SFI, and uh they always, you know, rockthe world when they happen.
(24:18):
And I was really intrigued by something I read that was attributed to you.
correct me if it's wrong, but I'm gonna paraphrase it that I think it was in 2023, youeither wrote or recorded as saying that, you know, with AI, we find ourselves at the cusp
of another evolution, if not revolution, and that this was akin to, you know, steam orelectricity in terms of its fundamental effect on society.
(24:45):
a couple of years have passed.
So first of all, did I get that right in essence?
Good, yep, almost
Well, you know, I did read some stuff and maybe made some notes, but I wanted to make sureI got it right uh without reading the entire thing.
So a couple of years have passed.
uh Where do you think we are in that evolution, at least as it goes to uh media andentertainment?
(25:06):
Well, I think the reason why I am, you some people say it's a complete overreaction totalk about in that way, but I don't see it that way.
If we look at, you know, and again, I do believe this is a revolution.
Species don't tend to survive evolution.
uh So everyone says, it's just an evolution.
(25:28):
I'm not sure evolution is your friend.
uh I come from the island.
the only islands in the world where the dodo existed.
I say, look, evolution's not great, right?
But revolutions and industrial revolutions are survivable.
But my goodness, what changes?
Religion, news, knowledge, government, education, medicine, religion.
(25:52):
Do you see those things being changed by algorithms?
Because I do.
Hmm.
So this is not a new format.
This is not a new technology.
It's a paradigm shift that you have digital technologies which can reproduce and youstreaming technologies which can distribute.
(26:12):
This is not just a tool.
It's a paintbrush that can paint itself.
That's a new one.
And I think the earliest reference, people go back to Alan Ture.
again, a Brit, talking about a world where through a series of typed exchanges, you couldinteract with the computer so naturally you wouldn't know it's a machine.
(26:40):
There you are in natural language.
We're there.
Tick.
We're there.
Sure.
But if we talk about the opportunities to be able to re-understand and re-establish whatit is to work, know, the biggest conversations are is what is copyright?
What is learning?
What are tools?
What are repetitive jobs?
(27:01):
That's industrial revolution stuff.
And that is why it is there.
And then when you've got the change on knowledge and I'm not going to get too politicalhere, but truth.
we end up in a very, very, very different place and paradigms will change.
So that is why I'm firmly of the belief it is equivalent to those transformationaltechnologies.
(27:27):
There was a before and there was an after.
And I think that the danger is that people think when you use the word AI, you just meanchat GPT in the same way that Pupri said when you talk about the internet, they talk
about, you know, explorer, right?
That's just one window.
These algorithms, these pesky algorithms have been changing stuff since 2012.
(27:50):
Yeah, it's interesting.
was early in mobile technology and I spent a lot of time as essentially a paid evangelistwithin Group WPP to educate our clients on mobile.
So this was uh before the iPhone.
So this uh is pre-smartphone.
we took a very, especially Nokia was advertising heavily in those days.
(28:14):
And we took a very sort of positive view of what we saw as a transformational change.
that we put one of these devices in everybody's hands, something spectacular could happen.
And I think in some ways it did in terms of its effect on uh economies and places thatdidn't have wired telco infrastructure and things like that.
So it started out well.
(28:37):
I don't think it ended well.
Well, the thing that uh I remember, particularly with regard to something like Twitter,Americans would say, was that this unleashed the Arab Spring and it brought people
together and it meant that we could think what we were thinking together in real time.
And these wonderful things called Facebook, where you could see what your friends cancelout to what your mom was up to.
(29:02):
Right.
Only possible thing.
And of course the irony of digital is it leads to binary outcomes and that actually theissue we have is that we have to move from a ones and zeros perspective and much more
think about quantum.
I'm not talking about quantum computing.
I'm talking about things existing contemporaneously and simultaneously in a synchronousway.
(29:29):
And we behave asynchronously but our effects are bound together.
And look, you know, I think the parabola of these things means that ultimately we'll getthere.
But when, don't know.
But if people want to say to me that AI and algorithms and it's all, wow, when do youthink it might interfere with an election?
(29:58):
When do you think it might lead to wide-scale disinformation?
So that is one I believe is a revolution and that's why it's a revolutionary world that welive in right now and that my sincere hope that this is part of the kind of usual spasms
of a society trying to wrestle with key concepts of truth and key concepts of self.
(30:28):
and it's going to come into key concepts of work.
Most people's self-image and self-respect comes from the idea of work.
What happens if you strip that from people?
What does that become?
What do do?
Once we realize that actually we are not about repetitive tasks, when we understand thatwe're much more about, we don't have to do that, task-based things, when the agentic bots
(30:55):
come in and be able to do that kind of...
which represents the vast majority of what all of us do all day, repetitive administrativetasks essentially are brought together from that.
What happens when we're freed from that?
Dot, dot, dot.
Do we explore?
Do we develop?
Or do people rise up?
And again, these are revolutionary times.
(31:17):
These are the times that we have to be able to really focus on a North Star.
that's why eat that.
And the last thing I'll say with that before it gets too dark is all
fear comes from ignorance.
All of our worst traits as human beings come from ignorance.
Be that in relation to race or religion or politics or hatred is from the divide it is youare not me therefore you are my enemy.
(31:44):
Now if we can move to a world where we actually understand that we work together in thisquantum state, this non-binary way, and I don't mean it in that way, of us being able to
have these asynchronous beings with a synchronous outcome.
then it can work brilliantly.
And actually we could work to a world of universal abundance.
And we could come to the work of eliminating cancer.
(32:04):
We could come to the world of being able to eliminate poverty and relieve us from tediouswork and allow us to think about higher things.
I'll let you and my listeners judge where we are in that continuum right now, but that'swhat I think we need to be thinking about.
Right.
I think that's very well said.
And I appreciate your positing a potential positive version of this and a hopeful version.
(32:32):
I already, again, not to veer too far into politics, we are seeing what happens whenpeople feel
shut out or like they're not being productive or their jobs are being taken or whatever.
That's already been playing out certainly here in the US and I imagine elsewhere as well.
And it doesn't always, it typically does not have good outcomes and it certainly shapespeople's way of thinking and how they vote and who they rally behind.
(32:56):
And we see already extreme negative effects of those things.
So hopefully AI is a catalyst for the more positive outcome than more so than thenegative.
So with this, you know, it's probably too early to talk about who the winners and losersare because of AI in the entertainment marketplace.
uh And it's also difficult.
(33:18):
You know, I would love to say, you know, what's the status quo right now for copyright andfor rights holders, but it's, you know, we're all watch.
It's very fluid right now.
So it's difficult to say.
uh But while some of the legislation, some of the copyright law is not moving fast enough.
Um, you know, I wonder, it's difficult to sort of do business at the same time.
(33:42):
You know, I'm sure you were shocked as I was to read about the IC, ICMP's researchindicating that, you know, the, big player, big tech players, Google, Microsoft, Meta,
OpenAI, X have been scraping copyright protected music from a variety of places.
Um, which of course, you know, in my belief, at least infringes on songwriters, composersand other rights holders.
(34:06):
Um,
It makes me wonder, you know, is it too late?
Can we unscramble this egg?
Or is the damage done?
And are we inevitably moving towards fair use?
mean, what are you able to predict or to make any guesses about this now?
Yeah, can, let's, and again, one of the benefits of uh being old is seeing things and, youknow, all things have happened before and all things will happen again.
(34:40):
And my concern is whenever a new technology comes along, uh the music industry tends topull something out of its bag called allowing perfection to be the enemy of the good.
Mm.
So uh there are so many uses of copyrighted music right now that not being collected, notbeing attributed.
(35:04):
That doesn't mean we stop it from happening.
What we do is we create licenses.
You have public performance licenses, have background music licenses, you have streaminglicenses.
All of those things were highly illegal before they were licensed.
So for me, copyright is not the problem.
Licensing is the answer.
ah I'm fully aware how copyright works, but copyright really is at its best when it'srewarding creators, where it's allowing people to profit from their endeavors and not
(35:38):
necessarily where it's just about stopping things for the sake of that.
Otherwise you wouldn't be able to play music in your car.
If you had to go and get a license for every time you did that.
And secondly, yes, allegedly, these big organizations have been, we say, scraping, right?
So one of the things that if you read some of the histories of Disney, Michael Eisnerdecided that he was going to sue Apple because the original iTunes ad said, mix, burn.
(36:11):
And his view was rip meant rip you off.
Mm.
He didn't realize that that was just a technical process before that shifting, which inthe UK for very long time is completely illegal, by the way.
m
For those who don't remember, RIP was generally referred to ripping a CD where you tookthe contents of a CD, made your own copy, let's say for personal use, et cetera, et which
(36:34):
should be legal, uh and uh was challenging and probably never the best word to use forthat process.
Exactly.
But that's the issue, right?
So and they have been learning at a huge level.
And in the same way that you take these things in deliberately or inadvertently.
(36:57):
The legal test when a chiron was sued by the Marvin Gaye estate on thinking out loudwasn't have you heard Marvin Gaye before was have you copied and caused me economic harm?
That was the question.
So personally, and it is a completely personal perspective, I think at the moment weshould be focused on the outputs.
(37:23):
I do believe that people should be able to, if you create something using some of thesetools that happens to do that.
And the point about this, Michael, is I can make copper enrichment with chalk, with penciland paper, an iPhone.
You can ban those things.
You hit the harm.
So and I see a lot of focus on inputs.
(37:45):
I'm not seeing anywhere near the same energy, creativity or money being spent on licensingthe outputs.
So what we need to move too fast are sustainable ways in order to be able to attributevalue to music.
Otherwise we're all screwed.
Understood.
(38:06):
It'll be like the early days of the internet where the music industry made the square rootof you know what
Yeah.
So that's, I think you're, you're bringing a really interesting perspective to this.
So when it comes to the day to day practical things that you have to do as a result, theentire industry is essentially, um, I'm to make some metaphors here, flying the plane
(38:32):
while we're still building it.
And this seems necessary, right?
You still have to do contracts.
You still have to do licensing deals.
How do you approach contracts when
copyright is unsettled and the methodologies for uh compensation down the road, uh know,collection tracking, etc.
(38:52):
is still unsettled.
uh It'll continue to evolve.
But how do you protect your clients?
How do you uh arrive at a fair methodology for making this all work?
Well, I mean, we're at that stasis at the moment where the nature is that, you know,unless I'm acting for a production library that has all the rights brought out and has the
(39:15):
masters and publishing and has all the relevant rights from the creators and performers,et cetera, et cetera, that they can grant those rights.
But those rights aren't being granted.
But there are companies that I'm working with.
So, for example, in the voice generation space, not music voice.
but voice generation space that are building new models of value.
(39:37):
and one of them, know, voiceover artists, oh, it's the death of voiceover artists.
And we said, okay, well, let's track the world of a voiceover artist.
You do 50 to 100 auditions a year, you get three jobs, you get paid once.
How about we clone your voice and it goes into a marketplace with every use and everylanguage and every iteration of art that you get.
(40:02):
wow, really?
Or there's an extraordinary company called Bria, B-R-I-A, who have, with total permission,trained on some of the world's best and largest photographic libraries.
It will generate an image for you, and whichever image you choose to purchase, it can thenreport back to the rights holders on a pixel-by-pixel basis, based upon what percentage of
(40:27):
the revenue it's gone into that.
The tools we need to do, and I...
uh I'm almost tired of the number of people who said we can't have multiple stakeholdersown control elements of a piece of music and then I asked them to explain to me how
publishing works.
(40:48):
Right, it's already happening today, yeah.
Yeah, makes sense.
we have, and I'm going to use a word that everyone hates, well, I'm not going to usestatutory licensing, but we have collection licensing, have blanket licensing, have opt-in
licensing, so many ways across the music industry, yet no one can tell me that there isn'ta way to get this stuff licensed that is.
(41:11):
What needs to happen is we need to lift the throttle on control and focus upon gettingpaid.
You know, I've come up with a very, very, very complicated
assessment of the music industry and licensing.
When I say licensing is the answer.
When we've licensed a technology, platform, Muse, we've made money.
(41:34):
And every time we haven't licensed a platform, we've made no money.
That's it.
And I can't find any other recorded example of that being wrong.
Do technology, I have to imagine that technology companies generally want as leastrestrictive licenses as they can get because they don't necessarily know everything about
(41:59):
how and when they will use some of the content that they've licensed, right?
We can't this is is the point but again, you know, this is kind of Schrodinger's IP,right?
um It's there and it's not so these are you know, delete all IP certain tech bro oligarchssaid right just try infringing one of their trademarks Try and access one of the databases
(42:22):
Try and some user there some of their design rights.
I mean some of their confidential information
Right, exactly.
You can't touch our data.
I IP, you mean inconvenient.
know, there's this concept in patent law, which is fair, reasonable, andnon-discriminatory.
(42:43):
Which is once a patent has been out for number of years, you are under a duty to licenseit on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms.
The deal on patents is you will be given an exclusivity, will be given a monopoly onpayment, but you have to move the state of the art and science forward.
to other people need to be able to use that technology.
(43:03):
Please don't tell me, and these technology companies abide by that in every single othercomponent in their devices.
What they don't like dealing with is an asset which may have five, six, 10 constituentparts, and one of those constituent's parts can just say no, for the sake of saying no.
(43:24):
And that's where blanket license, collective license, and all of these other things thatwe use all the time.
You'll get people that, no, no, no, we can't have statutory licensing.
Well, how does radio work?
statutory license.
Yeah.
How can I do a cover version?
(43:44):
All these things that don't exist in music, they'll tell you that, but it's not true.
Spoiler alert.
Right, Understood.
I love your perspective on this.
uh So thank you for sharing all that.
So I'm going to shift gears just a little bit.
Certainly the Music Tech UK membership is diverse and in terms of the business models andthe sectors that they're playing in, from AI generated music to immersive live
(44:13):
experiences, it's a pretty broad range of things.
What trends are you watching that are interesting?
uh
What are the areas that you think are ripe for disruption and development?
Um, I'll just start with one word.
Um, as the Americans will call it data, you know, sort of data, we would say data waswithin Australian estates, we data.
(44:38):
Um, you know, um, biggest companies in the world.
Apple, Google, meta, yeah, for that, that flicks data, data, Our data is
garbage.
Secondly, I say that the music industry, I think one of its original sins is that it'streated data as if it's music copyright.
(45:06):
If it's useful for you, I'm going to stop you being able to use it because it's mine.
Without a global repertoire database, without the opportunity for music to travelunencumbered, you don't unleash the trillions of dollars that the mobile phone companies
did years ago when they set up the global standards in mobile and decided that we're goingto cooperate.
(45:28):
over data packages.
Right.
Interoperability is huge for like MIDI.
When MIDI was introduced, suddenly the music instrument uh industry went boom, you know,because suddenly all those synthesizers, sequencers, drum machines could all communicate
with each other over a common language.
Absolutely.
(45:48):
So if we can sort that out and it's not a magic bullet and then we start applying thosedata to solve our industry's biggest problems and that's the problem for everyone.
Discovery, payment, play listing, the opportunity to be able to connect with your fans,the opportunity to able to sell more.
(46:08):
These are all data problems.
Got it.
Yeah, that's very interesting.
Certainly, you know, a company like Muse, where I work for us, and Muse was in thebusiness of aggregating data that labels had, but hadn't normalized even within their own
label groups in some cases, and aggregating and normalizing that data for the entireindustry at the time.
(46:31):
And it meant you could go away and commercialize it for the first time.
Right.
And while Muse uh was a good business, the fact that the industry had not decided to dothat on their own was always sort of amazing to me uh because I always had the uh history
of MIDI in mind when I think it was Roland that originally developed it.
(46:52):
And then they basically gave it to the industry and created a nonprofit to run it.
I'm sure I'm butchering that, but that's the essence of it.
They realized that a uh strong protocol
would be enough to float all boats in the industry and that they would benefit from thatand that they needed the others to be successful.
the fact that a company like Muse uh existed, it was a good thing, uh but it wasindicative of a bad thing in a way that the labels were not able to do this on their own.
(47:20):
You couldn't call a label and get a good list.
They had to send us CDs in order to be able to do this physical product.
remember well.
Which we were very happy to receive the CDs.
We had a fantastic library.
uh
which we could borrow from when we wanted to, but it was always surprising to me that theindustry as a whole was not doing this sort of normalization and aggregation of data in
(47:43):
their own way.
So it's interesting.
Are there personal stories that uh you can share from working with disruptive companies orstartups?
I realize that there are.
challenges when entrepreneurs come in and maybe don't understand the landscape well enoughand don't understand what labels will won't do what publishers will want to do that kind
of thing.
(48:03):
But I'm curious, you you work with with a lot of disruptive players.
which left or are leaving, I guess would be a way to put it, sort of a lasting impressionon you.
Um, look, I mean, one of the things I'm often asked is why do you spend all the time withthese startups and they don't make money and most of them fail.
(48:28):
The truth is you learn from them.
learned from them.
there's a bravery and there's an outdoors, perspective that's really that we could learn alot from.
think one of things that's really important to understand is companies that enter ourecosystem.
where they're willing to engage with advisors and the rest of the ecosystem do really,really well.
(48:51):
Those are the companies that make the ones that grown.
The ones that just want to disrupt for the sake of disrupting, haven't tended to do verywell.
uh So I think that that again is one of the reasons back to using a weave back to MTUK,getting people having working great people around them, having great community, having
(49:11):
people they can work with and collaborate with.
That is a key difference.
So I think that that for me is what really stands out is those that want to really reallylearn how the ecosystem works You know all too many times that you Michael have to say to
someone look if I came to you and I said Michael I want to set up a studio I Don't knowhow it works.
(49:33):
I don't know cost I don't know it's delivered I know the technology with but I'm gonnadisrupt the studio market you had every reason to roll your eyes
Yeah.
I see the equivalent of that too many times.
However, I've got a hypothesis, I've got a thought that something here might innovate thebusiness model.
(49:58):
I'd like to help you get me there and formulate that.
Could you help me?
And that's what the guys at Tarniart did.
We completely innovated the business model of studios.
So I think that that curiosity is the most important.
Understood.
(50:19):
With that bit, you've answered a few of my questions already.
ah What are the mistakes that people make and how can they avoid them?
And what advice would you give to somebody who's building a business uh in music techright now?
What about...
(50:39):
I've done some of it already, I think, but please, I don't want to cut you off.
Give me something here that you, you feel strongly about.
Don't hire the wrong lawyer and hire the right lawyer.
It is about working with the ecosystem.
I've seen so many people literally over the last 30 years, I'm going to take the majorlabels down.
(51:00):
They appear to be very much there.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
How do you work with them?
How do you bring value?
How do you create new models?
How do you think that, which is what Daniel and Spotify people did.
If you can bring people value, what the iTunes did in relation to the completely wild westthat was in relation to peer-to-peer and provide better experiences.
(51:26):
ah Jobs wanted to through his device and through his iLight platform, which rebranded hisiTunes.
wanted to give people a seamless consumer experience and make people pay for music wheneveryone was downloading it for free.
Daniel wanted to create an experience that was better than piracy.
Using this new technology on the nodes that would be these streams could be delivered inan extraordinary way.
(51:50):
These are additive.
And I think that that is what we should be looking for in the next generation of startups.
Right.
Thank you for that.
Another question I like to ask you is individuals.
It's an industry that many people want to get into.
(52:11):
They may not always know what they're in for.
I want to be next to artists or I'm a musician.
want to be working at a label that used to be...
That's my favorite one.
Yeah.
I'm a cheater
As a guy who did management for a while, I know that it's a tricky business and notsomething you should probably tread into lightly um or easily.
(52:35):
You want to be careful.
uh But a lot of people still want to work in this business.
uh And I think that technology is certainly creating more opportunities in some cases andmay have eliminated some others as it will typically do.
Do you have advice for individuals in terms of how to get their feet wet, how to get theirfirst job?
(52:56):
how to network to the places that make sense.
Oh, that's a very, very wide question.
mean, I think it is I used to second appearance of this word in this podcast, which iscuriosity, right?
Reaching out to the right people, reaching out to the right industry things, reading thedaily bulletins that you and I read, connecting with that understanding, learning, etc.
(53:23):
Right.
The more you learn about the ecosystem, the more likely you are going to be able to tackleit head on.
back to my story about you know if life was a game laws are rules and you stood a reallyreally good chance of learning the rules you know i have the equivalent sometimes of
dealing people right when i'm beat you at chess i have no idea of any of the rules but i'mgonna win
(53:45):
There's a bit too much of that going on.
Yeah.
A little bit of uh perhaps hubris or arrogance in some cases, which is never a good lookwhen you're trying to get your start.
I think curiosity is huge.
I, as somebody who's hired and managed quite a few people over the course of my career,those who come in and haven't already figured out what the company does and how it does
(54:09):
it, haven't started to understand the ecosystem, were generally disqualified, at least byme, right out of the gate.
Very hard to have confidence in somebody without a strong sense of curiosity because we'reparticularly in tech.
You have to be learning new things all the time.
Shifting gears.
What are you listening to these days?
(54:30):
What am I listening to?
Too many podcasts about the news, but that's another subject.
What I am genuinely loving is the opportunity to be able to rediscover a lot more of themusic of my youth.
So when you're young, you tend to listen within your tribe, you tend to listen to what youknew.
(54:50):
And actually one of the things I've really enjoyed is going back and
listening to all those obscure songs and sounds of the seventies that I didn't listen tothat weren't on top 40 radio.
actually you realize just quite how, you know, delicate and integrate the pattern of it.
Hmm.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
It's the fact that you can hear about something and quickly dial it up and get it ondemand.
(55:12):
And I hope stream it often or actually purchase it in some other fashion.
uh If you really turned on by it, we are in some ways living in the best period of, of, ofall for, for consuming music.
Uh, yeah, I was also fascinated by, I spoke with, uh, Gary Jones at Medi Music as part ofthis project and, uh,
(55:34):
He shared some very interesting information about how men and women react differently tomusic from their Halcyon days and things like that.
It's fascinating stuff, but the idea that music discovery is wide open now with a common,I wish that there was more meta content available within most of the streaming platforms.
It's still really spotty and not very good.
(55:54):
uh But if you're willing to Google an artist and explore their material and then go findit, if there's no better time now to
bounce around with all sorts of uh music either from past or present.
uh So uh we mentioned already how to get involved with Music Tech UK for those who want todo it.
(56:14):
So I won't spend much more time on that.
And is there a favorite music tech innovation that you've seen in the past year that youthink is worth sharing?
Is there anything that you just watch and went, oh man, this is cool?
Yeah, this is quite a few.
think one of the things that you know back to our mandated topic of AI I've been reallyinterested in this attribution based technology.
(56:40):
So things like Brea and working with a company called umbrella UH MBRE LLA umbrella um Andumbrella have extraordinary technology which can detect what the elements are or
AI generated music.
Not necessarily to stop it, but actually to get us on the step of attribution.
(57:01):
It's really, really extraordinary and actually makes you understand that sounds are atapestry and we can learn a lot when we unpick that.
Fantastic, yes.
And it fits well with your vision of what we need to be doing rather than uh licensing,than working on attribution, rather than stopping it from happening.
So I appreciate that.
(57:22):
So thank you very much for this.
We're a little over time, but it feels like we covered a lot of good stuff.
So I'm excited.
I won't be editing too much out because I think so much of it was so good.
Any final thoughts you want to share before we go?
No, not for all of the doom and gloom.
We are privileged to work in this world of music.
We're privileged to help write its next verse.
(57:47):
I hope that we're at a bridge rather than end of anything really, and that it'll be reallyexciting to see where it leads to.
Got it.
Well, I really appreciate your time today.
This was a lot of fun for me.
And I learned a lot listening to you and you changed my thinking on some things, which isalways good because I am curious and it drives me every day.
And that's why I love doing these interviews.
(58:08):
So thank you very much for joining me.
If I can ever be helpful to you in any way, by all means, let me know.
And to our listeners, uh follow Cliff and
figure out what he's doing and learn more about Music Tech UK by all means.
I'll share some links in the show notes.
And uh thank you again for joining.
(58:29):
Thanks for having me Mike.
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