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Generative AI music creation platform, label and publisher Boomy reached a distribution partnership with ADA Worldwide, Warner Music Group’s independent distribution and label services arm. Under the deal, Boomy’s A&R team will bring top artists and exclusively curated music from the Boomy roster to ADA. Select Boomy artists will be distributed and marketed across platforms including Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music. Boomy artists who will benefit from the partnership include rapper-producer Jelie, German harpist Katirha, Boston-based producer Lightfoot, rapper Paperboy Prince and techno/lo-fi music project Plague of Grackles. Boomy’s AI systems allow human creators to make original music even if they lack professional tools or a formal music-making education.
AI and metaverse technology and content company Futureverse signed with CAA for representation in all areas. The companies will collaborate to open up new opportunities for talent and intellectual property across Web3, the metaverse, AI, virtual games and experiences and more. The announcement follows the unveiling of Futureverse’s JEN 1, a “high-fidelity model” for text-to-music generation and research paper that proposes a strategy to pioneer a new licensing framework compensating rights holders, producers and artists. “Futureverse’s strategic collaboration with CAA has forged a strong alignment in fostering the development of mutually beneficial business models that empower creators with groundbreaking tools and lucrative revenue opportunities. As pioneers in AI, web3 and metaverse infrastructure, driven by a deep appreciation for art and humanity, we see an incredibly bright future for the world of entertainment,” said Futureverse co-founder Shara Senderoff in a statement. Futureverse’s other co-founder is Aaron McDonald.
Through an existing joint venture, CTS Eventim and Sony Music Latin Iberia acquired Punto Ticket in Chile and Teleticket in Peru, expanding the JV’s South American ticketing business, which launched in Brazil in 2016. The acquisitions will provide ticketing systems and related services to concert promoters and venues across both countries. Corporate leadership for the acquired companies will remain intact.
Spotify partnered with mobile provider Orange Middle East & Africa, which will now offer complimentary data bonuses for its customers to access Spotify’s service. “We are aware that data costs continue to be a hindrance for people who would like to stream music, that’s why we are actively working at Spotify SSA on partnerships like this one,” said Jocelyne Muhutu-Remy, MD for Spotify in Sub-Saharan Africa, in a statement. Brelotte Ba, deputy CEO of Orange Middle East and Africa, added that the deal will “contribute to the acceleration of digital inclusion on the continent.” Orange operates in a total of 18 countries across Africa and the Middle East.
HARMAN, a Samsung Electronics subsidiary that focuses on connected technologies for automotive, consumer and enterprise markets, acquired music management, discovery and streaming platform Roon. Described in a press release as “a music player for music enthusiasts,” Roon is available on all popular operating systems and also manufactures a line of hardware server appliances called Nucleus. Roon will operate as a standalone HARMAN business with its existing team remaining in place. HARMAN plans to grow Roon’s open device ecosystem that collaborates with more than 160 other audio brands, delivering audio to more than 1,000 high-performance devices.
Universal Music Group (UMG) signed a deal with Ethiopian streaming platform Sewasew Multimedia, which will now license and market UMG’s music catalog in Ethiopia. “UMG has a long and successful presence in Africa, and given Ethiopia’s rich and vibrant music culture, we are excited to work with Sewasew Multimedia to help grow the Ethiopian music industry to its full potential,” said Ulrik Cahn, UMG executive vp of Africa, Middle East and Asia, in a statement.
Independent digital distributor IDOL signed a global distribution and label services deal with Young Art Records, the L.A.-based label belonging to producer and DJ TOKiMONSTA. Under the partnership, IDOL will handle global distribution and marketing for Young Art Records’ catalog and frontline releases. In addition to TOKiMONSTA, Young Art artists include rapper Cakes Da Killa, Canadian R&B musician Rochelle Jordan and instrumentalist-songwriter duo Daktyl & Benni Ola.
Warner Music Group (WMG) struck a partnership with Ghana-based Small World Records, the label and publisher founded by music entrepreneur and streetwear connoisseur SmallGod. Under the new agreement, Small World will collaborate with teams from WMG, ADA and Warner Chappell Music to elevate Small World’s artist and songwriter rosters worldwide and discover, nurture and elevate a new generation of African talent. SmallGod will continue leading Small World’s operations.
SiriusXM unveiled a new collaboration with Europe’s Radio Monaco to launch the SiriusXM Radio Monaco channel, which will bring artists and DJs from Monte Carlo to SiriusXM listeners in North America. According to a press release, Radio Monaco (originally launched in 2006) is the only music stream originating from Monaco. The channel will broadcast live from Jimmy’z Monte-Carlo and air DJ sets from the parties around the Monaco Grand Prix while featuring exclusive interviews and content with stars from the country’s music scene. Radio Monaco will be available to SiriusXM subscribers across North America.
Spinnin’ Records signed a new joint venture with independent dance label and publisher Kanary Records, run by brothers Alex and Christopher Van den Hoef — also known as production duo DVBBS. Artists on Kanary’s roster include Arkade, Bad Nonn and Dayfive. “We are delighted to join forces with Alex and Christopher, reigniting our relationship from over a decade ago,” said Jorn Heringa, head of A&R at Spinnin’ Records, in a statement. “Both brothers bring deep expertise and knowledge to the table and will work harder than anyone else to develop and drive KANARY to new heights with us. Welcome back to Spinnin’!”
Mozaic.io, a global payments platform that allows co-creators to automatically send and receive split payments, closed a $20 million Series A funding round from Boston-based growth equity firm Volition Capital. Mozaic.io initially focused on payouts for music distributors, artists and collaborators before expanding to serve the entire peer-to-peer creator economy, with a goal of expanding further into the gig and freelance economy. The investment brings the total raised for Mozaic.io to $27.1 million, with existing investment from Rise of the Rest, Maverick Nashville and music industry executive Joe Galante. The funds will be used for new product development and expanding Mozaic’s sales and product teams.
Audoo — a music technology company that allows artists, songwriters, PROs and CMOs to see in real-time where their music is played via the use of proprietary audio meters, enabling them to better collect on public performance royalties — partnered with Abu Dhabi-based music rights organization ESMAA. Through the collaboration, ESMAA will incorporate Audoo’s “Audio Meter” and insights platform into its operational framework, allowing more accurate and transparent data collection and payment distribution for artists and rights holders. “ESMAA is at the forefront of building a modern rights company and through implementing the best technology from Audoo, we bridge the path of identifiable potential income with a system that optimises the use of music recognition in public performance spaces,” said Spek, founder/CEO of ESMAA, in a statement.
Canadian booking agency Paquin Artists Agency (PAA), a division of Paquin Entertainment Group, formed a strategic partnership with Louis Carrière, founder/president of Quebec-based agency Preste. The partnership will deepen PAA’s footprint in Quebec as it opens a new office in Montreal. PAA will also provide key resources to Carrière and his team to export Quebecian talent.
Believe-owned metal label Nuclear Blast announced an exclusive e-commerce partnership with Impericon, a provider of metalcore merchandise and music. Under the deal, Impericon will oversee all of Nuclear Blast’s European e-commerce activities starting in the first quarter of 2024.
Listeners remain wary of artificial intelligence, according to Engaging with Music 2023, a forthcoming report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) that seems aimed in particular at government regulators.
The IFPI surveyed 43,000 people across 26 countries, coming to the conclusion that 76% of respondents “feel that an artist’s music or vocals should not be used or ingested by AI without permission,” and 74% believe “AI should not be used to clone or impersonate artists without authorisation.”
The results are not surprising. Most listeners probably weren’t thinking much, if at all, about AI and its potential impacts on music before 2023. (Some still aren’t thinking about it: 89% of those surveyed said they were “aware of AI,” leaving 11% who have somehow managed to avoid a massive amount of press coverage this year.) New technologies are often treated with caution outside the tech industry.
It’s also easy for survey respondents to support statements about getting authorization for something before doing it — that generally seems like the right thing to do. But historically, artists haven’t always been interested in preemptively obtaining permission.
Take the act of sampling another song to create a new composition. Many listeners would presumably agree that artists should go through the process of clearing a sample before using it. In reality, however, many artists sample first and clear later, sometimes only if they are forced to.
In a statement, Frances Moore, IFPI’s CEO, said that the organization’s survey serves as a “timely reminder for policymakers as they consider how to implement standards for responsible and safe AI.”
U.S. policymakers have been moving slowly to develop potential guidelines around AI. In October, a bipartisan group of senators released a draft of the NO FAKES Act, which aims to prevent the creation of “digital replicas” of an artist’s image, voice, or visual likeness without permission.
“Generative AI has opened doors to exciting new artistic possibilities, but it also presents unique challenges that make it easier than ever to use someone’s voice, image, or likeness without their consent,” Senator Chris Coons said in a statement. “Creators around the nation are calling on Congress to lay out clear policies regulating the use and impact of generative AI.”
CreateSafe, a music technology studio known best for its work on Grimes’ AI voice model, has raised $4.6 million in seed round funding for its new AI music creation toolkit, TRINITI.
Offering a “full creative stack” for musicians from the inception of songwriting to its release, TRINITI’s round was led by Polychain Capital, a cryptocurrency and blockchain tech investment firm, as well as Crush Ventures, Anthony Saleh (manager of Kendrick Lamar, Nas and Gunna), Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media, MoonPay, Chaac Ventures, Unified Music Group and Dan Weisman (vp at Bernstein Private Wealth Management).
Grimes has also joined CreateSafe’s advisory board to continue to collaborate with the brand.
Starting today, TRINITI will offer five tools:
Voice transformation and cloning: make your own voice model and offer it up for licensing, transform your voice into someone else’s
Sample Generation: create audio samples from text-based prompts
Chat: ask questions to a chat bot trained on music industry knowledge
Distribution: share music on streaming services
Management: manage rights to songs and records
“Music is the core of humankind,” said CreateSafe founder/CEO Daouda Leonard. “However, the story of music as a profession has been corrupted by middle men, who have misguided the industry while taking money from artists. For a few years, we’ve been saying that we are building the operating system for the new music business. With AI, it’s possible to fulfill that promise. We want to pioneer the age of exponential creativity and give power back to creators. With TRINITI, you can turn inspiration into a song and set of visuals. That music gets distributed to DSPs, a marketing plan can be generated, and all of the business on the backend can be easily managed. This whole process takes seconds.”
“As a team we’d always discussed finding novel ways of wealth redistribution via art,” added Grimes. “We immediately hopped onto blockchain tech because of the new possibilities for distribution, cutting out middle men, etc. Throwing generative music into the picture and removing all our label strings so we can reward derivative music — combined with everything we’d been working towards the last few years with blockchain — allowed a unique approach to distribution.
“I’m really proud of the team that they were able to execute this so fast and with such vision,” Grimes continued. “There’s a lot to talk about but ultimately, art generates so much money as an industry and artists see so little of it. A lot of people talk about abundance as one of the main end goals of tech, acceleration, AI, etc… for us the first step is actually figuring out how to remove friction from the process of getting resources into artists’ hands.”
Offering a preview of arguments the company might make in its upcoming legal battle with Universal Music Group (UMG), artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic PBC told the U.S. Copyright Office this week that the massive scraping of copyrighted materials to train AI models is a “quintessentially lawful.”
Music companies, songwriters and artists have argued that such training represents an infringement of their works at a vast scale, but Anthropic told the federal agency Monday (Oct. 30) that it was clearly allowed under copyright’s fair use doctrine.
“The copying is merely an intermediate step, extracting unprotectable elements about the entire corpus of works, in order to create new outputs,” the company wrote. “This sort of transformative use has been recognized as lawful in the past and should continue to be considered lawful in this case.”
The filing came as part of an agency study aimed at answering thorny questions about how existing intellectual property laws should be applied to the disruptive new tech. Other AI giants, including OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, Google and Stability AI all lodged similar filings, explaining their views.
But Anthropic’s comments will be of particular interest in the music industry because that company was sued last month by UMG over the very issues in question in the Copyright Office filing. The case, the first filed over music, claims that Anthropic unlawfully copied “vast amounts” of copyrighted songs when it trained its Claude AI tool to spit out new lyrics.
In the filing at the Copyright Office, Anthropic argued that such training was a fair use because it copied material only for the purpose of “performing a statistical analysis of the data” and was not “re-using the copyrighted expression to communicate it to users.”
“To the extent copyrighted works are used in training data, it is for analysis (of statistical relationships between words and concepts) that is unrelated to any expressive purpose of the work,” the company argued.
UMG is sure to argue otherwise, but Anthropic said legal precedent was clearly on its side. Notably, the company cited a 2015 ruling by a federal appeals court that Google was allowed to scan and upload millions of copyrighted books to create its searchable Google Books database. That ruling and others established the principle that “large-scale copying” was a fair use when done to “create tools for searching across those works and to perform statistical analysis.”
“The training process for Claude fits neatly within these same paradigms and is fair use,” Anthropic’s lawyers wrote. “Claude is intended to help users produce new, distinct works and thus serves a different purpose from the pre-existing work.”
Anthropic acknowledged that the training of AI models could lead to “short-term economic disruption.” But the company said such problems were “unlikely to be a copyright issue.”
“It is still a matter that policymakers should take seriously (outside of the context of copyright) and balance appropriately against the long-term benefits of LLMs on the well-being of workers and the economy as a whole by providing an entirely new category of tools to enhance human creativity and productivity,” the company wrote.
A federal judge in San Francisco ruled Monday (Oct. 30) that artificial intelligence (AI) firm Stability AI could not dismiss a lawsuit claiming it had “trained” its platform on copyrighted images, though he also sided with AI companies on key questions.
In an early-stage order in a closely watched case, Judge William Orrick found many defects in the lawsuit’s allegations, and he dismissed some of the case’s claims. But he allowed the case to move forward on its core allegation: That Stability AI built its tools by exploiting vast numbers of copyrighted works.
“Plaintiffs have adequately alleged direct infringement based on the allegations that Stability downloaded or otherwise acquired copies of billions of copyrighted images without permission to create Stable Diffusion, and used those images to train Stable Diffusion,” the judge wrote.
The ruling came in one of many cases filed against AI companies over how they use copyrighted content to train their models. Authors, comedians and visual artists have all filed lawsuits against companies including Microsoft, Meta and OpenAI, alleging that such unauthorized use by the fast-growing industry amounts to a massive violation of copyright law.
Last week, Universal Music Group and others filed the first such case involving music, arguing that Anthropic PBC was infringing copyrights en masse by using “vast amounts” of music to teach its software how to spit out new lyrics.
Rulings in the earlier AI copyright cases could provide important guidance on how such legal questions will be handled by courts, potentially impacting how UMG’s lawsuit and others like it play out in the future.
Monday’s decision came in a class action filed by artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan and Karla Ortiz against Stability AI Ltd. over its Stable Diffusion — an AI-powered image generator. The lawsuit also targeted Midjourney Inc. and DeviantArt Inc., two companies that use Stable Diffusion as the basis for their own image generators.
In his ruling, Judge Orrick dismissed many of the lawsuit’s claims. He booted McKernan and Ortiz from the case entirely and ordered the plaintiffs to re-file an amended version of their case with much more detail about the specific allegations against Midjourney and DeviantArt.
The judge also cast doubt on the allegation that every “output” image produced by Stable Diffusion would itself be a copyright-infringing “derivative” of the images that were used to train the model — a ruling that could dramatically limit the scope of the lawsuit. The judge suggested that such images might only be infringing if they themselves looked “substantially similar” to a particular training image.
But Judge Orrick included no such critiques for the central accusation that Stability AI infringed Andersen’s copyrights by using them for training without permission — the basic allegation at the center of all of the AI copyright lawsuits, including the one filed by UMG. Andersen will still need to prove that such an accusation is true in future litigation, but the judge said she should be given the chance to do so.
“Even Stability recognizes that determination of the truth of these allegations — whether copying in violation of the Copyright Act occurred in the context of training Stable Diffusion or occurs when Stable Diffusion is run — cannot be resolved at this juncture,” Orrick wrote in his decision.
Attorneys for Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt did not return requests for comment. Attorneys for the artists praised the judge for allowing their “core claim” to move forward and onto “a path to trial.”
“As is common in a complex case, Judge Orrick granted the plaintiffs permission to amend most of their other claims,” said plaintiffs’ attorneys Joseph Saveri and Matthew Butterick after the ruling. “We’re confident that we can address the court’s concerns.”
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: Universal Music Group (UMG) and other music companies file a hotly-anticipated copyright lawsuit over how artificial intelligence (AI) models are trained; DJ Envy’s business partner Cesar Pina is hit with criminal charges claiming he ran a “Ponzi-like” fraud scheme; Megan Thee Stallion reaches a settlement with her former label to end a contentious legal battle; Fyre Fest fraudster Billy McFarland is hit with a civil lawsuit by a jilted investor in his new project; and more.
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THE BIG STORY: AI Music Heads To Court
When UMG and several other music companies filed a lawsuit last week, accusing an artificial intelligence company called Anthropic PBC of violating its copyrights en masse to “train” its AI models, my initial reaction was: “What took so long?”
The creators of other forms of content had already been in court for months. A group of photographers and Getty Images sued Stability AI over its training practices in January, and a slew of book authors, including Game of Thrones writer George R.R. Martin and legal novelist John Grisham, sued ChatGPT-maker OpenAI over the same thing in June and again in September. And music industry voices, like the RIAA and UMG itself, had repeatedly signaled that they viewed such training as illegal.
For months, we asked around, scanned dockets and waited for the music equivalent. Was the delay a deliberate litigation strategy, allowing the fast-changing market and the existing lawsuits to play out more before diving in? Was the music business focusing on legislative, regulatory or business solutions instead of the judicial warpath they chose during the file-sharing debacle of the early 2000s?
Maybe they were just waiting for the right defendant. In a complaint filed in Nashville federal court on Oct. 18, UMG claimed that Anthropic — a company that got a $4 billion investment from Amazon last month — “unlawfully copies and disseminates vast amounts of copyrighted works” in the process of teaching its models to spit out new lyrics. The lengthy complaint, co-signed by Concord Music Group, ABKCO and other music publishers, echoed arguments made by many rightsholders in the wake of the AI boom: “Copyrighted material is not free for the taking simply because it can be found on the internet.”
Like the previous cases filed by photographers and authors, the new lawsuit poses something of an existential question for AI companies. AI models are only as good as the “inputs” they ingest; if federal courts make all copyrighted material off-limits for such purposes, it would not only make current models illegal but would undoubtedly hamstring further development.
The battle ahead will center on fair use — the hugely important legal doctrine that allows for the free use of copyrighted material in certain situations. Fair use might make you think of parody or criticism, but more recently, it’s empowered new technologies: In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the VCR was protected by fair use; in 2007, a federal appeals court ruled that Google Image search was fair use.
Are AI models, which imbibe millions of copyrighted works to create something new, the next landmark fair use? Or are they just a new form of copyright piracy on a vast new scale? We’re about to find out.
More key details about the AI case:
– The timing of the lawsuit would suggest that UMG is aiming for a carrot-and-stick approach when it comes to AI. On the same day the new case was filed, UMG announced that it was partnering with a company called BandLab Technologies to forge an “an ethical approach to AI.” Hours later, news also broke that UMG and other labels were actively negotiating with YouTube on a new AI tool that would allow creators to make videos using the voices of popular (consenting) recording artists.
-The huge issue in the case is whether the use of training inputs amounts to infringement, but UMG’s lawyers also allege that Anthropic violates its copyrights with the outputs that its models spit out — that it sometimes simply presents verbatim lyrics to songs. That adds a different dimension to the case that’s not present in earlier AI cases filed by authors and photographers and could perhaps make it a bit easier for UMG to win.
-While it’s the first such case about music, it should be noted that the Anthropic lawsuit deals only with song lyrics — meaning not with sound recordings, written musical notation, or voice likeness rights. While a ruling in any of the AI training cases would likely set precedent across different areas of copyright, those specific issues will have to wait for a future lawsuit, or perhaps an act of Congress.
Go read the full story on UMG’s lawsuit, with access to the actual complaint filed in court.
Other top stories this week…
MEGAN THEE SETTLEMENT – Megan Thee Stallion reached an agreement with her record label 1501 Certified Entertainment to end more than three years of ugly litigation over a record deal that Megan calls “unconscionable.” After battling for more than a year over whether she owed another album under the contract, the two sides now say they will “amicably part ways.”
DJ ENVY SCANDAL DEEPENS – Cesar Pina, a celebrity house-flipper with close ties to New York City radio host DJ Envy, was arrested on federal charges that he perpetrated “a multimillion-dollar Ponzi-like investment fraud scheme.” Though Envy was not charged, federal prosecutors specifically noted that Pina had “partnered with a celebrity disc jockey and radio personality” — listed in the charges as “Individual-1” — to boost his reputation as a real estate guru. The charges came after months of criticism against Envy, who is named in a slew of civil lawsuits filed by alleged victims who say he helped promote the fraud.
FOOL ME ONCE… – Billy McFarland, the creator of the infamous Fyre Festival who served nearly four years in prison for fraud and lying to the FBI, is facing a new civil lawsuit claiming he ripped off an investor who gave him $740,000 for his new PYRT venture. The case was filed by Jonathan Taylor, a fellow felon who met McFarland in prison after pleading guilty to a single count of child sex trafficking.
AI-GENERATED CLOSING ARGS? – Months after ex-Fugees rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel was convicted on foreign lobbying charges, he demanded a new trial by making extraordinary accusations against his ex-lawyer David Kenner. Michel claims Kenner, a well-known L.A. criminal defense attorney, used an unproven artificial intelligence (AI) tool called EyeLevel.AI to craft closing arguments — and that he did so because he owned a stake in the tech platform. Kenner declined to comment, but EyeLevel has denied that Kenner has any equity in the company.
ROLLING STONES GET SATISFACTION – A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit accusing The Rolling Stones members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of copying their 2020 single “Living in a Ghost Town” from a pair of little-known songs, ruling that the dispute — a Spanish artist suing two Brits — clearly didn’t belong in his Louisiana federal courthouse.
JUICE WRLD COPYRIGHT CASE – Dr. Luke and the estate of the late Juice WRLD were hit with a copyright lawsuit that claims they unfairly cut out one of the co-writers (an artist named PD Beats) from the profits of the rapper’s 2021 track “Not Enough.”
A little more than two years ago, HYBE invested millions into Supertone, an AI voice synthesis startup. Their relationship would allow for a collaboration with an existent artist that created a new kind of artist entirely — here’s how it happened.
An AI Alliance
HYBE’s relationship with Supertone begins in February 2021, when HYBE reportedly invests $3.6 million into it. By January 2023, their partnership expands when HYBE acquires Supertone entirely for a reported price of over $30 million. Little was then known about HYBE’s plans to integrate Supertone technology into its music empire (the company’s stable of K-pop supergroups includes BTS, Tomorrow x Together and ENHYPEN) other than that HYBE’s founder and chairman, Bang Si-Hyuk, told Billboard in his recent cover story that one of HYBE’s first integrations was referred to internally as “Project L” and scheduled for May 2023.
The Digital Debut
Right on schedule, HYBE starts to tease an upcoming single from MIDNATT, a new alter-ego of popular Korean singer Lee Hyun. Two weeks later, on May 15, he releases his first single, “Masquerade,” using Supertone technology to help him translate it into six languages: English, Korean, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese. Through Supertone, the singer improves his intonation and pronunciation of the languages to sound more like a native speaker. Shortly after its release, MIDNATT says that he was inspired by “talking about language barriers” with his team: “When I would listen to music in other languages, I couldn’t immerse into the music as well as in my native language, and we were talking about how we could overcome [that].”
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How It Works
Voice synthesis is best understood as a subset of generative AI that lets users manipulate their voice while talking or singing, allowing them to assume the timbre and tone of a particular celebrity, character or loved one. But some companies, like Supertone, also enable users to make other edits, like altering the language, age or gender of speech.
The Results
It’s a controversial use of AI, raising ethical questions about assuming someone else’s voice and making one’s own unrecognizable, but MIDNATT’s employment of voice-synthesis technology was largely well received. “After I experienced it myself, I think it really depends on how you utilize it,” he says of using the technology. “The sense of responsibility is what matters the most. So as far as it is used in the music, I think it is a great opportunity for me to make [my song] more accessible and more immersive to the fans worldwide.”
This story will appear in the Oct. 21, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Founded in 2017, Techstars Music was known as the premier music technology accelerator, providing funding and support to now-thriving companies like Endel, Splash, Hello Tickets, Community and Replica Studios. The company chose 10 startups each year and provided $120,000 to each, along with mentoring from its network of 316 music and entertainment executives from HYBE, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Concord, Quality Control and more.
Of the 70 startups that Techstars selected, the most successful 21 have gone on to raise over $263 million in follow-on funding since. Despite those successes, managing director Bob Moczydlowsky says that the company chose its final class this past summer — but his career as an investor is far from over.
Why is Techstars Music shutting down?
Even though the way we have been investing has been working, it has been held back by the constraints of an accelerator, which we feel is an outdated model. The amount of capital we can provide is limited. It is also held back by the constraints of labeling it “music.” We want to invest in companies solving problems for music, not music tech companies, but the reality is that founders see “Techstars Music” on the door and they bring us their startup to help kids learn to play a violin. We actually believe instruments will become irrelevant and software will mainly replace them. Our thesis now is we want to fund the future of entertainment, self-expression and live events. This changes almost nothing in how we have already been operating and evaluating companies, but we want this thesis publicly understood.
Why are accelerators outdated?
The accelerator is a great product. It was designed around the time of the financial crisis of 2008. Because angel and pre-seed investors largely disappeared, accelerators fit a need and had great returns. Plus, it helped new companies get the mentorship they needed. Now the cost of running a business — talent, travel, etc. — has grown. Smart founders can now find online most of the information accelerators provide on how to structure a company. The economic deal that accelerators offer to founders has not evolved in that time, so every year, the accelerator is providing the same amount of capital investment, buying the same amount of equity from founders, but that capital is buying fewer and fewer things … We need to make more investments and do it on a rolling, year-round basis. We need to provide more capital too so companies can better leverage the connections we can give them.
What does the future of your investing look like post-Techstars Music?
The goal is to be the best investor in this category. To do so we need to make more investments and do it on a rolling, year-round basis. We need to provide more capital too, so companies can leverage the connections we can give them better.
You’re not trying to invest in music companies but “invest in companies solving problems for music.” Can you explain what that means?
Music startups typically do not generate venture returns … You also have competitors like Apple, Amazon and Google that use music as a loss leader for other products. That makes investing in that sort of music startup very difficult, especially a pre-seed investor like us.
Because streaming has become the dominant way we are listening to music, it has altered a lot of other habits around it as a consequence … I want to invest in companies solving problems for music, like Community, a direct-messaging service. It’s not musical at all, but it is used by artists and enables them to connect to their fans directly better than ever.
Do you think it is helpful, given investors know how tough music businesses are to run, to define themselves as something besides primarily a music company?
Let me be clear: You cannot change how you define your company to make investors happy, or you will not raise capital, but you need to be savvy as a founder about how you present your business and find investors who are looking for you. One of the myths about raising venture capital is that founders persuade investors to invest in them. Investors are out there looking for companies to invest in all day long, every day. We are just trying to find companies that match our thesis.
We think about it like this: we see the problems the music business has. We see how music and entertainment are going to change over the years, so let’s invest in the things that solve the problems or get us closer to those new realities, not just saying “Hey, let’s see all the music tech startups.”
Do you think this is a particularly fruitful time for investors, given the rapid rise of AI, the maturation of streaming, etc.?
There is more opportunity and more radical change coming in the next five to 10 years than we’ve had in the last decade. The last 10 years were about maturing the streaming market and putting rights owners and artists on stable financial footing. The music business is now as big as it has ever been by revenue, but growth is slowing in the number of new subscribers. We’re at a point where music streaming 1.0 is perfected — what does streaming 2.0 look like? We’re shutting Techstars Music down so that we can come back with the right vehicle for the next 10 years.
In your crystal ball, what do you think Streaming 2.0 looks like?
If Streaming 1.0 was about making all the music play, Streaming 2.0 should be about being able to play with all the music.
Your thesis focuses not just on music now, but live events, self-expression and entertainment altogether. Do you see these sectors converging?
Absolutely. What is the difference between an athlete, a musician, a TV star at this point in terms of the media they deliver? They all have podcasts, documentaries, merchandise, fashion lines — of course, they all have their specialty, but I think it is evident that there will be even more convergence coming soon.
This story will appear in the Oct. 21, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Mike Shinoda has long incorporated new tech into both his solo work (like the Beat Saber VR pack and sci-fi/horror web video game that helped launch his recent single “Already Over”) and his music with Linkin Park (like the AI-generated visuals used in the recent music video for unearthed band demo “Lost”). But the artist-producer has also become a key investor in music technology — starting with Linkin Park’s Machine Shop Ventures, which launched in 2015 as a mix of venture capital projects and live-music activations, and now more recently on his own. Since April 2022, he has also served as community innovation adviser for Warner Recorded Music, providing a forward-thinking artist’s perspective on subjects like Web3 and AI.
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“With labels and future tech, I feel like doors are opening to new types of artists,” Shinoda says. “At a certain point, you wouldn’t have considered a content creator on a social platform to be a music artist. Now you can! In the future, those doors might also be open to nontraditional projects that are pushing the boundaries of what it is to be an artist.”
Have you been surprised by the degree of industry focus on AI this year, or did you see it coming?
Unless you were already deep in the trenches, I think AI hit everybody in a similar way — it blew up very big, very fast — but part of that is people developing complex things behind the scenes. Once some of the general concepts about how one could use AI became more widely known — and the concerns and the creativity, all the different positive and negative sides of it — people started releasing things, and you started getting a sense of how fast it’s moving and all the things we could do.
It’s exciting and it’s new, but you know, I come from an illustration background, and that artist community was up in arms immediately, saying, “Hey, guys, this technology is stealing from us. These are copyrighted images, and it’s pulling them and riffing off of them to make new things.” That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
How much has being an artist informed how you interact with these new technologies and potentially invest in them?
Being an artist, there are times when you are relied on to develop a vision of something, and it needs to come from you — you are responsible for it, you curate it, you collaborate with other people to make it the best it can be. And as part of that, you’re also in charge of communicating it, of accepting criticism and sorting through ideas. Whether as a kid growing up doing drawing and painting and graphic design, to everything with the band and all of our releases, that skill set carries over to a lot of the founders that I’ve worked with and had the chance to meet over time.
What is an early highlight of your own investing career?
I was one of many investors and advisers when Spotify came to the U.S. To be honest, it wasn’t a lot of money — but it was fascinating to talk with Daniel [Ek] and his team as they were in the midst of the huge cultural shift that happened.
Which areas of music tech are you most interested in right now?
One thing that has been on my mind is that with new technology comes new responsibilities. Historically, artists have been on the end of this equation where their work gets treated like it doesn’t have very much value. When you’re a smaller artist, you go, “Well, this is just the way it is. This is how I get to the point where people hear me for the first time, so I’m going to give away everything for free and just play that game.” And then when you get to a certain point, you realize, “Oh, my gosh. My stuff really does have value. How do I capture that value?”
Because of the changes in technology, different companies developing new things are trying to take a big bite out of the apple that is the artist’s intellectual property. For any artist that hears me talking about this, I hope that it occurs to them: It’s your job to protect the work, to put a value on it, and that value might actually be higher than other people might say it’s worth.
Additional reporting by Kristin Robinson.
This story will appear in the Oct. 21, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Whether they’re angel investors offering startups tens of thousands or venture capital power players with hundreds of millions, some of the shrewdest minds in and around the music business are using their expertise to reinvest in the tools of its future. The investors profiled here are just a sampling of the many focusing on new music technology right now; some of their peers prefer to keep their dealings private, while plenty more music executives turned investors have bet on areas other than music technology. Others are interested in music tech but aren’t actively investing. But with generative artificial intelligence, virtual reality and advancements in live-music technology on the horizon, the thought leaders highlighted here see the industry at a “tipping point” — and the next generation of companies may fundamentally change the way the music business works.
The Majors
The Big Three music groups have invested in tech platforms tied to fashion, gaming, music creation and even battling dementia — and executives say there’s more to come.
In February, on his first quarterly earnings call as the new CEO of Warner Music Group (WMG), Robert Kyncl laid out a future of “meaningful upside” for the music business: “As technology opens up emerging economies, the industry’s addressable market will continue to expand even further,” Kyncl told analysts. On top of that, he added, “innovation is constantly creating new-use cases for music, giving us the opportunity to diversify our revenue sources.”
As the major labels navigate a landscape increasingly dominated by streaming platforms and digital creation apps like BandLab and Boomy, it’s not surprising they have eagerly invested over $1 billion, according to label sources, in the nascent technology companies that have the potential to help them diversify and increase their revenue sources.
In the last four years, WMG has invested in gaming platform Roblox, digital fashion retailer DRESSX and music generator Lifescore, which is powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Sony Music Entertainment has backed another music creation (and collaboration) platform, Tully; social platform Fave; and Techstars Music, an accelerator program that provided funding and mentorship to promising music technology startups. (It was quietly shuttered after this summer’s class, according to managing director Bob Moczydlowsky.)
“It is always a highlight for us to support visionary entrepreneurs in developing innovative music tech and to help drive experimentation with new products and revenue models that enhance creativity, consumer experiences and overall value and utility for our creative partners and artists,” SME senior vp of strategy and investments Angela Lopes says.
Universal Music Group eschews venture capital investments, preferring to offer seed money, mentoring and other support for startups. The company has gotten behind two health-related music apps: Endel, which creates personalized AI-generated soundscapes to foster focus and sleep, and Music Health, the company behind Vera, which is designed to help those suffering from dementia, as well as next-generation radio broadcasting toolkit Super-HiFi. UMG senior vp of digital innovation strategy and business development Kristen Bender said in a statement that the company’s “music DNA — incubation, connectivity, mentorship [and] strategic partner network — is the greatest asset we can provide early-stage companies.”
It’s likely that the volume of these investments will only increase. Lopes says, “We continue to focus on strategic investment opportunities” in the tech sector. And on the earnings call, Kyncl said WMG will be “reallocating our internal resources in order to invest in technology and drive not only more tools for monetization for creators but also greater efficiencies for us.” —ELIAS LEIGHT
Music Companies
Willard AhdritzFounder/chairman, Kobalt; CEO, Ahdritz & Co.
Willard Ahdritz
Paul Brissman
Recent investments: Dice, un:hurdInterests: Mobile ticketing, data-driven marketing
As founder and chairman of Kobalt — a publishing administration company that used a technology-first approach to disrupt the world of music publishing — Ahdritz has always had a forward-thinking approach to the music business. In recent years, he has been investing in other newcomers using technology to power music innovation, including popular mobile ticketing app Dice, and he has taken on an investment and advisory role in un:hurd, which uses data to help artists run successful digital marketing campaigns.
Mike CarenFounder/CEO, Artist Partner Group/Artist Publishing Group
Mike Caren
Elisabeth Caren
Recent investments: beatBread, Sound.me, Release.GlobalInterests: AI, music production tools, label tools
The label/publishing entrepreneur entered investing by acquiring music catalogs, but in recent years has expanded his focus to music technology and related startups. He says various forms of music tech are worthwhile “for both financial growth and for the good of the industry.” Caren hopes that the new companies he backs can “unleash creativity for those with huge imagination and limited knowledge” as well as economic and relationship-based limitations. But whether these results come through AI, augmented reality, traditional or currently unheard-of means “is less important for me.”
Startup red flag: “I try to avoid great decks without functioning software. I want to invest in companies with a minimum viable product I can use immediately and a clear road map for their future development.”
Neil JacobsonFounder/CEO, Hallwood Media; partner, Hallwood Media Ventures
Neil Jacobson
Clay Wescott
Recent investments: Disco, Splice, SoundfulInterests: AI, music production tools, creator services, marketplace platforms
Jacobson, former president of Geffen Records and founder of songwriter-producer management powerhouse Hallwood Media, brings decades of experience at labels and publishers to investing. Hallwood Media Ventures was born out of a special purpose acquisition company Jacobson launched in February 2021 with partner Todd Lowen, raising $230 million for a publicly listed vehicle with the intent of merging with a high-growth, music-related business. Now, almost three years later, Hallwood is unencumbered by the restrictions of a SPAC and looking to invest “in the range of $25 million for minority stakes, up to $250 million for larger stakes or full takeouts,” says Jacobson, who adds that though the firm is seeking companies throughout the music sector, “music technology seems to be where we are spending a lot of our time.” Still, as technology evolves, Jacobson envisions that great managers, like those on staff at Hallwood, will be “more critical than ever. The world, especially music, is changing at a pace we’ve never seen before. The need for management teams to react quickly and intelligently will only be amplified.”
Words an investor should live by: “ ‘Show me the money!’ We say that half-jokingly, but companies need to demonstrate the ability to generate EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization] … We look for businesses that are executing on a responsible plan that is ready to be scaled with our help — both financially and strategically.”
Nick JarjourFounder/CEO, JarjourCo
Nick Jarjour
Dan Franco
Recent investments: Soundful, mayk.it, HIFI, Xposure, TrillerInterests: Music and gaming, livestreaming, virtual concerts, AI, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), fintech
Jarjour, an entrepreneur and manager for songwriter Starrah, says his first mentor told him: “Don’t just invest in companies. Advise them, consult them, sit on their boards.” So when he provides funding to a startup, he often assumes an advisory role too, as he did with mayk.it, HIFI, Xposure and more. He likens the role of an investor in a fledgling company to A&R, where his career began, and he aims to spot “hit companies” much as he would a song.
In the next five years, music tech will…: “See more artists and celebrity investors, more music and gaming partnerships, more growth in VR/AR music experiences … [There will be] a digital transformation for labels, funds and publishers propelled by breakthroughs like AI and the democratization of things.”
Andrew KahnHead of Crush Ventures
Andrew Kahn
Crush Ventures
Investments: Splice, Audioshake, Sound.xyz, CreateSafe, Rhythm.fmInterests: Fan technology, music production tools, creator tools
Alongside colleagues Aaron Matusow and Dan Kruchkow, Kahn leads the venture capital division for longtime independent management company Crush Music. With Crush Ventures, Kahn and his team make investment decisions that align with the overall company ethos: “We look to invest in building companies that could impact how we manage and grow the careers of Crush Music artists, who are also pop-culture brands,” Kahn says. That’s why the team is so interested in working with companies that create tools empowering artists, like Splice, Audioshake and CreateSafe. In the next five years, Kahn says he sees these companies “narrowing the gap between novice and pro.”
Startup red flags: “We try to avoid founders who are not living the culture of the market they are trying to enter or feeling the pain acutely of the problem they are trying to solve. Other nits are requests to sign [nondisclosure agreements] too quickly and early-stage companies using agencies to build core products.”
Naoki OsadaCEO, Avex USA; founder, Future of Music Fund
Naoki Osada
Caris Yeoman
Recent investments: Wave, Endel, Liminal Space, Strangeloop StudiosInterests: Metaverse, 3D, live experiences, virtual artists, music production tools
When he’s not running label and publishing operations at Avex USA, the thriving American outpost of the Japanese entertainment company, Osada is vetting emerging companies to invest in through Avex USA’s corporate venture capital division. Called the Future of Music Fund, Osada says he invests “in a selective, boutique way” in companies he feels build “immersive multisensory experiences of music” — like Endel’s personalized soundscapes that promote relaxation and Wave’s high-tech virtual concert production tools. So far, the fund has invested about $5 million and has now expanded to $25 million “based on the past successes.” Still, Osada notes that due to saturation in the market, he doesn’t “see quite as many mind-blowing early-stage companies these days as five years ago.”
Words an investor should live by: “In general, [our] motto is ‘innovate or die.’ We must constantly become different for the better in aspects of business/life to survive.”
Hazel SavageAngel investor; vp of music intelligence, SoundCloud
Hazel Savage
Alison Emerick
Recent investments: un:hurd, AudioShake, mayk.itInterests: AI and “all areas of deep tech in the music industry”
After building her own successful startup, Musiio, which SoundCloud acquired in 2022, Savage says she is “proud to invest in exceptional founders” as an angel investor. “I am looking for a founder or co-founders I believe in. They need that magic spark where when I look at them, I just know I could be working for them in 10 years and whatever they do, they will be successful,” she says. Since getting started, Savage has invested just shy of $1 million, the bulk of which has gone toward forms of AI that can ease pain points in the music business. She says she “learned from [her] own cap table about the kind of investor [she] wanted to be.”
In the next five years, music tech will…: “I think generative AI is here to stay … If we learn how to harness the tech and make it work for the musicians and the industry, it will be a net win all ’round. I also think we are evolving out of the existing stage of music streaming and into a new era where we all learn and figure out how to make sure the money fans want to spend goes directly to the artists they want to support.”
Agencies
Phil QuistInvestor, Connect Ventures; music/emerging tech agent, CAA
Phil Quist
Courtesy of CAA
Recent investments: Royal, Deep VooDooInterests: AI, music production tools, smart ticketing, live-concert experience enhancements
Kendrick Lamar’s innovative music video for “The Heart Part 5” — which used AI to morph the rapper’s face into the likenesses of Kanye West, O.J. Simpson, Kobe Bryant, Nipsey Hussle and Will Smith — was made possible by Deep VooDoo, an AI visual effects company and one of Quist and Connect Ventures’ recent investments. Since Connect’s establishment, Quist and his colleagues have invested “eight figures” into music-related technology that empowers creative innovation (like “The Heart Part 5”) because Quist feels “we are nearing a tipping point in the music industry” and a coming decade that’s “transformative and full of opportunity.” He believes the greatest opportunities in music lie in evolving the live-concert experience, investing in the fan-artist relationship, AI and the democratization of music creation, and he envisions a future where the Internet of Things finds its place in music, “transforming everyday objects into musical instruments or interfaces.”
Words an investor should live by: “Warren Buffett once said, ‘Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.’ This quote reminds me to approach both investing and life with a contrarian mindset, not being swayed by the prevailing market sentiment or popular trends, but to rather look toward the future.”
Sam WickPartner, UTA; head, UTA Ventures
Sam Wick
UTA
Recent investments: Moment House, Stem, CameoInterests: AI, livestreaming, e-commerce, distribution
As head of UTA Ventures, Wick consistently asks founders the same five questions: “What is the problem? How big is the market? How are you solving it? Why are you the right team to solve it? What is your competitive advantage?” UTA Ventures’ portfolio includes startups from industries as diverse as its client roster, which ranges from music to film/TV to gaming and sports, but it has dipped into music technology with investments in Moment House and Stem. One of the most important considerations for investing in music, Wick says, is remembering that “music defines culture and is continually at the forefront of technological disruption and innovation … Any trend that impacts the arts more broadly will impact music first.”
Words an investor should live by: “A venture investor will make hundreds of investments throughout their career. When all is said and done, your relationships and reputation are paramount … Conduct yourself with integrity.”
Finance
Fred Davis and Joe PuthenveetilPartners, The Raine Group
Joe Puthenveetil (left) and Fred Davis photographed on March 21, 2023 at The Raine Group in London.
Paul Stuart
Recent investments: SoundCloud, Firebird, Amuse, Rock the BellsInterests: Decentralized distribution, streamlining royalty collection, generative AI
Raine Group partners Davis and Puthenveetil combined their backgrounds — Davis’ as a longtime music attorney, with generational music expertise imparted by his father, Clive Davis, and Puthenveetil’s in advising and investing for Grail Partners and 13 years helping steer Raine’s music and entertainment efforts — to become a dominant music business force. Apart from investing in some of the industry’s fast-growing new music technology firms, they have also had their hands in facilitating many of the industry’s biggest music technology transactions, such as the sale of tech-focused publisher Kobalt to Francisco Partners and the sale of AVL Digital (CD Baby) to Downtown.
In the next five years, music tech will…: “Platforms and distribution will evolve to connect artists directly with fans and unlock opportunities for engagement and monetization beyond streaming,” Puthenveetil says. “Music discovery and consumption will continue to integrate more deeply into other forms of entertainment, particularly in gaming. Music rights management will continue to get more complex and, hopefully, more transparent and efficient for rights holders.”
Bob MoczydlowskyManaging director, Techstars Music
Bob Moczydlowsky
Jen Hall
Recent investments: Endel, Triller, Tribe XR, Strangeloop Studios, Amper MusicInterests: Streaming, music production tools, AI
As the managing director for premier music technology accelerator Techstars Music, Moczydlowsky facilitated 70 pre-seed investments in startups like Endel, Community, Triller and Tribe XR for a total of $8.2 million during the existence of the program that started in 2017 and ended this year. Techstars connected founders not just with money but with mentors from many of the other investors and companies mentioned on this list, including Sony Music Entertainment, HYBE and Warner Music Group. “I invest at the earliest possible stage,” Moczydlowsky explains. “So 90% of my process is about the team … At the early stage, what matters are the people and their passion for the market and the problem.”
In the next five years, music tech will…: “I’m most interested in what comes next in this mature streaming market we’re entering. If music streaming 1.0 was about solving the problem of ‘make all the music play,’ I think music streaming 2.0 is going to be allowing fans a way to ‘play with all of the music.’ ”
Shachar OrenFounder/CEO, Sound Media Ventures
Shachar Oren
Courtesy of Shachar Oren
Recent investments: Boomy, Tribe XR, Dance FightInterests: Generative AI, blockchain, user-generated content, streaming, metaverse
For 18 years, Oren was CEO of the startup he founded — business-to-business music licensing platform Neurotic Media — which Peloton acquired in 2018. After the sale, he moved to Peloton as its vp of music before founding Sound Media Ventures, where he applied the skills he learned as an entrepreneur to invest in other founders’ businesses. Since then, Sound Media has invested about $500,000 in total seed funding for music-related startups like Boomy, Tribe XR and Dance Fight in addition to significant investments in other areas of entertainment and technology. As Oren puts it, his firm offers founders more than money: “Our experience and expertise in the music space, along with our relationships, give us the ability to drive growth for our founders.”
Startup red flag: “Testing the product and getting a feel for the market fit it can find, or better yet, interviewing customers and assessing how passionate they feel about the solution is key. If one can’t establish a clear market fit for a product or service, that’s a clear warning.”
Guy OsearyCo-founder, Maverick Management; co-founder, Sound Ventures
Guy Oseary
Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
Recent investments: Community, SeatGeek, Shazam, OpenAI, Stability AIInterest: AI
After making his name as a superstar manager and music executive, Oseary has more recently turned his attention to venture capital and funding the future of innovation, both inside and outside music. In 2015, he and co-founder Ashton Kutcher launched Sound Ventures, where he says he leans on his skills at spotting talent as a former A&R executive to find the next big company. At the National Music Publishers’ Association’s annual meeting this year, Oseary gave a keynote address that focused on AI: “There’s a whole new wave that’s happening, and it’s happening very quickly. That means things can scale quickly,” he said. He has two funds dedicated to AI; one has raised $200 million to make investments specifically in “foundational AI models,” which Oseary feels will be the bedrock of all companies in the future. “Our thesis is that everyone is going to plug into one of these foundational models. In a few years, I’m going to ask whatever company I’m working with, ‘Which one do you use?’ And they’ll say Google or OpenAI or Anthropic — it’ll be one of five or six companies that you’re going to put all your information into and use that model to help run your business.”
Shara SenderoffCo-founder, Born Ready; co-founder, Raised in Space
Shara Senderoff
TCK Photo
Recent investments: Audigent/Music IQ, Songclip, The WaveXR, Spatial Labs, Altered State MachineInterests: AI, blockchain, royalty collection, music production tools, AR
Through funds Born Ready and Raised in Space, Senderoff has invested approximately $30 million into music tech startups during her career. These days, she is most interested in the evolution of the creator economy and how generative AI tools will affect it, but her investments range widely, from blockchain-based solutions for royalty collection to generative music to virtual reality. “I’m relentlessly focused on viability of a business model and its alignment with market timing and demands,” she says.
Startup red flag: “Consistently investing in cutting-edge technologies, such as blockchain and AI, before they hit the mainstream has made it easy for me to spot hype cycles while also enabling efficient discernment of innovation from buzzwords. I pride myself on deep diligence.”
Matt SpetzlerPartner/co-head of Europe, Francisco Partners
Matt Spetzler
Courtesy of Francisco Partners
Recent investments: Kobalt (acquisition), AMRA (acquisition), Native Instruments, iZotope, Plugin Alliance, Brainworx, JKBXInterests: AI, music production, royalty collection, business-to-business music licensing
It has been a landmark year for Spetzler and his colleagues at Francisco Partners, which purchased tech-focused music publisher Kobalt and its global digital collection society, AMRA. The team also has invested significantly in music creation tools because, as Spetzler puts it, “technology has been, and will remain, a driving force behind empowering independent artists and creators.” His goal is to make Francisco Partners “one of the top technology and media investors” globally — and given that its last three years of investment into its audio portfolio has led to a combined value of over $4 billion, the company is well on its way toward that goal.
In the next five years, music tech will…: “I believe the power and economics will shift toward the artist/creator, and this empowerment will be driven by technology and increasing transparency.”
This story will appear in the Oct. 21, 2023, issue of Billboard.