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There’s a predictable moment in the life of a growing business as operations, departments and processes mature and become engrained. More data, more stakeholders, more decisions. What once felt intuitive begins to feel fragmented, with questions taking longer to answer and conversations starting to loop. Teams begin to operate with slightly different assumptions and understandings about the same reality. Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel It is a natural evolution in the growth cyc

For all the noise around AI over the past year- new models, new capabilities, new fear- the most important developments haven’t been technical, but structural. In recent months, the UK government has tried to start defining an approach to one of the most consequential economic questions of the next decade: How do you build a world-leading AI sector without undermining the value of the content it depends on?

Everyone in publishing knows the simple truth- there shouldn’t be missing royalties in the digital age and there is a tax to identifying and retrieving them. The explosion in the number of recordings being released and songs being registered is still stretching the system- leaving billions in royalties that remain unclaimed or misallocated ($196m at The MLC minimum at the time of writing). If optimising royalties has a necessary cost, it begs a nuanced question: who should f

Since The MLC’s inception in 2018 through to the start of its start of distributions in 2021 and beyond it has been closely watched- by the market at large, by key stake holding publishers and by compatriot CMOs the world over. from next year there is to be a material change in how monies are distributed- Pro-rata payouts

As we all know, the conversation around music catalog investments has become increasingly sophisticated as the asset class has matured. The ability to identify, administer, and ultimately collect the income attached to rights is a deep specialism- and one that cannot be synthesized or sidestepped by AI.

In the past month alone we’ve seen three announcements that are as fascinating individually as they are illustrative collectively. Primary Wave in talks to acquire Kobalt. BMG reportedly exploring a deal for Concord. The now-concluded acquisition of Downtown by Universal Music Group Each headline by itself is significant, but taken together they suggest something more structural is currently at play. A re-majorisation of the music business.

There was a moment, not that long ago, when music rights acquisitions felt almost mechanical- streaming growth was steady, capital was abundant. The underwriting conversation revolved around a small set of variables: historical cashflow, growth assumptions, discount rate, and multiple. If you believed in the long-term durability and expansion of streaming, the rest followed.

On Spotify’s latest earnings call, there was a few moments, including the quote “Technology is seldom disruptive on its own. Significant disruption happens when new technologies enable new asymmetric business models.” The real question isn’t whether AI is powerful, but whether it enables new business models entirely.

Music rights are nuanced, and always have been. Creative collaboration, shared ownership, territorial differences, long tails of value, and cultural context are all part of what makes music operationally distinct from many other industries. There is, however, an important distinction to be made between nuance and friction.

“We are a defacto data company. We don’t work in the music industry-  we work in the data industry.” This quote from Caroline Champarnaud of SACEM speaks deeply to the operational reality of a modern collecting society- though it resonates far beyond that context, into the very fabric of music publishing and copyright administration in the modern age. The more I’ve thought about it since, the more it feels like an accurate description of the publishing ecosystem.

Last week I was at Music Ally Connect in London- and as you can well imagine AI took it’s usual place as the topic du jour. Despite being well trodden ground there was some fascinating elements- both trends from the day at large and specific comments that gave insight to how the Music industry is currently both thinking about and preparing for (/guarding against) AI. Mostly these broadly fell into 3 camps- intense negativity, bullish positivity and cautious ambivalence.

Top songs are what attract capital. Music, and entertainment at large, is a hits driven business. This may be true, as most of the value magnetises to the ‘head’ of catalogs, but it doesn’t mean that everything else has no value. In fact- the truth is far from it. Large catalogs can offered history, predictability, and a level of institutional comfort that made underwriting easier- let alone the base level of recognizability and ‘icon’ status that marketing departments dream

Competitive advantage in music is often framed around ownership, but data provides an equally powerful advantage. Serious operators across the music ecosystem are all looking at broadly the same raw data inputs (keeping in mind last week’s look at how data is no longer a scarce resource)- with cloud infrastructure and AI flattening the technical barriers to entry. Data is no longer the differentiator it once was.

For years, conversations around music data have revolved around access- to global copyright databases, better royalty data, deeper DSP reporting (+ the terms of DSP licenses). Data in this framing is treated as a scarce resource- something hoarded, guarded, and used to justify competitive advantage. The great news is the tide has shifted in recent years, meaning this framing no longer holds.

Every industry has its myths- narratives that get repeated so often they start to feel like facts. Music may be one of the most culturally powerful forces in society, but it’s also one of the most misunderstood commercial ecosystems. Misconceptions are often perpetuated by those without years of internal industry experience- not only colouring how the business is perceived (particularly operationally), but also by implication how we think about innovation and investment.

Music is one of the most culturally powerful forces on earth. It anchors memories, shapes identities, moves crowds, ignites movements, defines decades, and travels further and faster than almost any other creative expression. It also underpins nearly every other entertainment and social experience we care about. And yet… commercially and systemically, it is profoundly undervalued.

For years music publishers have learned to live within a strange paradigm. Chatter around the industry is endlessly about innovation, data, efficiency and the collaboration required to realise gains for all. Yet for all the discussion, the data sets relied upon for collecting and attributing royalties continue to operate with significant limitations- none of which need to be spelled out here. Publishers, despite best efforts, often only discover issues after value has already

There’s a recurring dichotomy in how music publishing ‘value’ is discussed. The media conversation clusters around the headline acquisition of iconic catalogs and blockbuster songwriters- the “big deals” naturally command attention. They are tangible, easy to explain, and fit the narrative that music IP behaves like a financial asset. However there is also a real engine of value outside those deals that make the music headlines. There is still material revenue to be found ac

AI is leverage like humanity has never seen before- but it is amplifying both signal and noise. AI isn’t creating wisdom- it doesn’t make us smarter, or more insightful, or even necessarily more effective. It is simply scaling what already exists.

Every vertical in the entertainment industries has always rested on two foundational pillars: content and distribution. One produces the art- the stories, songs, and IP that audiences love, the other makes sure those works can actually reach them. The symbiosis and tension between the two is as old as the media business itself, but in practice it’s far from a zero-sum game. Content without distribution is invisible. Distribution without content is empty.