July Newsletter
Jaybird and our clients have had a busy few months since our last update! Here’s what’s happened since May!
Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP)
The Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP) held its first in person Global Music Publishing Summit since 2019 on June 14th at the 3 West Club in New York City, with each panel also livestreamed to registrants around the world via Zoom. Highlights included a keynote from massively successful songwriter Ashley Gorley; a legislative update from the leaders of the NMPA, NSAI, and RIAA; panels on catalog acquisitions, synch and the metaverse, and sonic branding; and much more.
Attendees then moved upstairs for the “NYC3 and Music Publishers Canada Showcase,” which featured amazing performances from writer/performers Jewels Gold (Rainbow Rock Music), POESY (Daytripper Music Publishing), and Sarah MacDougall (Arts & Crafts Music Inc.). The AIMP Global Music Publishing Summit was sponsored by SESAC, City National Bank, DMG Music Clearances, Audoo, Reel Muzik Werks, Angry Mob Music, RyteBox, Regions Bank, and First Horizon Bank.
Read more about the Summit in Music Row >>
To view the full album of pictures from the event, click here >>
Angry Mob Music
Angry Mob Music announced the signing of a Worldwide Administration Deal with Australian electronic artist and producer, Just A Gent (aka Jacob Gant).
“We’re obviously thrilled for the opportunity to work with Just A Gent’s catalog, and equally excited to explore prospective collaborations with Jacob as part of our Admin+ music services offering. This signing is an exciting entrée into the EDM market as we look to expand and diversify our creative roster,” added Sean Harrison, Angry Mob Music Co-Founder and Creative Director.
CCS Rights Management / Daytripper
CCS and Daytripper had an exciting May celebrating their Juno wins! Not only did Colin James win the Blues Album of the Year category at the 2022 Juno Awards, but Hill Kourkoutis made history as the first female to win Recording Engineer of the Year.
During Canadian Music Week, Founder and President of CCS/Daytripper Jodie Ferneyhough and Daytripper artist Hill Kourkoutis spoke on panels about the topics of A&R, the indie perspective, neighbouring rights, making records, and creative studio decisions. CCS/Daytripper artists POESY, Nuela Charles, Olivia Wendel, and Laureli also had the opportunity to perform at several showcases throughout the event including the CCS and Daytripper brunch.
Soundstripe
Soundstripe has partnered with The Other Nashville Society (TONS) to bring new opportunities to the TONS community of artists in Nashville’s Pop, Rock, Singer/Songwriter, Soul, Emo, Hip-Hop, R&B, Jazz, Orchestral, Electronic, and Christian music scenes.
The partnership aligns TONS’ mission to bring together artists who fall outside Nashville’s traditional Country music community with Soundstripe’s drive to “Keep Creators Creating”. TONS artists will have their music featured in Soundstripe’s catalog through a new Artist in Residence program, learn more about the music industry via song camps and panel discussions, and foster community through several other networking events to amplify the voices and presence of TONS artists.
Music Tech Works / rightsholder.io
This past May, rightsholder.io announced the completion of their new copyright identification tool for playlists, designed to enable music supervisors to easily create a report of publishing and master recording ownership information out of their Apple Music or Spotify project playlists.
In addition to their new tool, rightsholder.io is collaborating with Feed Media Group (FMG) to provide a seamless data matching process that will augment the information needed to complete the licensing and royalty payment cycle for songs offered throughout FMG’s music products, including its Adaptr platform.
DDEX
On June 13, DDEX held their BIG Summit 2022 as a hybrid event, taking place both online and in-person at the Gusman Concert Hall at the University of Miami a day before their 39th Plenary. At the Summit, attendees heard from speakers Mark Douglas, CIO, PPL; Cécile Rap-Veber, CEO, Sacem; Victoria Campoamor, Senior Director, Content Operations & Services, Spotify; Greg Quillard, Director of Music Publishing Operations, YouTube; Amy Thompson, Chief Catalog Officer, Hipgnosis; Kris Ahrend, CEO, Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC); and more.
At DDEX’s 39th Plenary meeting from June 14-16, they discussed the continued adoption of DDEX’s Media Enrichment and Description standard (MEAD) and some of the first results member companies are beginning to achieve. Early information shared by Amazon Music and Universal Music Group (UMG) during Music Biz seems to show a correlation between more data points and an increase in streams after implementing the MEAD standard. Among their results included a 4.6% increase in streams, an 11.9% increase in streams on Algorithmic Stations and Playlists, and a 7.8% decrease in skip rate.
Read about about the impact of the MEAD standard on streaming consumption in Creative Industries News >>
NY Tech Alliance
The NY Tech Alliance recently hosted two amazing Tech Meetups on May 3rd and July 12th.
At the May 3rd Meetup, the NY Tech Alliance featured two companies from Mastercard Startpath! Attendees heard from demoers Neel Ganu, Co-founder & CEO, Finch; and Dionne Gumbs, Founder & CEO, GenEQTY as they demoed their tech and talked about the market opportunities they are addressing with their companies.
The July 12th Meetup featured Mike Wang, Co-Founder and CTO, Mesh, a new way to engage with your customers and team; and Peter Thum, Co-Founder and CEO, Tree, a platform democratizing digital creation by offering a no-code solution that reimagines how the web works in a way no other product has done before.
Watch the NY Tech Meetups on their YouTube Channel here >>
Deborah Mannis-Gardner
Deborah is helping to establish metaverse music licensing standards, and was recently featured on Synchtank for their In the Clear(ance) interview series.
The interview focused on the unique obstacles she faces when clearing music for platforms like Roblox and Meta, and her mission to future-proof music licensing for new technologies.
“In the world of film, video games and TV, we get perpetuity, but in the world of audio books, podcasts, and the metaverse, we are forced into limited terms. But let’s talk about the internet – when something’s up there, it’s always out there. So, I think the biggest obstacle is defining these parameters to work within the budgets that these platforms have.”
– Deborah Mannis-Gardner for Synchtank
Made in Memphis Entertainment (MIME)
Portia Sabin at the Music Biz 2022 Bizzy Awards
We were thrilled to celebrate MIME’s win as the very first Agent of Change award recipient at the Bizzy Awards at Music Biz 2022 back in May! They were selected based on their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in their hiring practices, executive development, and promotion structure.
Building off of that milestone, MIME’s President Tony D. Alexander shared his thoughts on the best hiring practices to achieve workplace diversity in a recent op-ed for Commercial Appeal.
In addition, MIME has signed two new deals with Nashville-based firm Power Entertainment including exclusive rights for MIME Publishing to administer all compositions for the next three years for writers Nick Drake, Joshua Blair, and Michael Carr, and a Beatroot distribution agreement for artist Yours Truly, Jai.
This new collaboration continues the relationship between MIME and Power Entertainment’s Founder and CEO Kadeem Phillips. Phillips is the manager of MIME Publishing clients YC and RealRed, who helped write and produce Memphis-based rapper Moneybagg Yo’s album, A Gangsta’s Pain, with credits on over half of its tracks.
Read the Bizzy Awards announcement here >>
Read the Power Entertainment announcement here >>
OpenPlay
At Music Biz 2022, on May 11th, OpenPlay’s Co-Founder and Chief Client Officer, Edward Ginis moderated the panel “Whose Tag is it Anyway? – Solving the Metadata Tagging Problem” discussing with panelists how to resolve this problem, providing a blueprint for the most effective practices in tagging.
From June 13-16, OpenPlay attended A2IM IndieWeek (IRL!) in NYC!
On June 7th, OpenPlay announced the rollout of their new Direct Delivery feature, which lets OpenPlay users who have
secured their own licensing deals with DSPs, either directly or through a third party like Merlin, to quickly and seamlessly deliver their music and metadata to all major music services (DSPs) with the push of a button.
OpenPlay was also recently featured by A2IM in their Associate Member Spotlight and OpenPlay’s Co-Founder and Chief Client Officer, Edward Ginis was also showcased as a Featured Executive.
On July 20th, OpenPlay announced newly added support for Stem files in their Sessions tool set. With new stems support, users can upload and store any number of stem files associated with a track alongside its other assets traditionally stored in OpenPlay, allowing the files to be used for sync pitching, sampling, marketing, and more. Learn More About Stems Support on their YouTube Channel>>
Exactuals
While attending Music Biz 2022, Exactuals’ Director of Business Development, Lindsay Conlin was nominated for the Music Biz Bizzy Award for Master of Metadata. Exactuals’ Director of Consumer Success, Doug Mitchell, was also on the panel titled “Metadata Means Money” discussing what investors look for in catalogs, what often is unaddressed, and how copyright owners can optimize their metadata now for future success.
Verifi Media
On June 7th, Verifi’s Chloe Johnson spoke at Primavera Sound, in a panel discussing the exchange of metadata between industry partners. It also explored ways to improve it and increase revenues for those players, especially authors and publishers.
On June 13, Ken Umezaki spoke at Canadian Music Week on a panel titled “How Can (Good) Data Improve Your Business” to discuss data friction in the digital eco-system.
Allen Bargfrede, Verifi’s Chief Stragety Officer, was announced as a Future Music Forum speaker.
Meet the Team!
Meet Bill Greenwood
Bill joined Jaybird Communications way back in September 2011 and has worked his way up to Director while leading campaigns for a wide variety of clients. Formerly based in NYC and now living on the New Jersey side of the Philadelphia area, he was a reporter for several local newspapers and tech publications before coming to Jaybird. He also managed the band The Paper Jets until they went on hiatus in December 2018.
Favorite album or song:
“Everlong” by Foo Fighters and the album it comes from, “The Colour and the Shape”
Favorite Movie: “This Is Spinal Tap,” or one of the other Christopher Guest movies depending on my mood.
Hobbies: Karaoke, “The Room” or “Cats” midnight screenings, browsing record stores, and going to shows.
Get to know Bill a little bit better with this playlist of his favorite songs!
Listen here >>
