Meet Us at Music Biz 2025!
Are you headed to the Music Biz 2025 conference coming up May 12-15 in Atlanta? Laurie and Bill will be in attendance, so send us an email if you’d like to meet up!
And while you’re there, make sure to watch DDEX accept the prestigious Impact Award for Technological Excellence at the 2025 Bizzy Awards Dinner on May 14th at 6:00 PM ET!
Several Jaybird clients will also be speaking on panels this year:
Deborah Mannis-Gardner (Owner/President, DMG Clearances, Inc. and Chairwoman & Co-Founder, AYO Music Group) and Kat MacLean Daley (A&R, AYO) will be speaking on the panel “Your Client’s Music Is F*cking Amazing! So Now What?” on May 13th at 12:00 PM ET.
Greg Viñas (VP of A&R and Business Development, LATAM, Symphonic Distribution) will be speaking on the panel “Music Publishing in Latin America: What You Need to Know” on May 13th at 1:55 PM ET.
DDEX Secretariat Mark Isherwood will be speaking on the Metadata, Technology & Rights Summit program panel “Party-Goers — Who Do You Think You Are?” on May 14th at 11:30 AM ET.
Weston McGowen (VP, Music Label Partnerships, SourceAudio) will be speaking on the panel “Metadata Mastery: Best Practices for Enriching, Processing & Managing Music Revenues” on May 14th at 12:20 PM ET.
Jorge Brea (Founder & CEO, Symphonic Distribution) will be speaking on the panel “Indies and Majors: Building Bridges in a Changing Music Ecosystem” on May 15th at 3:15 PM ET.
Recent Coverage + New Jaybird Website
We’ve landed some great client placements over the last couple of months! You can see it all on our recently redesigned website – new look, same birdy! We’ve rebuilt jaybirdcom.com with enhanced features to better highlight our clients by increasing visibility for their news and announcements and listing upcoming client speaking engagements. We’ve also added a weekly industry news recap, writings from our team, and more. Be sure to check it out!
Recent Client News
Symphonic Distribution
Symphonic has been busy over the past few months! They announced a round of team promotions to expand product and tech strategy, another round of promotions to expand in Asia, a partnership with RTOPIA to sponsor their ongoing concert series, and a partnership with SymphonyOS to provide enhanced marketing tools to artists. They also launched their third annual Women Empowered+ Mentorship Program.
In addition, Jon Mizrachi, VP, Head of Sync at Symphonic, was recently featured by A2IM as part of their Industry Insider series.
Finally, Symphonic Founder & CEO Jorge Brea recently wrote the op-ed “To Fight Streaming Fraud Effectively, Distributors & DSPs Must Work Together. Here’s How,” which was featured in Billboard. Following the op-ed’s publication, Jorge discussed streaming fraud on the Your Morning Coffee and Unlimited Supply podcasts.
SourceAudio
Andrew Harding, Co-Founder and CEO of SourceAudio, was recently featured in the Muse by Clios series 2 Minutes With, talking about how musicians and brands can work together. Read the full profile here.
AYO Music Group
Last week, AYO Music Group announced the launch of Gapfinder, a tool to identify errors and gaps in publishing work registrations with global PROs. Developed as a unique tool for AYO’s copyright admin team, Gapfinder data services are now also being made available to selected clients worldwide. Read the full announcement here.
In March, Music Ally featured the op-ed “The UK’s AI vs copyright crossroads: where do we go now?” by AYO co-founders Deborah Mannis-Gardner, Pär Almqvist, and Stacey Haber. The piece dives into the UK’s consultation on whether to introduce an exception to the copyright law for text and data mining, essentially allowing copyright-protected material to be used without permission to train AI models unless the rightsholder explicitly opts out. Read the full op-ed here.
DDEX
On April 2nd, DDEX announced the publishing of the Musical Work Right Share Notification Standard (MWN) Version 1.3. MWN 1.3 fulfills a variety of communication requirements between musical work rightsholders and downstream data recipients, including the communication of identification, rights, and usage data for musical works and their associated parties to facilitate accurate claiming and remuneration for these musical works in the publishing rights ecosystem. You can read more in the announcement here, including quotes from Sony Music Publishing’s Alex Batterbee and SACEM’s Paul Cohen.
Don’t forget, DDEX will hold their next Plenary during the week of November 17th. More details, including the location, will be announced in the coming months.
Deborah Mannis-Gardner
On March 20th, Deborah Mannis-Gardner was featured on this year’s Billboard Women In Music list in the Multisector category. This year marks her third inclusion on the list (2020, 2024, and 2025). Congrats, Deborah!
On April 11th, Deborah was quoted in the Billboard article “‘There Are No Rules’: Inside the Complicated World of Sample Credits” talking about the complexities of sample-clearance negotiations and featured-artist credits. Read the full article here.
LyricFind
On March 10th, LyricFind CEO & Founder Darryl Ballantyne was featured on The Label Machine podcast, where he discussed the changing landscape of music rights and royalties, and how innovative technologies like AI and video-creation tools are shaping the future for artists, labels, and fans alike. Listen to the full episode here.
Angry Mob Music
On Thursday, May 8th, at 2pm ET, Marc Caruso will be on The Smartest People In The Room with Tony Alexander of Made In Memphis Entertainment. Register here for this free webinar where Marc and Tony will discuss their careers, the indie landscape, and more!
On April 15, Marc joined Music Business Association President Portia Sabin for The Future of What Podcast to talk about what it means to be truly independent, the current landscape of publishing and label markets, how indie music companies can collaborate, and more.
From March 24-28, Angry Mob hosted the second edition of The New Normal Writing Camp, founded by their Senior Director of A&R, Ralph Torrefranca. The five-day event was a resounding success with a diverse group of 52 songwriters and producers representing more than 15 cultural backgrounds and comprising 75% women. The second edition was incredibly productive, with 38 songs written across eight rooms, including a dedicated K-Pop room. You can view more pictures and clips from the event on their Instagram
Just For You Music
Just For You Music (JFYM), the newly launched independent music publishing company founded by Chris Giansante, has announced its first signing: a global music publishing deal with multi-award-winning Canadian country artist and songwriter Gord Bamford.
Built on a creator-first philosophy, JFYM offers hands-on support, tailored opportunities, and global reach to help songwriters and artists maximize their careers. With Giansante at the helm — a global industry veteran and former senior executive and Director that oversaw the global finance and operations of ole, which was rebranded as Anthem Entertainment — the company blends deep industry expertise with a fresh, flexible approach to publishing and rights management.
Read the full announcement here.