November Newsletter
The fall season for Jaybird and our clients has been FULL. Not only have we been enjoying our favorite fall drinks, but our clients have been revved up and running straight through to this year’s finish line.
Here’s what our clients have been up to:
Welcome to the Flock!
Welcome to our newest client, Hangout FM by Turntable Labs, Inc! In the spirit of a dynamic, 24/7 club, the platform lets users curate their rooms, or Hangouts, taking control of the virtual DJ booth to select their favorite tracks. They can also mingle on the Hangout dancefloor, showing their approval for tracks played by others and sparking engaging discussions. We’re excited to be working with them and to share some of their upcoming announcements in the coming months. You can learn more about them here.
Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP)
On November 1-2, the AIMP Atlanta Chapter hosted the AIMP Atlanta and Friends | Creative and Business Summit welcoming friends and colleagues from across the industry. It was great to see many of you there!
Wednesday, November 1 kicked off with a tour of the 4U Atlanta Recording Studio followed by the “A Manager Masterclass” and “Know Your Rights: Managing Your Music Licensing Portfolio” panels. The Wednesday evening reception featured a conversation with Wendy Day, artist mentor and advocate for Hip-Hop, and founder of RapCoalition and PowerMoves.
Thursday, November 2 featured panels “The Music World Is Different Outside the U.S.,” “The Creative Relationship: A Discussion,” and “The Business Relationship: A Discussion.” Make sure to follow AIMP Atlanta on Instagram and Facebook to view all of the photos!
The AIMP also launched its Educational Initiative with its first virtual event, “Careers in Music Publishing,” on October 12. The Initiative supports and enhances what current college students are learning in their classroom curriculum through specially tailored online events and webinars. Its objective is to engage, educate, elevate, and empower the next generation of music and entertainment industry professionals. The AIMP will also be launching its discounted membership tier for students currently enrolled at a college or university. The student membership tier will provide the same benefits as a normally priced Online membership, and will be available once the AIMP’s new website is launched shortly.
Angry Mob Music
Angry Mob has had a busy few months signing new writers, re-signing curren twriters, and inking new sub-publishing deals. First, Angry Mob extended their deal with Joey Verskotzki, which covers all of Verskotzi’s existing and future works, including his upcoming album with Preach Records, scheduled for early 2024. Angry Mob also signed a global co-publishing agreement with Bailey Bryan covering select catalog works from Bailey, in addition to all new works under the new deal.
Lastly, Angry Mob signed multiple sub-publishing agreements to expand into Mexico, Central America, South America, Spain, and Portugal. The new agreements with OMSA, Rocking Gorillas, and Clippers will give Angry Mob access to many global Spanish and Portuguese language markets for the first time, and covers more than 20 countries on multiple continents.
OpenPlay’s Co-Founder and Chief Client Officer, Edward Ginis, was recently featured in Music Ally with his op-ed titled “Resetting the Record: The Path to Honorable Data Practices in Music.” In the op-ed, Edward highlights and examines the tendency of many music distributors to put up “barriers to exit” for artists, labels, and other rights-holders – making it either extremely difficult or impossible to get data and assets back at the end of a deal. Edward argues that the DDEX standards make it easy for any distributor to deliver these assets back to artists, as they could simply send the same DDEX file they send to DSPs back to the artists. Edward goes beyond the moral implications and addresses how this practice hurts the entire music ecosystem, necessitating data recreation that inevitably leads to errors and inconsistencies. In the end, he calls for distributors to sign a pledge that they will add a clause to all future contracts stating that all data and assets will be returned to the artist or owner in the standard DDEX formats.
OpenPlay also spoke at the DDEX Plenary in Washington D.C. on Nov. 15 discussing DDEX’s messaging formats. You can view their presentation deck here.
Martin Clancy
Martin Clancy has had a busy few months making appearances all around the world including the US, France, and Amsterdam.
Martin spoke on the panel “AI: Opportunity or Apocalypse?” at Mondo.NYC on Oct. 10, followed by appearances at MaMA Music & Convention on the panels “AI and Music: What The Experts Say” (Oct. 12) and “Deepfakes and Consent” (Oct 13). Martin then wrapped up his appearances with the panel “Everything You Wanted to Know about AI (But Were Afraid to Ask) at Amsterdam Dance Event on Oct. 18.
Martin was also featured on TMZ Live on November 3, where he talked live with TMZ host Harvey Levin, which you can watch here (Martin interviewed at 20:55). They discussed the recent AI-assisted Beatles track, “Now and Then,” and Sheryl Crow’s negative reaction on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Deborah Mannis-Gardner
Deborah Mannis-Gardner a.k.a. the “Queen of Sample Clearances” was selected in August for recognition on two prestigious lists: the Forbes 50 Over 50, which highlights dynamic female leaders and entrepreneurs who have achieved significant success later in life, and Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players, which identifies the executives most responsible for the success of the R&B/Hip-Hop genre over the past year. On October 25th, Deborah was honored at the Forbes 50 Over 50 luncheon, a celebration of her recent placement on their prestigious list.
On October 12th, Deborah spoke at the Mondo.NYC conference on the panel “GMS 2023: Music Licensing for Video Games: Lucrative, Effective and Impactful,” where she was joined by Monica Corton (Go to Eleven Entertainment), Dylan Bostick (HEAVY DUTY PROJECTS), Louis-Philippe Caron (Ubisoft), and Lori Cromwell-Charron (Electronic Arts). The panel covered the different types of uses and licensing models for video games as well as long-term marketing and playlisting strategies that can become important byproducts of the use of music in a video game, enhancing the popularity of a song.
Finally, Deborah was quoted extensively in The Ringer’s article, “Can Sampling Survive in the Age of AI?” She explains the limitations of AI in detecting samples but also points out that it is not going away, requiring more research to improve it. Deborah also shoots down several hypotheticals about using AI to get around copyright law, stating that, ““It’s better and likely cheaper for people to license their samples correctly in the first place rather than trying to take a shortcut using AI.” Read the full article here.
Head Bitch Music
Jessica Vaughn recently spoke to Synchtank about all the factors currently at play in the sync licensing world, how they are shaping the business today, and what this could mean for it tomorrow. Read the full article here.
In September, Jessica also published the op-ed “Putting Humans First in the Music Industry: What’s Right? What’s Fair? What’s Possible?” on Hypebot. Read the full piece here.
In October, HBM headed to NOLA MusiCon where Jessica spoke on the “In Perfect Sync: Licensing and Song Placements” panel, Ryan Vaughn spoke on the “Publishing 101: What Can a Music Publisher Do for You?” panel, and they joined forces to speak together on the “How Do You Know When You Need a Manager?” panel.
Made in Memphis Entertainment (MIME)
4U Recording Atlanta, the state-of-the-art recording studio owned and operated by MIME, was nominated for the Georgia Business Journal’s Best of Georgia Award for Best Movie and Recording Studio in the state of Georgia. The winners will be announced soon; stay tuned!
MIME Publishing has signed a two-year co-publishing deal with Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and pop-soul artist MAJOR. Under the deal, MAJOR. will both create solo works and co-write tracks with other artists and producers with an emphasis on custom tracks for sync licensing. These tracks, as well as MAJOR.’s back catalog, will be worked for sync opportunities by Heavy Hitters Music, MIME’s sync licensing specialists. Read more about it in Creative Industries News.
Several members of the MIME team also spoke at NOLA MusiCon last month on the following panels:
- Tony D. Alexander, “Act Local, Think Global: Discovering & Developing Tomorrow’s Stars Where They Live”
- Tim Burnett, “Publishing 101: What Can a Music Publisher Do for You?”
- Vince Quintero, “Pressing Start on Alternative Sync & Licensing Opportunities”
- Aric Kim, “Secret to Landing on Playlists”
- Steve Corn, “Why You Still Need a Distributor as an Indie Artist”
DDEX
DDEX just wrapped their 42nd Plenary meeting in Washington D.C., as well as their Music Recognition Technology Summit and Musical Works Data and Rights Standards Implementation Seminar, which took place from November 13-17. You can view pictures from the event on their Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram pages.
Key Changes
Howie Singer and Bill Rosenblatt have been appearing all over online and in-person for their book the last few months!
On Sep. 14 they had a signing at the Copyright and Technology Conference, a signing and panel appearance at Mondo.NYC on Oct. 10, followed by an interview with Jay Gilbert and Mike Etchart on the Your Morning Coffee Podcast, they then appeared with Tom Truitt on Turnkey ZRG’s WHO KNEW The Smartest People In The Room, and lastly, they spoke with the Internet Archive on Nov. 16.
Reel Muzik Werks
On October 23rd, RMW hosted a Fall Showcase at their Nashville office followed by a three-day writing camp.
Teri Nelson Carpenter also recently attended the Women in Global Entertainment Power Lunch at MIPCOM in Cannes, France.
NY Tech Alliance
The New York Tech Alliance recently celebrated the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of Civic Hall Union Square, a momentous event that marks the beginning of a new chapter for them and their community.
The ceremony was presided over by Mayor Eric Adams; their chairman and Civic Hall’s founder, Andrew Rasiej; Civic Hall’s Executive Director Seema Shah; and other civic leaders. A link to the event can be found here.
Mondo.NYC
Jaybird was on-hand at Mondo.NYC, which held its 2023 edition from October 10-13 in Williamsburg, NY. Mondo.NYC also announced that it will be back in NYC in 2024 from October 15-18!
Highlights from the conference included the first-ever SingularityNET AI Hub, SoundExchange ”The Music Tech Generation” series, 8th annual “RIAA Presents” music policy series, 7th annual CLE Music & Tech Law Symposium, 6th annual Guild of Music Supervisors NYC Education Event, 5th annual Covington Presents Getting Physical with Music Tech series, and 4th annual Future of Music Creation & Production series curated by Daniel Rowland, as well as tracks covering AI, finance and investment, data, live entertainment, management, and much more. The event also featured live artist showcases featuring Joe Sumner, Long Beach Dub Allstars, Zada, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, and more.Attendees also saw fireside chats with Kobalt Chairman & Founder Willard Ahdritz; SoundExchange President & CEO Michael Huppe and Crush Music co-founder and partner Bob McLynn; Xavier “X” Jernigan, The Voice of Spotify DJ, and NYU’s Larry Miller; and GoDigital CEO Jason Peterson & RIAA CEO Mitch Glazier.
You can view hi-res images and recaps from each day at the links below.
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four