I was pitching a company called Funnel Music to a legendary producer whose records I’d been listening to for years and who I was quietly terrified of emailing. I opened with my personal creds, as you do. Signed artist, chaos of the late 90s, ran an indie label, ran an indie publishing company, session guitar…
Somewhere in a Universal Music spreadsheet, there’s a number with my name next to it. And actually my song-writing partners. £300,000. That’s what the system says I owe. Not because I borrowed it. Not because anyone handed me a cheque for three hundred grand. But because that’s how major label deals have always worked, and…
Everyone in music is asking the wrong question about AI. It’s not “will AI replace artists?” It’s “when AI uses an artist’s work, who gets paid?” Right now the honest answer is: usually nobody. The work gets hoovered up, the value flows somewhere else, and the creator who made the thing in the first place…