Ep. 130: Andrew Batey and Morgan Hayduk are both co-CEOs & co-founders of Beatdapp, a platform which processes huge quantities of data to detect streaming fraud for clients like labels and streaming platforms. Editor Joe Sparrow welcomes them back to the podcast to update us on the state of streaming fraud – and they have some truly shocking statistics to share.

They chat to Joe about the recent changes in streaming fraud, what percentage of all streaming is actually fraudulent, how many billions of dollars will be siphoned out via fraud this year, and reveal a remarkable statistic: that 40%-60% of all streams from songs distributed  via many well-known distributors are fraudulent. 

(It’s worth noting we spoke before some DSPs announced changes to their payment thresholds, which will require songs to get a certain number of streams before payout.)

Beatdapp: https://beatdapp.com/dsps-otts

Garth Brooks - Standing Outside The Fire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-6Koisf7UI

2Pac - Changes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXvBjCO19QY

Ponytail / candles:  https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-candles-extinguished-with-a-pigtail-(platted-ponytail)-in-one-minute

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Ep. 129: Dan Stein, AKA DJ Fresh, and Declan McGlynn are co-founders of Voice-Swap, the AI-powered service that, as the name suggests, allows you to swap your singing voice for that of one of their chart-topping singers’ voices. They chat to Music Ally’s Editor Joe Sparrow about why they think producers, artists and writers will want to use AI to transform their own voice to sound like one of their featured artists.

One of the difficulties that songwriters and songwriting producers face is using their own voice to sing lyrics on a track that is designed for someone else: perhaps their own voice is not very good, or perhaps it’s too hard to picture another artist performing the demo. This was a problem that Dan Stein, as DJ Fresh, faced – and he and his founders are addressing this issue with the help of AI. Voice Swap allows people to sing something into their platform, and the resulting output will sound like one of the singers whose voices the AI has been trained on. Dan and Declan talk about their technology, and who will be interested in using it, and they also dig into some of the more complex concepts: like whether particular AI voices might become ubiquitous across pop music, and whether this will diminish or boost human creativity.

Voice Swap https://www.voice-swap.ai

Prince – Sign O’ The Times https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nysBR93vc_I48usiCFTnMe6nKTB6YETjo&si=PCmbJ5wVyd2zvjSv

DJ Fresh – Gold Dust https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNuUgbUzM8U

Sliced grapes: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/575085-most-grapes-sliced-in-the-air-with-a-sword-whilst-standing-on-a-swiss-ball-in-one

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Ep. 128: We’re joined by Kris Ahrend, CEO of the Mechanical Licensing Collective. He gives us an overview of the state of  mechanical licensing in 2023, the big issues from the MLC’s perspective, and the changes he’d like to see happen.

He also talks about data transparency, what he thinks artists and songwriters want (and what the MLC are doing to increase clarity for them); the recent Phonorecord III final determination; and what the streaming royalty space will look like in 5 years’ time.

The MLC: https://www.themlc.com/

Phil Collins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRY1NG1P_kw

Smashing pumpkins: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-pumpkins-smashed-in-one-minute

------

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Ep. 127: In this special episode, Music Ally’s Head of Insight, Stuart Dredge talks to our Editor Joe Sparrow, and focuses squarely on AI and music in 2023 – a topic that has caused so much excitement, confusion, innovation, and concern all at once. 

Stuart breaks down the ambitions and possibilities – as well as the ethical and legal issues – that AI music is bringing to the music business: 

❱ AI music is human music... for better or worse – We often talk about AI as if it were sentient already - AI is doing this, AI is doing that... but actually it’s humans behind it all – building these AIs, deciding what to train them on, and choosing whether to create music ethically... or not. 

❱ A battle for control... and industry tensions – The music industry has come together very quickly to set out its principles for how creative AI should be regulated: around permission, payment and transparency. But it’s not as simple as ‚music against AI’ – there are new concepts that are being discussed around who gets to choose how music is used and by whom. 

❱ AI is not just about pushing a button – AI music is seen by some as profoundly uncreative: you hit a button and a song comes out - and it’s probably not very good. But that’s not actually the direction of travel: the latest wave of musical AIs are about prompting platforms into creating good snippets of music then human musicians using their creativity to turn them into better work. 

“Johnny Cash” sings Barbie Girl –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAFdzBTe2lg

Tach Teaches – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REqIJJLJbsc

Cathy Dennis’ “Toxic” demo – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7dk9DXFrwk

Skipping robots – https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/462433-most-skips-by-a-robot-in-one-minute

------

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Ep 126: in this episode Editor Joe Sparrow is joined by musician and music education facilitator Elizabeth J. Birch, and the CEO of UK charity Youth Music Matt Griffiths. They join us to talk about the experiences of disabled musicians in the UK music industry – and the work done by Elizabeth and Youth Music to improve it. Elizabeth is a champion of accessible music-making, and shares her knowledge with aspiring young disabled musicians. She hopes for a day when the disabled community are not so overlooked in the music industry – and Elizabeth has now been nominated for the Inspirational Music Leader award at this year’s Youth Music Awards for her work at Midlands Art Centre as a result of her work. She and Matt talk about their work, explain how the disabled community is still quite invisible in the UK music scene, and what can be done to improve things in the music industry – including platforming more disabled people on and off the stage.

Youth Music Awards https://youthmusic.org.uk/awards

Youth Music https://youthmusic.org.uk

Elizabeth J Birch https://elizabethjbirch.bandcamp.com/

Lock picking https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/97409-most-locks-picked-in-one-minute

------

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Ep 125: In this episode Stationhead co-founders, Murray Levison and Ryan Star speak to Editor Joe Sparrow about the platform’s role as a gathering place for superfans, and what fans are seeking in a platform that mixes music, community and commerce. Superfans are well know for their all-encompassing support of an artist, and their desire to form a community to celebrate them. Stationhead started out as a kind of live radio platform that would allow users to play music and talk around the songs, and has changed its path a little to become even more oriented around fandoms. Now, fans gather around stations to geek out about an artist’s music and chat about. them – with some artists joining in on the broadcasts for things like release parties. Joe talked to Murray and Ryan – who is also a successful artist in his own right – about what fans want and what Stationhead is doing to give it to them.

Stationhead:  https://www.stationhead.com

Stationhead – Nicki Minaj fandom: https://www.stationhead.com/p/fandom/nicki-minaj-fans-stationhead

Ryan Star: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKeFzpawPad05pLIP1NGFhA

God Only Knows https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NADx3-qRxek

Scratch Your Back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8US2vvG4niA

Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtXl8xAPAtA&list=PL3PhWT10BW3VDM5IcVodrdUpVIhU8f7Z-

Drumsticks https://youtu.be/4lJMjBU8fBM

------

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Ep. 124: in this episode we’re joined by Christine Barnum, CD Baby’s Chief Revenue Officer – we’re talking about music streaming fraud, how the company tries to spot it, and what the fraudsters are doing to try to avoid being detected. Christine’s job is a form of fraud whack-a-mole: trying to spot suspicious streaming activity before paying rightsholders.  We talk about her efforts in “fraud, trust & safety” from the perspective of a distributor – including how she defines streaming fraud, how difficult it is to spot, how widespread fraud really is – and what a distributor does to stop it. 

CD Baby: cdbaby.com

Jeff Buckley - Morning Theft youtube.com/watch?v=gxJI7hlPdnY

Mozart - Requiem youtube.com/watch?v=Dp2SJN4UiE4

Stamp licking guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-stamps-licked-in-one-minute

------

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Ep. 123: Music Ally’s Editor Joe Sparrow chats to Cat Henry, executive director of the US-based nonprofit philanthropic organisation Live Music Society. Cat talks about the society’s mission, which it describes as “to recognise and protect small venues and listening rooms across the United States so that live music can remain accessible to all.” Small venues can be one of the most enjoyable and valuable things that any local community possesses; a place where people can gather, enjoy music and grow their community. Small venues have been under the cosh in recent years: not only did the covid-19 lockdown punish them particularly hard, but a changing gigging environment, and large increases in costs has meant that, in 2023, running a small venue is hard work. Cat tells us about the state of the small venue community in the USA, the threats they and challenges they face, and why they are so important to the people who love them.

Live Music Society https://www.livemusicsociety.org/

Cat Henry: https://www.livemusicsociety.org/news/live-music-society-announces-appointment-ofcat-henry-as-executive-director

Toolbox grant https://www.livemusicsociety.org/toolboxgrant

John Coltrane – A Love Supreme ⁠youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGUJd_6WZDWv_YGv6b4kd1IJbaH_Z7bGP⁠

Cobbler Most fruit cobbler eaten in 30 seconds

------

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Ep 122: Alex Mubert, founder of the Mubert AI generative music platform talks to Editor Joe Sparrow about using AI to make music, the impact creative musical AI will have on rightsholders, and whether we will have to redefine what music itself is – in an era where infinitely-long pieces of music can be tailor-made for each listener.

Most of us have come to terms with the fact that generating music with AI is now simply part of the music making landscape. Alex Mubert’s eponymous company was one of the early AI music platforms, and he has plenty of experience to lean on when answering our questions about how AI music will change things. He believes for instance, that mass adoption of generative music as a creative tool will be through video content creators – who may be keen to "co-create" music for their videos with an AI trained on their favourite artist – and he talks about how the integration of AI music into streaming platfroms could change how much money is paid out to human creators.

Mubert: https://mubert.com

RATM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWXazVhlyxQ

Mustard: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/503372-most-mustard-bottle-drunk-in-30-seconds

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Ep. 121: We speak to two people from TikTok who have helped turn classical music into viral content. TikTok has captured the attention of people in every area of the music industry, who now look to the short-video app for A&R, marketing, music discovery, audience-building and fan-nurturing. Darina Connolly, Head of Artist & Label Partnerships, talks about TikTok’s direction and strategy, and she’s joined by Label Partnerships Manager Lisa Skeppner, who is one of the go-to TikTok people when it comes to classical music. Music Ally's Editor Joe Sparrow asks them what it is about classical music that holds users’ attentions – is it the song, the performance, the context of the song’s use, or the artists themselves? And what can non-classical artists learn for how they use TikTok?

We talk to Darina and Lisa about how classical music has connected on TikTok, and the impact on classical artists – and also they talk more widely about what it means for users to be discovering new “old" music this way – and what the longer-term impacts of that are beyond short-term spikes in attention around novel genres.

TikTok Artist Handbook: newsroom.tiktok.com/en-gb/uk-artist-handbook-supporting-artists-to-get-the-most-out-of-tiktok

Sade - No Ordinary Love: youtube.com/watch?v=_WcWHZc8s2I

ABBA – Gimme Gimme Gimme: youtube.com/watch?v=XEjLoHdbVeE

Peas: Most peas eaten using a cocktail stick in 30 seconds

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