Recoup Podcast

Vickie Nauman expects the first AI music licenses, signed on market share, to start paying on actual usage when they come up for renewal in one to two years. The founder and CEO of CrossBorderWorks has spent 26 years licensing new music technology, and she lays out what rights holders need before that switch: an attribution system for AI output, artist opt-in, and a transparency clause in every AI license.

We cover Spotify's AI artist badges, whether a Drake hit and a Kansas City singer-songwriter carry the same value in a training set, Merlin's role for independent catalogs, GEMA's court win against Suno, why AI-generated music should flow through the same DDEX pipes as everything else, and why 3.5 billion gamers make games a catalog income line. Vickie also explains why the industry lost four years trying to stop digital from 1999 to 2004, and why rights holders are at the table this time.

Vickie Nauman: crossborderworks.com · LinkedIn

Chapters
0:00 Cold open + intro
0:19 Human, machine, or a million shades of gray
6:49 Twenty-five years of new tech meeting old rights
11:53 The majors signed first. What about everyone else?
15:55 When the AI deals come due
20:45 Proving a song is human
25:09 Games as catalog income
29:28 Quickfire

Recoup designs and builds the systems behind conversations like this one: catalog data, royalty operations, and AI agents for labels, publishers, funds and management companies. recoupable.dev

Recorded in Miami during Art Basel 2024. Xcelencia runs his career the way a good company runs a product line: the album treated as software, distribution engineered through quests rather than playlist luck, and a direct commercial relationship with the collectors who fund the work. We go through the numbers behind his $100K year, the tooling he built versus bought, token-bound accounts as fan infrastructure, and what he would keep if he started again. Required listening for anyone who owns a catalog and wants to see the leading edge of independent operation in practice.

Connect with Xcelencia: El Niño Estrella, X, Spotify

Recoup designs and builds the systems behind conversations like this one: catalog data, royalty operations, and AI agents for labels, publishers, funds and management companies. recoupable.dev

Discover Base Digger, the latest onchain game built on Base! 🎮 My friend Cadu gave me early access to this exciting new game, which he and his team have been building for 10 months. In this video, I’ll playtest the game, explore its features, and share my first impressions. From signing in with email, swapping ETH for tokens, and digging lands to climbing the leaderboard, I cover everything you need to know about this unique onchain gaming experience. Watch to find out how I rank on the leaderboard and why I’m so excited about the Base ecosystem! 🚀

In this tutorial, we walk you through building an indexer for the ManageFamAuthority to automate Party management based on Hypersub subscription status on Base. From creating a "fam" to linking subscriptions to parties and verifying subscription expirations, you'll learn how to streamline multiplayer Ethereum experiences with this end-to-end guide.

Key Timestamps:

In this episode, we dive into launching a meme coin on the Base blockchain using the WOW protocol. Follow along as we explore WOW mechanics, deploy a meme coin, and integrate features like buy and sell functionality. Whether you're a developer or an enthusiast, this guide will show you how to create your own meme coin launchpad on Base to earn fees in the 2025 bull run!

Four builders and artists on the structural question behind every catalog deal: who gets paid, how fast, and who decides. Steph Guerrero, Watcher.eth, Dragaan and PaperHandPapi compare notes on distributing release income across as many contributors as possible, what a decentralized network changes for a small label's cash flow, and where the model breaks. Less about any one technology than about the design of a music business where the money reaches the people who made the work.

Steph Guerrero, Paper Hand Papi, Watcher.eth, Dragaan. Digital collectible: Decent

Recoup designs and builds the systems behind conversations like this one: catalog data, royalty operations, and AI agents for labels, publishers, funds and management companies. recoupable.dev

J Mack Ent. created Wura, a release built to pay a community rather than a platform. A year on, she reports the results without spin: what the launch paid, what the pay cuts and the move back to her hometown taught her about running an artist business, and how she is designing the next project to connect the diaspora through music and language. A grounded look at what it takes to build a new income model for a catalog and keep it running.

J Mack Ent.: X. Digital collectible: Decent

Recoup designs and builds the systems behind conversations like this one: catalog data, royalty operations, and AI agents for labels, publishers, funds and management companies. recoupable.dev

On Chain Experiments is back and this time we're exploring the intersection of music and blockchain technology with our special guest, Sagrado.eth. As a leading web3 musician, Sagrado regularly publishes his music under CC0 and is passionate about supporting the growth of the music NFT space in Latin America. In this episode, we'll dive into the world of universal basic income + music NFTs. As always, we'll discuss how artists can use blockchain technology to monetize their work, the potential benefits and challenges, and the future of music on the blockchain. Join us as we explore the latest On Chain Experiments in the world of music and nfts.

Cover photo prompt: a 3D render of pueblo sagrado, a mexican city with a Tortillería and lots of latin vegetation

Sagrado: https://twitter.com/sagradothesound

Episode NFT: https://hq.decent.xyz/137/Editions/0xb5Dd34e006EeD835aB7D7237435c71169978511d

Omotayo