From being a firm advocate for publisher and self-published songwriter rights, to your role as Senior Vice President of CMRRA, Business Affairs and Corporate Development, you’ve accomplished many things! What accomplishment are you most proud of?
I’m most proud of the relationships I’ve been able to forge in the course of my career. I’m fortunate to have been able to work with so many people across so many sectors of this industry, and truly the basis for any accomplishments I’ve had are a direct result of these good relationships. First and foremost are the music publishers and self-published writers we represent and with whom I’ve been able to work so closely – especially those on the Canadian Publishers Committee, whose input on negotiations I value tremendously. We speak often and in detail, and some of those conversations simply would not be possible if we didn’t have a good basis of trust and respect already established. Similarly, no negotiation would be as successful were it not for the relationships I’ve been able to form over the years with my counterparts at the online music services. When the digital music business started, we had music industry folks and tech professionals trying to communicate with each other … usually poorly. We had to work to find a common language as we were entering a new business together, and the strength of those new relationships formed the basis for discussions. Similarly, it used to be the case that relationships were somewhat strained between the publishing and the recorded music communities; however, with CMRRA’s focus on direct negotiations for industry-standard practices in the licensing of physical products, it only made sense to me to work collaboratively in trying to achieve a system that would be beneficial to the industry as a whole. Strong relationships are also important with my colleagues in other areas of the music industry, and the lawyers, consultants, bureaucrats, and academics with whom I interact regularly. But really, it’s my colleagues at CMRRA, and more recently at SoundExchange, who have kept me so engaged and successful in my work for the past 23+ years.
When digital streaming services first came to be, you helped shape the way publishers could license their songs in Canada. Can you tell me more about this?
When I was first looking for a job after being called to the Bar as a lawyer, I wasn’t sure how to find work that incorporated my 3 main areas of interest: law and policy, music, and the internet. I was hired by CMRRA in May 1999, and in June 1999 a thing called Napster came along suddenly merging those 3 things at once. Luckily for me, in this job there was little else to do at the time BUT to help shape the way publishers could license their songs in Canada, and it’s still keeping me busy today! I remember the very early meetings with record labels and new online music services to talk about how licensing could occur, but the pivotal development came when I helped CMRRA propose our first online music services tariff to the Copyright Board of Canada. With that tariff, we ensured that music publishers had direct control over the licensing of their works when streamed or downloaded in Canada, rather than passing those rights through the record labels. We also fought for and won some of the strongest rates and terms of licensing globally and stemming from that tariff we pride ourselves to this day on being able to collect 100% of the usage data of any DSP operating in Canada to help ensure that all works, whether or not represented by CMRRA, can be claimed, licensed, and paid. To that end, I helped conceive of and implement CMRRA’s Unclaimed Works Portal. This ground-breaking tool, launched in 2018, was the first of its kind, allowing all music publishers and self-published songwriters to work with this usage data to help identify and claim song ownership so that CMRRA can, in turn, license those songs and collect the associated royalties from music services. Our collections encompass all activity identified from the time of the services’ launch in Canada to present, making sure all royalties owed get into the hands of rights holders. I’m proud of all the work I do at CMRRA, but my involvement in the growth of the digital music licensing business in Canada is definitely my proudest.
In June of this year, it was announced that you would be joining the leadership team of the newly launched Global Publisher Services division of SX Works. Can you tell us about what that is?
In 2017, I was part of the executive team at CMRRA that went to market to seek a strategic partner, with the aim of scaling CMRRA’s services and expertise. SoundExchange was such a good fit for us, as together we had the shared vision of offering incredible opportunities to the entire music industry and could do so by combining SoundExchange’s authoritative ISRC and sound recording data with CMRRA’s extensive musical works database in the creation of SX Works. SX Works, Global Publisher Services leverages the combined data with CMRRA’s deep music publishing administration capabilities to focus on supporting the music publisher and self-published writer communities globally. Our initial focus is on the U.S. and Canadian markets. I was honoured to join the leadership team of this new venture so that I can draw on the existing relationships I have formed over the years, and work with the people – along with the ‘pain points’ that I’ve heard over my many years – to help identify new opportunities, to drive revenue and to expand our foundational CMRRA work-by-work, share-by-share renumeration model to the global music publishing community. I’m thrilled that Realsongs (also featured in this issue of The Pulse) has put their trust and confidence in our team by becoming a client of SXWorks alongside their existing decades-long affiliation with CMRRA for our services in Canada.
What is the best piece of advice you would give to someone working towards a successful and accomplished music industry career?
Meet as many people as you can working in as many different areas of the industry and listen to what they have to say. This industry is about so much more than what it appears to be, and you don’t even know until you start exploring the many details and layers of it. Personally, I’ve always loved the idea of advocating for rights, but wasn’t sure how that could fit into music until I learned about what music publishers do. Most importantly, remember that relationships are the key to it all. This industry is a fairly small network of people you will encounter over and over again throughout your career (if you’re lucky enough to have one in music), so remember that a good relationship ultimately takes you much further than a solo mission. Oh, and most importantly, never forget that it’s all about the music. We’re all here because of our love for music, really.
