Summus is a Latin word that describes the greatness of things. In our case, SUMMUS is a summit to celebrate the greatness of music. A place where experts from all around the music industry meet to share lessons learnt, build consensus about today's challenges, and design forthcoming landscapes.
SUMMUS is an ideal forum to debate and learn in details about proposals and necessities for identification and distribution of rights using avant-garde tools.
Javier Asensio, Regional Director Latin America at IFPI
Flowers by Bornay, Carrer de Melcior de Palau, 36, 08028 Barcelona
The connection between the artist and the fan is easier than ever thanks to the digitisation of the music value chain. The number of unsigned artists is growing in all emerging markets and is looking on track to become one of the most relevant segments of the industry.
Will unsigned artists continue growing in number? What are the gaps in the industry this could expose?
We’ll discuss the relevance of these unsigned artists in the market, examine the current tools they’re using and discuss what they may need in the near future.
Financial products have always been part of the music industry – with advance payments to artists being the typical example. We’re now seeing major artists selling their catalogues as well as major financial institutions starting to own music assets directly.
How will the transition of creative ownership of music assets to financial institution ownership impact the incentives behind the music royalty industry?
We’ll explore the current state of this trend, how it’s evolving, and the potential impact on all participants in the music royalty space.
Web3 and NFTs have become household names in the industry overnight, and are being touted as a disruptive solution for artists to monetise their music. Concepts like copyright and royalties are being challenged, and we’re watching it all unfold.
How might this change the foundations of the music industry? How can web3 initiatives achieve decentralisation, and can they do this without contradicting their own principles?
We’ll try to understand how these new technologies interact with the well-known challenges the music industry faces today.
China’s 1.4 billion consumers make it look like a giant tantalising pie with magical potential. Music publishing is in its infant stage in China and there are many mysteries still to be uncovered.
How does music publishing in China differ from the rest of the world?
We’ll try to understand the challenges and identify the uniqueness of the Chinese landscape.
Flowers by Bornay, Carrer de Melcior de Palau, 36, 08028 Barcelona
There are forces pushing for the hyper-fragmentation of copyright. The explosion of featured artists per song, the proliferation of IMEs, the growth of licensing vehicles, the financial edge of copyright assets, frequent acquisitions, new usage types, the increasing reach of multi-territory representation, sub-licenses – to name a few. Until now, licensing has grouped these forces together, but the industry might be adapting to a new composite reality.
Do mechanical rights follow performing ones? Are the writer’s share and publisher’s share in line with each other?
We’ll try to understand how deep fragmented licensing can go, as well as how different countries are.
Streaming and on-demand services for music can now add gaming, micro-video-creation and social media platforms to the gang. The growing abundance of these platforms continues to challenge the status quo of music licensing, identification, data processing, collection and distribution.
Will current processes evolve or new ones have to be created to fit the services of prospective and current platforms?
We’ll explore what changes are already being made to deal with the proliferation of digital platforms.
Among the expanding offerings of Video on Demand, Broadcasters have started to launch their own on-demand offerings to compete with the likes of Netflix and Amazon. With these movements, music licensing, royalties processing and cue sheets for VoD platforms are being put in the spotlight.
What challenges does the music industry face when licensing VoD services? What are the challenges faced in processing, collection and distribution, and by whom?
We’ll explore music licensing and royalties processing trends and challenges in the age of VoD.
For decades charts have been a measure of success within the music industry. However, as the metrics for defining success continue to evolve, charts, as they are today, might be becoming less relevant to artists, labels and consumers. Charts may need to start transcending industry norms in order to stay relevant.
What will the new metrics for defining success be, and how can charts evolve to encompass them? Which existing and new data streams should be consolidated into the charts of the future?
We’ll evaluate existing chart compilation methodologies and discuss how they could evolve to stay relevant.
Originally from New York, Maija RIVENBURG is an artist manager and booking agency director, who is passionate about connecting artists with audiences. Since 2015, she lived in East Africa in Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya working in theatre, festival administration, cultural event marketing, and music management. In 2020, Maija opened Kipepeo Agency, an artist management and booking agency which strives to journey together through metamorphosis, so that artists and teams work together to transform and mould the artistic brand. Kipepeo Agency currently represents Bakhita, GNL Zamba, Groovy Jo, Kuiyu, Liboi, Nsimbi, Suzan Kerunen, and Udulele. Maija is based between Uganda and Kenya and pursuing a Masters in Music Business Innovation from the International Music Business School in Barcelona, Spain through an online program. She is also an alumnus of the perFORM Music Incubator cohort 3 established by Muthoni Drummer Queen in Nairobi, Kenya.
Jósean Log is one of the salient names in the Latin American music scene of recent years, and also one of the most interesting projects not least because he has consistently maintained a 100% do-it-yourself approach to his admin and management, defying the industry standards in this and many other respects and proving that the role of the fully independent artist is here to stay.
Amelia Ideh is an artist development and communications consultant, currently building an artist education programme at Bandcamp. Her 17 years of experience in the music and cultural industries include marketing, fundraising, artist management, event production and promotion. Amelia is also a Clore Cultural Leadership Fellow and a former governor of The Place.
With more than 10 years in the industry, Angel has achieved a diversity of incursion in many different aspects of the music business. First he co founded of IndustriaMusical.com (2013) the leading media for the Spanish/Latin music industry, then cofounded IMES Entertainment Group a digital agency working with majors and big festivals along with the creation of a MGMT department where now he manage Nil Moliner, Vicco and Roi Mendez at the same time as he lead the Global Head of Trade Marketing at Ditto since 2018, after spending almost a couple of years at Believe.
John Chapman is the co-founder of Inkling Capital and the CIO of Dundee Partners. At Dundee Partners, John has led the family office's investments in the music space; which have included the founding of the joint venture with KKR to form Chord Music; which is one of the largest independent music rights owners in the world. In addition to investing in music rights, John actively invests in early-stage music technology companies from seed to late stage. Prior to working in the family office space, John helped to build several hedge funds and started his career at Lehman Brothers.
Mario Razzini is a Partner with Francisco Partners, one of the largest and most active technology-focused private equity firms in the world. At Francisco Partners Mario has been involved in several technologies, media, and music deals, including the acquisitions of Native Instruments, iZotope, Plugin Alliance and the creation of the Soundwide group of companies, as well as the announced acquisition of Kobalt Music Group. Prior to joining Francisco Partners, Mario worked at Arma Partners, an M&A advisory firm, where he focused on advising public and private technology companies in the software and IT services sector. Mario serves on the board of directors of Bybox, Kobalt Music Group, nShift and Soundwide (Native Instruments, iZotope and Plugin Alliance). He formerly served on the board of directors of ClickSoftware and LiveU.
Fernando is Managing Partner of Queka Real Partners, a Spanish private equity fund. Prior to joining Queka, Fernando was Managing Partner and Investment Director of the ProA Capital Founding team. He represented ProA Capital on a number of portfolio company boards, including Moyca, Saba Infrastructure, Palacios Alimentación Group and the Eugin Clinic. Prior to this, he worked at N+1 Private Equity and at Nazca Private Equity, participating in numerous deals. He began his professional career in the Corporate Finance department of ABN AMRO. Fernando holds a degree in Business Management and Administration from CUNEF.
Cherie Hu is the founder and publisher of Water & Music, a collaborative research and intelligence network for the music business. Previously, she penned hundreds of articles on music and tech as a freelance writer for publications including Billboard, Forbes, Pitchfork and Variety. She has spoken as an expert commentator on CNBC, CGTN America and SiriusXM Volume; as a guest lecturer at institutions like Harvard University, New York University, Northeastern University and Berklee Valencia; and as a moderator, panellist or keynoter at over 30 conferences around the world.
Jordi has a degree in law and more than twenty years of experience in the music sector. He co-founded and is CEO of Unison, the first private and for-profit music copyright management operator in Spain, one of the pioneers in Europe and one of the first two private music rights management companies accepted as Client RME in CISAC. Unison manages rights in close to 3M songs for +500 clients from 30 countries, collectively representing +40k rights holders.
Arnau quit his dream job where he was one of the main bookers at Primavera Sound to start his own company in the Web3 space. He has a wide background covering different areas of the music industry including marketing, consultancy, brand strategy, artist curation and business growth. He has worked for organizations like Discogs, Primavera Sound, Jägermeister, CCCB, Sinnamon Records, and Vida Festival among others.
Ms. Cherry Guo specializes in entertainment laws, especially in music industry. She was working as an in-house legal counsel in the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) for six years before beginning to practice law in China in 2000. Benefitting from industry experiences, she is one of the top copyright lawyers in the entertainment industry in China. Cherry has rich experience in IP litigations and is especially good at handling complicated internet-related copyright disputes and unfair competition disputes.
Mathew has been one of the pioneers in the development of the music licensing market in China for the past 17 years, having started the distribution company, R2G with his partners. After the acquisition of R2G by Tencent Music in 2016, Mathew moved to NetEase Cloud Music (NCM) to head up their International Music division.
Zhou Hao is the Senior Digital Manager at Universal Music Publishing China. He is well connected in the local digital realm to establish comprehensive partnerships with major digital and new business partners in China. Prior to joining UMP, Zhou Hao was the BD Manager of Global Partnership at Tencent, engaged with all the critical digital content units within the Group to develop publishing strategies with platform partners.
Benjamin Ng is the Regional Director for Asia-Pacific of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC). He is closely involved in the collective management of copyright and legislative lobbying in the region. Prior to joining CISAC, Benjamin Ng was the Regional Counsel of IFPI's Asian Regional Office. There, he suprvised major civil litigation including cases initiated by record companies against Baidu, Yahoo! China and Xunlei.
Lucius Klobucnik is a lecturer in intellectual property law at Aston University, Birmingham, UK. He holds a PhD degree from Queen Mary University, London, and Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich (Augsburg University). His main research focus is on copyright law (especially music rights), intellectual property in new technologies, and platform liability. As part of his PhD research project, he worked at the German collective management organisation in music rights (GEMA) in Munich, and at CISAC (Confederation of societies of authors and composers) in Paris.
Eric has more than 15 years of experience in legal advice on intellectual property and competition law matters, with special emphasis on matters related to the creative industries, having represented all types of clients before Spanish and European Courts and competition authorities.
Kamil is Director, Digital Legal Affairs at Warner Chappell Music. Kamil maintains Warner Chappell’s contractual relationships and content licences with digital service provider partners for the EMEIA region as well as advising on regulatory and industry affairs internally. Kamil also sits on the UK’s Music Publisher Association’s Public Affairs and Governance Committee and is currently chair of the International Confederation of Music Publishers’ Legal Expert Group.
Cherie Hu is the founder and publisher of Water & Music, a collaborative research and intelligence network for the music business. Previously, she penned hundreds of articles on music and tech as a freelance writer for publications including Billboard, Forbes, Pitchfork and Variety. She has spoken as an expert commentator on CNBC, CGTN America and SiriusXM Volume; as a guest lecturer at institutions like Harvard University, New York University, Northeastern University and Berklee Valencia; and as a moderator, panellist or keynoter at over 30 conferences around the world.
Director of Labels and Publishing Operations at YouTube, Greg’s team supports collection societies and music publishers globally and assists the Licensing, Engineering and Product teams to launch new products and business models on YouTube.
As the current Director of Licensing Operations at Kobalt Music Publishing, Chelsea oversees the Global Digital Operations of Digital Partnerships as well as Mechanical Licensing in the US. With a natural curiosity towards new media, she has gathered a keen understanding of new digital platforms and the impact of operations at a publishing level. Being a performing artist herself, she previously managed the Iridium Jazz Club in Times Square and worked at BMG as a consultant for catalog acquisitions.
Julien Lefebvre is head of Digital Strategy and Innovation at SACEM, the French Author Rights Company. After ten years consulting in IT architecture, Julien joined SACEM in 2016 as chief enterprise architect. Since then, he and his team have been involved in the IT strategy and in all the major business and technological transformations: online processing, lives, repertoire management, customer and members relationship management and international collaboration. Since the end of 2019, Julien is also in charge of SacemLab, the Sacem innovation team. In this new role, he works closely with the music tech ecosystem and especially with startups, to identify and leverage opportunities to bring value to the members and customers.
Magali Clapier has more than 20 years of experience in the music industry. Working for industry bodies, French and EU regulators, for a start-up, and now for the leading music service, she has gathered comprehensive and wide expertise on music data and royalties flows. She also serves as a key contributor to DDEX. At Spotify, she is the lead for publishing operations strategy: aiming at improving the royalties process on a global scale, driving and implementing changes internally and in collaboration with the societies and publishers.
A practising lawyer in Barcelona, Enric is specialized in copyright and personal image rights, representing clients in different areas of the creative industries: music, film & TV, arts, publishing, sports and media. He is the author of several works on these subjects and teaches them as a professor in different courses and programs.
Following several years experience in the international business of audio-visual neighbouring rights at Germany’s GVL, Tobias joined ICE in 2016. In his current role as a Senior Product Owner he’s responsible for the successful delivery of the upcoming AV system as well as ICE’s new data analytics platform for its eight Copyright and ten Online services customers.
John’s background is steeped in music, having studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire in Russia, before life as a professional orchestral musician, then reverting to his university law studies in moving towards industry work. His career includes several years at label trade body IFPI, before his appointment to lead ICMP – the global voice of music publishing. John has lectured at Lausanne University and The Paris School of Business Management. He’s a fan of just about every kind of music, from Public Enemy to Puccini, J Dilla to Jon Hopkins, Shostakovich to Stiff Little Fingers.
Peter’s first career was as a songwriter and performer. He has worked in the UK television production and broadcasting industry for the last 25 years specialising in music rights. His career has included ITV television and 16 years at the BBC where he was responsible for all music licensing agreements for television, radio, online media before being Head of Rights for the BBC World Service. Peter joined Sky Television as Head of Music in January 2013 and became Director of Music in 2018 where he leads Sky’s music teams covering Licensing, Creative, and Reporting as well as Sky's Music Publishing and Library businesses.
Mélina has spent 11 years at The Walt Disney Company in Paris, in the audiovisual department as a Channel & Digital Sales Development Manager licensing deals with VOD/SVOD platforms and working on the distribution of the Disney Channels through operators in France. Mélina joined SACEM, the French Author Rights Company, in 2021 as head of VIDEO. Since then, she and her Team are working on Licensing VOD/SVOD platforms in the Territory.
Over the past 9 years, Kasper has specialized in processing music rights on digital platforms. As a project and process manager at the Danish collective management organization Koda, he has been responsible for establishing efficient reporting and distribution practices for various VOD services and has also been heavily involved in Koda’s handling of multiterritorial music streaming services. Kasper is a former musician and songwriter and has a master in musicology and media science from The University of Copenhagen.
SUMMUS is an event organized by BMAT
It will be held on 3rd & 4th October at Flowers by Bornay and BMAT HQ.