And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 94: Elena Segal

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

This week’s episode features an industry executive who is Apple Music’s first Global Senior Director of Music Publishing. She leads a team that cultivates and fosters relationships with music publishers and songwriters, ensuring licensing, payments, and creative solutions are readily available and handled appropriately. Our guest began her career in the entertainment industry as a barrister in the U.K. and then an entertainment litigation attorney at Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp in Los Angeles, CA. She was appointed to her post at Apple in 2018 when she hung up her barrister’s wig and transitioned from the legal side of the entertainment industry to the business. In her more than 14 years at Apple, she has been intimately involved in the expansion of iTunes to countless countries around the world, the launch of Apple Music in more than 100 countries on one day (including being responsible for licensing of all publishing rights for the service outside the US), and played a key role in all 10 editions of the iTunes Festival (the Apple Music Festival in its latter years). Over this time she has become very well-acquainted with the music publishing landscape, and the music publisher and collection society community around the world, having been in the thick of numerous shifts in the music publishing landscape since 2007. The creation of music, and the ecosystem and industry that nurtures that, is her passion. And The Executive Is… Elena Segal!Art: Michael Richey White Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey guys, welcome to Ann the writer is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. I've written with hundreds of artists and writers over the years, and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life, the industry, politics, composition, whatever. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs, and most importantly, who the people are who write the songs.

I'm producing this with the Great Joe London, big deal music publishing, and mega house music management. If you want to listen to the songs we discuss in this podcast, follow us on our socials, find out about special live events, or buy that merch, aka that hat I always wear. Go to our website www. And The Writer is.com. For a little bit of context,

we just wanted you to know that a lot of these were recorded before quarantine. And as we know, a lot has changed in 2020. So again, please stay safe out there. and enjoy the new episodes of And The Writer Is. Welcome to And The Writer Is. I am your host, Ross Golan. Today's executive is an advocate for the songwriting community, pushing to evolve how the songwriting profession can survive

in a DSP ecosystem in the year 2020. The songwriter relationship with streaming services has traditionally been adversarial, but this guest's team has actively and aggressively rolled out unique opportunities to revere songwriters and artists without patronizing the plight of the modern writer. We are lucky to have our friend visit us from across the pond, the global director of music publishing, from that small company called Apple. And the executive is Elena Siegel. It's Elena Siegel.

It's Elena Siegel. We'll do that again. And the executive is Elena Seagull. So it is Eleanor. It is Eleanor, yes. And it is Seagull. It is Seagull, yes. How is it that, how often do people actually pronounce it correctly?

And does it depend if they're from the UK or if they're from the United States? It does depend, but it's probably 5% correct. 5%? I would guess, yes. So then who are your parents? Who are the people who named you? My parents have absolutely nothing to do with the music industry. Where are they from?

They were both born in London. Very standard London, North London, North London Jewish upbringing, I would say. Both of them. And I was named after an Italian family friend. It's really Eilina. Oh, okay. and I don't have a middle name because both my parents hated their middle names

Really? Ellen Seagull What was their middle names? Do you know? My father's middle name is David and my mother's middle name is Patricia And they just didn't like them? Okay

Did you ever play music? Oh yes, I've played music since I was four What did you play? Cello, piano and saxophone Cello first Do you still play? Not as often as I would like piano and saxophone

more than cello My cello is getting a bit dusty in London So how does somebody from North London Who plays Well my parents were from North London I grew up in Southwest London Okay from Southwest London

How does someone get involved in You know I guess the music industry I mean were you You were doing music when you were younger So did you want to be a performer Performer? I think I decided very early on

That I was not cut out to be a performer How did you know that? Because my cousin is a professional cellist and I started learning because of him and sort of despite him as well. What does that mean? It means my parents didn't want me to learn the cello because he was sort of very gifted

and they were worried that if I wasn't as good I'd be upset. So they wanted me to learn something else but then my aunt, his mother had started learning the cello at the same time as him so that she could help him and she decided to become a cello teacher. And when my parents were out one day when I was four,

my aunt showed up with a cello, with a little mini cello, and started teaching me. And when my parents got home, I apparently said, oh, I'm learning the cello, and then they didn't want to take it away from me because I'd be upset. So I sort of started learning the cello by accident because of my cousin, but despite the fact my parents didn't actually want me to play the cello. So did you, how far did you, how far did you,

your music education take you before you realized that you were done being a performer? Well, in the UK we have grades of instruments, grade 1 through 8, and I did grade 1 through 6 piano and grades 1 through 8 cello, and saxophone I started later when I was about 16, and I, saxophone was what I was most sort of passionate about and tennis sax. Jazz? Everything. jazz classical everything I feel like saxophone in particular

has you know we were talking about gender in the music industry and cello seems to be pretty equal seems like a lot of at least in my music schools I remember a lot of women playing cello

and piano but I don't remember a lot of women playing saxophone what was it that inspired to play saxophone? I just always, always just loved the sound of it. And I think, because I played tenor sax, which obviously is similar registered to cello, I think I loved the saxophone,

and I gravitated immediately towards the tenor. And then I think for a long time I was told I couldn't play it. Why? Well, because I went to a school that was quite sort of focused on music, and, like, Holst had been the director of music many moons earlier and it was all very serious. And they wanted me to focus on the cello.

And so they wouldn't let me play the saxophone. And then I got braces and then you can't play the saxophone because you'd completely cut up your mouth. And so it was once I got my braces off and I was going through a sort of slightly rebellious phase. I was like, I am going to play the saxophone. This is happening. And I just picked it up and I did sort of grade six almost immediately.

and then did seven and eight very quickly. I feel like if you play piano, there's a reason why most people start with piano. Obviously, it sounds like you started with cello. But, you know, it's easy to see the Western music when you look at a piano and you see how notes relate to each other in literal distance from each other.

For you to play such different instruments, it's not unusual for a cello player to play bass or for a piano player to play, maybe some guitar or something like that, but it's really unusual for someone to pick up saxophone and whatnot. But clearly you were proficient at all three. I still don't understand why you didn't pursue being a performer. Because I saw what my cousin was going through,

and I saw how hard it is and how much you have to do to still potentially get nowhere. Sure. And I couldn't quite live with the frustration. I just knew I couldn't live with the frustration of that. Not to interrupt, sorry, but I was going to say a lot of singers are raised to be performers. You know, if you sing well, then we're going to put you on stage to be a performer versus understanding that there's composition and you could be a songwriter.

You know, a lot of people who listen to this are people who were either formerly or currently performers but are primarily interested in being a songwriter. I think there's something about being proficient at an instrument, doesn't mean that you have to do that instrument to still be in music. Did you ever do composing? Did you ever do any version of songwriting? Well, I seem to remember writing two songs. Well, but only the music.

I basically took poems and set them to music when I was about 16. Can you sing as well? No, I'm, no. I won't sing. How much do we have to pay you to sing in this podcast? There is no money. There is no money that we'll pay me. me to sing. I sing like a choir girl because I've only ever sung a choir's and I hate it. I hate it.

Do you sing in the car, singing like to Taylor Swift but in a choir voice? What do you listen to? You have access to all the music in the world, quite literally. So what do you listen to? I have very eclectic taste of music, really everything from classical to jazz to Bastille to Celeste right now in the UK loved Billy Eilish's album, absolutely loved it I think Phineas is just one of the most talented humans on the planet

love I mean there is so much I can't you put me on the spot and then I can't being a fan of music but having the ability to play it Do you enjoy listening to music? Or do you find it, do you find yourself critiquing music?

Do you listen as a critic or as a fan? I think both. I think I grew up, because of the school I went to, I think I grew up listening to music in a very critical way to start with. But I think the way I've listened to music has actually really changed in the last year and a half. I think since being in the role that I'm now in, I've always thought there were two kinds of people

there are people who hear the music first and there are people who hear the lyrics first and I used to always, always hear the music first and now I think I'm much more balanced and I pay attention to lyrics and much more than I used to and I noticed the structure of songs much more than I used to

so I think I probably started out at school very critical because that's the way I was sort of taught and then I went through a sort of pure fan phase and now I'm very much still a fan but I just noticed different parts of the song more and the construct of the song more what

brings you to the dark side of the music business what got you from being a performer to being on the you know like the the impression of people who work on the music industry side of things

are people who the stereotype is that they don't know anything about music and that they come at it strictly from a business thing. So I'm glad that we're breaking down that stereotype to begin with. And the part I didn't mention before is that I wanted, when I was 16, I wanted to be a sound engineer. That was what I wanted to do. That was, and I did work experience in air studios in London.

And that was... Producing, mixing, engineering. Well, I don't think I knew the difference at the time. I think engineering was what I sort of thought I wanted to do at the time. I wanted to be behind. When you were 16? Yeah. Who's introducing you to this stuff?

Because your parents are proud of you for doing cello, for playing cello. You know, what makes you say I'm going to be an engineer? Well, I started to get a sort of slight inside view of the industry by complete accident through someone who my father became friends with who sort of is indirectly responsible for where I am now. Who's that? Chris Wright.

And how did he see your talent and say, oh, you know what, you could also do all these other things? It wasn't that he proactively sort of approached me. It was just that growing up, my dad became friends with him when I was three. basically because my dad bought the house I grew up in from him and they ended up becoming friends

and do you know who Chris Wright is? I don't know who is that. One of the founders of Chrysler's Records. Oh, that's the Chris Wright. I got it. Okay, yeah. And so because of him, I was just sort of getting a little bit of an inside view of the industry and then it was because of him I got to do this work experience at Air Studios. Did you work on any projects?

that ended up being major, major label projects, were you able to hear your work? It was a very, very short time. And it was actually the very beginning when I first got there, they misunderstood and thought I wanted to do work experience, sort of answering the phones and being a receptionist. Wow.

So once we got past that, they... Was that you saying this isn't what I do? I'm not a... Well, it was... I seem to remember at some point someone saying something like, if you're really good, we'll let you answer the phones. And I was like, that's really not what I was interested in being here for. And once I sort of made that clear, then they sort of took me into the studio and sort of showed me

how to sort of set up their microphones and showed me a little bit how everything worked. And they let me just sort of help with all that stuff, which was great. I mean, and I loved it. It was very brief. So I don't, I can't say there are any projects. that are out there that I worked on. So how quickly after high school, or our version of high school,

you know, what happens after that? How do you start interning from 16 years old working in studios? How do you start learning about even that still on the creative side being an engineer? What brings you on the side of, these are the people who are doing the creative stuff? I actually, of all these instruments,

that I've played, all this engineering I've done, or interest in these things, now I'm going to work on behalf of the people who are creating. That's a big switch in a person's life. Well, and it wasn't immediate. There was a

whole journey in the middle where I did some completely unrelated stuff. Like what? Well, first of all, I became a lawyer, I became a barrister in the UK and was doing completely non non-ent entertainment industry related stuff.

And then... Why? I mean, that's a... It's a really committed choice to go, be a musician your whole life and then say, you know what, I'm going to go and work in law and not music law.

Why? I didn't do it very long because I was very frustrated. But part of the reason I didn't end up pursuing the sound engineer thing, I mean, first of all, there were no female sound engineers in the UK at the time like none. And it was very clear that if you wanted to do that, you really had to sort of leave school at 16, go and work in the studio, kind of make the tea and work your way up. And I had in my mind that I was definitely going to go to university. I think at the time there weren't really sort of sound engineering or music related university courses, which there are now. So I was definitely going

to go to university and I don't really know why but I had in my mind that I had to go to Oxford and then it became a question of well if I want to do that what is it that I'm going to do and I ended up studying law really because I thought it would be interesting it wasn't because I wanted to be a lawyer it most of it was what kind of law did you study well you you have to do all of it basically at Oxford my favourite thing actually was sort of human rights law

I mean if I was going to do anything other than what I've ended up doing I wanted to be a sort of human rights lawyer sort of Amal Clooney style but do you think of yourself as an overachiever no or you just this is just what you do

I think of myself as someone who's just done the best I can Do you feel like there's more that you could have done in your time? Or do you feel like that you're... You know, I mean, I feel like there's a great question. If you want something done, find a busy person to do it. You know, because busy people feel like, oh, they're not doing enough. Yes.

Is that something that you're... Were your parents like that? My mother's always been a little bit like that, I'd say. Yeah, my parents are very different from one another. but my mother stays very, very active and always wants to be doing a million and one things.

Do you siblings? I have one sister, yes. Is she the same way? No, we're very different. Yeah. I don't think of myself as an overachiever. I just think of myself as someone who's got up every morning

and just done what needs to be done. Yeah. So after you become proficient in many instruments and go to Oxford and then get your law degree and then become a lawyer And then, you know, at that point, you say, you know what, I've done all this, I've done all this, I've been working in, how long were you working in law? Well, very brief, because I actually then quit the law to do something completely unrelated to either music or law.

Of course. I mean, I was going to guess that, so why not? What did you do? I actually moved to L.A. to become a sports agent. Oh, very cool. What kind of, what kind of sports? A tennis with a major in tennis with a minor in basketball. Okay. Did you work with a lot of professional athletes then? Yes, it was a very small company that doesn't exist anymore. But the tennis world as a world I knew very well.

Because you must have played tennis and were probably really good at it. I played tennis. I was not that good at it. Oh, okay. I was okay at it. But I had sort of worked at tennis tournaments and all my summers during university. At Wimbledon and whatnot? It didn't work at Wimbledon.

I worked actually I sort of interned at some tournaments over in the States and just got to know I just got to know the industry very well and got to know a lot of the people very well and really loved it and I thought I had a Jerry Maguire moment

I was going to be the sports agent with integrity was there something with I mean that movie probably times up pretty well you know for you was there actually oh yeah I can do this.

And were you inspired by that movie? Totally. Really? Yes. There's some things with sports agencies that I feel like artists in the music industry and tennis players are actually really similar. You know, they, there's some competition with other people, but they all generally travel together. And it's just one day. It's one tournament.

Sometimes they win this tournament. sometimes they come back and win another one sometimes they lose a tournament whatever it is that's similar um one thing that kind of alludes songwriters but is similar is um sponsorship and that there's outside money outside of the industry so a tennis player can make a lot of money from rolex and an artist can also make a lot of money from rolex um why and how do we get into a place where songwriters can make a living outside of playing the game. Well, I think the first step is for songwriters to be more visible and better known to start with and to have their names better known to start with.

I think without that, it's very, very hard. Yeah, I mean, in this segment, what would David Israelite ask Ellen Asigo, I said it right How about it? Why doesn't Apple advertise more about its better relationship with the songwriting industry? There are a few questions

from David, so I'm just warning this is just number one. I think because that's just not who we are. I think it should be about the songwriter's not about us and us shouting about it in that way makes it about us.

I agree with that on one hand and the other is that you guys have we can get into that I've done some things to really lead the way in a relationship with songwriters that can help set precedence

for other companies to follow. Is that the songwriters, is it our obligation to show our relationship with you guys to help set the precedent for other companies or is it more that that's really, it doesn't matter, that's just sort of is what it is. Do you know what I'm

same. Well, I mean, I think the precedent gets set without shouting about it. I think, and I think when, I think there are some things that we are doing that will, you know, that we will be more vocal about. I think, you know, my team has existed for almost exactly 18 months now, so it still feels like quite early days. and I think there's a lot coming down the line that will be we'll be sort of more ready and more able to shout about sure there was one suggestion he made that I thought was interesting because he was talking about

he was talking about songwriter credit and allowing listeners to search by writer name I know that there are some things where we've created playlists and whatnot and ways for people to if writer are proactive. They can create their own page

that people can look at their own playlist and whatnot. Songwriters need to continue to be educated on how to do that. But, you know, I know you guys have led the way in some of that. But I think that's interesting, the idea of being able to search a songwriter and being able to see their discography rather than, you know. Yeah. And I think it's, yeah, there's a lot of things,

there's a lot of work that is continually going on. to do things like that, to make things like that better. There are industry-wide challenges that need addressing and it's partly songwriter education and education of managers and publishers. Things like the numerous different iterations in which a songwriter's name might appear. It's a very, very significant piece of work

to figure out that Ed Shearhan is the same as Shear and Ed is the same as Ed. Edward Sheeran is the same as Edward Christopher Shearin. It's the same as Shearhan, comma, ed, dot. Yeah. And things like that, they're sort of very technical and not very interesting and sexy seeming, but they make things like that challenging.

There's a lot of work that goes into it. Yeah. I actually have a friend who's a statistician for professional athletes, and that's one of the issues, is going through all the people, different companies, in different leagues posts stats in different ways and it's so interesting

how much punctuation can make Excel sheets difficult so let's go back to you know you're working in as an agent in tennis and I mean that it's pretty fulfilling because one of the hard things with songwriting is that

it's really hard to tell tangibly how successful a song is which is also what makes it exciting but when you watch a tennis player play there's actually money for a place that's delegated

before the actual tournament starts so if you're in you know if you're 25th and you get in the money or whatever position gets in the money you probably know this but we already know how much money they're going to make before the tournament even starts versus songwriting where we know, have no, or artists, we have no idea what they're getting paid or how they're getting

paid. But it seems like that would be a thing that would make working with tennis athletes is probably exciting because you can tangibly see the success. It's exciting and I think it's, mentally, I think it's much easier for tennis players and songwriters. And it's, I completely agree with you that there are numerous overlaps similarities between songwriters and tennis players. but one of the biggest differences is that a tennis player wins or loses it's very clear cut whereas a songwriter or an artist

there's no clear winning and losing I mean unless you consider one to be winning and anything lower than one to be losing which is a depressing way to think of it but I think mentally that lack of certainty has to be incredibly difficult

and I don't know how you all do it what brings you to from tennis i assume that then you were an astronaut or what what how do you go from yeah not yet yeah we've done let's let's do it um nobody's going to mars yet you can set a bunch more precedent why not um how do you how do you go from being working in los angeles in tennis was it being here that being in los angeles that got you involved in the music industry or did you go back to London and then have I went back to London to London brief I was very

I turned out to be very unhappy doing the whole tennis thing and realized fairly quickly that I was much better off having that as my hobby than my career why why because it's much harder to be Jerry McGuire than

than it looks in the film and you know you sort of get tired with the brush of all of the agents who are not perhaps don't perhaps have the most integrity in the world being diplomatic here and

and I just disliked it I went from there were tennis players I was sort of good friends with who immediately that I was an agent treated me very differently and I hated that wow how so how did they treat you differently immediately treated me with sort of enormous suspicion

when I was working at tournaments I was in player services I was there to sort of help them figure out, solve their problems for them, pay them their prize money. Everyone likes that. And as soon as I was an agent, I was immediately, arm's length, you know, you're going to try and screw us somehow.

And I just, I couldn't deal with it. I hated it. The music business isn't totally different from that. I mean, on some level, there are a lot of people, like I was saying, there's skepticism from songwriters. I always try to explain the songwriters.

I say, you know, a lot of songwriters don't want to do a publishing deal because they're assuming that they will be part of this stereotype, again, that the publisher is only doing a deal to screw you versus being your partner in helping exploit your songs and to help create a brand for you and whatnot. But I've never been on that sort of side of the music industry. Right. I went back to London for a bit and then ended up getting a job to a law firm in LA that was at the very tail end of the Napster litigation and

ended up doing sort of music industry work, mostly copyright infringement work in the music industry right off the bat starting with some litigation between Universal and Courtney Love. What was that case? it was to do with the California 7-year rule that says you can get out of any personal services contract

after 7 years regardless of what the contract says but if you're a recording artist and I believe there's a new case just recently that on the songwriting side but if you're recording artist you the record label if your record deal was for delivery of a number of albums

rather than for a period of time and you have not delivered all those albums within the seven years, the record company can get damages for the undelivered albums. And so Courtney Love terminated after seven years, and Universal sued for the undelivered albums, and then she countersued. And it was a very interesting lawsuit. How did it turn out?

It settled. How do you think that should turn out? Oh, that's a... that's a difficult question there were some interesting issues in the case because one of the issues was is the concept of damages for an undelivered album too speculative and I think that's

you know that's a that's a big question I mean you know you can't look at a past album and go well the past album made this much therefore the next album will obviously have made the same amount because that never happens in the music industry but using the sports analogy you know you have athletes that do a 10-year deal, a 15-year deal, and sometimes they'll retire before the 10 years and sometimes

come out of retirement. There are all these ways to sort of get out of your contract. But generally speaking, people don't look at athletes the same way they look at songwriters or artists. It's an interesting idea of servitude and, you know, the prince, obviously the prince's situation with Warner is probably set the precedent for Courtney to do the same thing. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure it was in her mind at some point. Yeah. She's going to be sort of highlighted in this season because we interviewed REM,

and that was a big thing was because he loves Courtney. Michael Stipe does. So shout out to Courtney. I don't know why. I don't know her. But I went on to then do all the file sharing litigation against all the file sharers. So sort of sued 11,000 individuals on at a time. How was that?

I mean, I was a freshman at USC in L.A. Did I sue any of your friends? Well, it was the first university to sue Napster. Okay. And it was sort of one of the first, it was the first private institution to sue Napster. they were somehow exploiting their students. And so it was part of an era where you'd be in school where the teachers in digital will never work

because music needs to be recorded on tape. And the kids would go home and use reason and early versions of Pro Tools. And clearly there was just, you know, the kids using Napster in their dorm room are going to classes and learning something totally different from their teachers. Now, obviously, it's a very different university.

in a different program. But yeah, there's a whole generation of people who are still frightened of downloading anything because of being sued, but a lot of the students didn't understand why they were being sued. It was basically an education program. It was the only way to really get the message out there

that it was illegal. Did it work? I mean, clearly it kind of did. To some extent, I say. Why to some extent? I think the difficulty is your... the people who were doing the most knew how to avoid being caught. The people who...

So you weren't catching the biggest infringers, I'd say. So the people you're catching are the people who really didn't understand that they were doing anything wrong. So you are educating them, but you were not necessarily catching the biggest culprits. Did it... Did Napster ever go after? actually collecting money from any of these suits from the young you know the it would be because it's like college it would be a college yeah the RAA yeah yeah I was I had to speak to

a lot of people um I mean we we would settle for you know small four figure sums right um and we weren't trying to put in you know we weren't trying to bankrupt anyone sure just trying to help people understand. Right. But it was very controversial. It probably worked on some, you know. I think it maybe worked to some extent. What would you have done differently?

That's a really difficult question. The, you know, arguably, arguably the music industry should have gone and negotiated with the services earlier rather than just sort of saying, we're not going to talk to you because, you know, you're stealing our stuff, so we're just not going to have the conversation. Are there residual things with, you know, continuing the analogy, the XFL, the ended up changing how the NFL actually uses camera angles in games.

You know, it really affected the way people now experience the NFL because there was this left-of-center football league. American football. In Napster, Limewire, Pirate Bay, all of these have, almost every person who listens to this knows what those three are. Did the current DSP system

learn anything from the way those companies structured their companies in any of the distribution or any way that they interact with their user base? I should think very little. I think obviously the concept of streaming started, I'd say, with piracy. Although obviously Napster and Goxer and Qazar and LimeWire and all of those was all downloading. From our standpoint, you know, as a subscription service, as a paid subscription service,

I certainly can't say that we learned anything from them because they would, you know, the whole point was they weren't paid. In terms of the free streaming services, it's possible. But from a technology standpoint, they're very different. Technology is a different thing. I guess on some of a copyright law has always been connected to technology. Whether it was sheet music to piano rolls, which is obviously, as people know, the beginning of the Music Modernization Act as a result of piano rolls

but piano records, vinyl records, CDs analog tape, ADAT, all these different kinds of ways of absorbing music let alone MP3s and were you when did you get involved in technology or is it just hand in hand

because to understand the way these pirate companies were working, you have to know some technology, no. Well, I was always a complete geek my whole life. I mean, if you're an engineer, if you want to do recording engineer, you have to be. I mean, music and technology were always my two things growing up. And, you know, it was, I'm old enough that it was,

you know, I didn't really learn to sort of code or program properly, but I did a little bit of it. You did a little bit of code? Well, when I was like 10. Who does a little bit of code? Well, I remember learning at the primary school in the UK, like aged like 10 or something. There was a computer in the UK called the BBC computer. The BBC commissioned a computer company to make a computer that was branded with their name.

And they created a computer language called BBC Basic that was like, a simplified version of various other more complicated languages. And I had to learn some BBC Basic at school age 9 or 10 or something. And I loved it. I mean, I could do programming to have it like draw like a basic image on a screen and have like flashing colors and things that was super exciting at the time. This is amazing. I mean, I can't do anything without calling a friend to ask them how it's similar works.

I can't with modern, with a modern computer. but yeah you run you're involved in one of the most progressive companies in the history of the world as far as technology is concerned so how do you end up going from being an attorney to working in well it was actually nothing to do with the file sharing cases but it was to do with there was a case we did about decryption of DVDs, which we won. It's called the 321 case. What was that case? It was basically going after a company that was putting out software

that allowed you to decrypt DVDs, and it was about the Digital Rennium Copyright Act and circumventing the encryption, and was that, or was that not allowed? And it was not allowed? and because of that case the firm ended up doing some work as outside council for Apple and then someone I'd worked very closely with

ended up being sort of head-tunted by Apple and then about a year later he sort of pulled me in to be the first lawyer for iTunes in Europe which was just too crazy an opportunity to turn down I mean, it's your whole life was leading to that. Well, yes. You know, there aren't a lot of people who end up, who end up sort of exactly in the one role that exists on the planet,

and you end up in that role. That's incredible. But it was bonkers because, I mean, AI was really way too junior for the role, so Apple took a massive risk on me. But I had never, I'd always loved Apple. I've never owned a computer that was not an Apple computer. And but it had genuinely never occurred to me that Apple was a company that you could actually go and get a job at. It just didn't seem real. It just wasn't a thing.

And so when they came asking, I wasn't looking to leave L.A. I was very happy in L.A. And I think I made the decision to do it in about a nanosecond. Do you have a personal life? Yes. to some extent? I mean, it's hard. I try to ask that for all of our guests because most of the people seem to be,

I know, euphemistically motivated and maybe workaholics, you know? So, I mean, it's often hard for people to establish a personal life and still work in this industry. It depends what you mean by personal life. I mean, I have a lot of very close friends who I really am quite good at carving out time to spend with.

You know, my life is very split between London, L.A. right now, so my friends have to be very accepting of the fact that I'm spread quite thin. And I have a lot of fun in my life if that's a... Sure. If that counts. Well, also, it's hard when you enjoy your job, you know. Yeah, and I get to do a lot of crazy fun things. for my job. It's insane.

Like what? Well, I get to go to all sorts of amazing events like the CMAs the other month and the Grammys this month and the Brit Awards and the Ivers which I absolutely love in London.

Songwriter Hall of Fame I mean... Let's talk about the Ivers because we don't have that here. You know, this is a conversation that I'm sure we'll have once the microphones are off on some level

but the Iver Novello's are essentially Grammys for songwriters But even better I would say because they are judged by songwriters. They're not judged by

kind of the industry in general and business people it's all judged by songwriters. Well the Grammys are interesting when you start realizing that the makeup of the Grammy NERIS, then all the different branches of it, are blues in Memphis and jazz in New Orleans

and Latin in Miami and, you know, hip-hop in Atlanta and D.C. has a branch. Chicago is a branch. And the amount of people who vote that have nothing to do with pop music, that, you know, what a songwriter is to different people in our country is very different than what it is in say the UK and part of it is because the United States

is basically the EU you know we live differently than people in Miami here in Los Angeles or in New York. Everyone lives differently and everyone views music differently. The UK seems to be a little more homogenized as far as

their acceptance of I want to say so with you know not to denigrate music here, but there's sort of an expectation of a quality of music that happens in the UK, at least from what it seems like here.

Is that why there's more enthusiasm for the songwriting community in the United Kingdom? Well, I'm not sure. I mean, I'm not sure it's fair to say that because we have the Ivers that there is more enthusiasm for the songwriting community in the UK I think from a general public standpoint

it's very similar in terms of knowledge of understanding of the fact that there are songwriters let alone who they are I think the industry has done a better job of celebrating songwriters and setting up

it's run by the Ivers Academy which you know is an association of songwriters and they lobby for songwriters and things like that exist in the US like Sonar and there are one or two but they don't, it's not as unified and I'm sure it's partly a factor

of just being so much bigger a country here I mean if only there was a platform where you could have an awards for songwriters where maybe there's a subscribed I don't know, like something that could show up on their television and on their computers

and they could watch it and they could even watch it in their own time. It'd be really interesting if there was some sort of organization company that could put that together. Well, we did our Apple Music Awards at the end of last year

and we had a songwriter award. But rather than doing that a ass songwriter award, you know, one of the these are some of the questions that I had written before. One of them is, you know, certain genres have wised up to what I'm calling the quantity quandary. You know, someone, it's not to say someone can't be prolific and also be talented at the same time, but there are some people who take advantage of releasing a lot of music.

and their fan base expects to hear a quantity, you know, just a lot of music. And it seems like certain genres, their algorithms, then end up having more focus on DSPs because they have such, there's so much more music being streamed by those genres. And my question is that, is there some way to incentivize other genres

or their ways to bring out more rock and roll, jazz, theater, whatever it is, all these different kinds of music that seem to get swallowed because of the way the algorithm kind of, I guess, accentuates and magnifies certain genres. very easy answer to that. Okay.

And it's called humans. And we, you know, Apple Music, I think more than the other DSPs is really, well, a lot more than the other DSPs is about human curation. And so we're not, we're not reliant on algorithms to sort of bring a particular genre to the fore. And we've done things like, you know, really focus a lot more energy on country music recently. and we launched today's country right around the CMAs. You know, we rebranded a playlist. We created a Beets One show around it. We have opportunities to do these things in a way that others can't

because we have humans curating things and not, we have very, very few algorithmic playlists. The, you know, let's say that there was an awards that really was songwriter-based and Iver Novella Awards for the United States it would probably be an opportunity to really shine a light on multiple genres and the people behind it

tell their stories and whatnot we have BMI Awards ASCAP Awards each for different genres in different cities and they're not together and the music industry is one I mean, I know that there are some other things in the works that would help get rid of the ASCAP BMI line as far as awards. On new awards, there are some conversations that are happening about that.

But the value of the awards tend to be bringing the community together. Yes. And the other interesting thing to me about the ASCAP and the BMI Awards is that they are in time. entirely empirical. It's purely based on sales, streams. And the Ivers is, there's one award that's sort of the PRS for music, most streamed work award. And all of the rest are, you know, judged by a panel and it's on merit rather than on numbers. And I think there are, you know, you can kind of debate it either way, which one is better. I sort of love both of them in their own way. And I think celebrating

I understand the BMI and Askep way as a way of celebrating success and an opportunity to bring the community together to celebrate that success which I think is very valuable and somehow the but I also love the sort of the judged

by songwriter's concept as well both are kind of necessary because it's nice to say here's this objective here's an objective way of describing success of the songwriting community from the songwriting community There was another DSP that had awards that showed off songwriters and albeit the name was questionable

and I think there were some issues with how that DSP communicated with the songwriting community and that goes back to the David Israelite question. The other question David Israelite asked, was about CRB rates. Apple did something different than the other DSPs did, and they didn't, they're not challenging the CRB rates, which essentially the last push that the music,

what we would call the Music Army push for is starting to explain and educate writers on the fact that, that these songwriters had a big victory in getting the CRB rates to where they are and Apple didn't challenge them. However, Amazon, Spotify and Google, YouTube included, all challenged the CRB rates and were currently

in litigation with these companies. Why didn't Apple appeal? It really comes down to believing in a healthy ecosystem. and believing that the creative ecosystem that this fight was not a fight to have. We were very clear quite early on. We told the NMPA quite early on

that we were not going to appeal and we genuinely didn't know what the others were going to do. But it's really part and parcel of a belief that the whole ecosystem needed you know needed change and needed this this was not um the right thing to do was just to not appeal and and to leave it be

and we are we very much believe in in a healthy ecosystem and that songwriters a completely fundamental part of that ecosystem um there's a thought process from one of the other DSPs I too have to be careful about certain things, but I will say that I know of a particular executive

of a competing DSP who believes that the role of a songwriter is obsolete, that the role of a songwriter is, at this point, is an archaic profession because the quality of the song is irrelevant to the success of the DSP, And that they, you know, because of what we were talking about with the quantity quandary, that they're making a lot of money on people clicking regardless of the quality.

My question is, why is that not true? Because music. Right, because, sorry, I'm sort of slightly gobsmacked by that concept. It's infuriating, but it's not how some people view the job. of a songwriter. Why is quality? Why is why does quality matter in an in an ecosystem where people seem to get paid regardless of the quality? Because music's an intrinsic good. I mean I yeah I mean and creators because it's art and because we should be some DSP should be supporting that art not dictating that art

I hope we highlight that and that should be your new motto you should walk around the T-shirt that says that well there are some interesting things with you know labels artists and writers have adjusted their their writing and their exploitation of art

because of the new landscape and there are two things that are clear trends songs are shorter. People are starting with choruses. Now, my argument is that the best songs for

350 years started with the chorus. You have and then it goes off the rails. That's what Beethoven did. That's what Mozart did. That's what they all did. They all started with the hook. And then they went back and they continued to find new ways to incorporate the hook.

And even in the Beatles, when the Beatles started, these songs were two minutes and 15 seconds. It seems like songwriters and artists and labels and I assume streaming service, everyone is advocating for, in a way, concise composition and concise short sonata form songs. I would certainly not say that we are advocating for it. We very much want to support the art in the form that the creators want to create it, the creatives want to create it, which is why we support the album format more than anyone else. And we very much believe that if an artist wants to, when I say artist, I mean a creator, whether that's a songwriter or a performer, if they feel that the appropriate format for them

and that they want to have a body of work altogether, we want to support that. And we are not pushing one agenda or another agenda on anyone. I've sort of, I've had some conversations with some songwriters about length of songs. And like Ben Hudson, do you know Ben Hudson, Mr. Hudson? I don't. Do I? Should I?

You should. Hey, Ben. Hey, Ben, hit me up. We'll talk about him later. But he released an album this year. He's a songwriter and an artist. And all of the songs were very short, and I asked him about it. And, you know, he has done it because he feels that's what streaming needs requires.

Well, that brings up the next questions, which are, one was, you know, like I was say algorithmically speaking, are there ways to incentivize the great opus, whether it's an album like OK Computer or Channel Orange? Or in addition, we haven't had songs like Rappers Delight, which was 14 Minutes, or Bohemian Rhapsody, November Rain, Welcome to the Black Parade. There are forms of music expression that we used to celebrate somebody going through, the journey of writing a seven or eight nine minute song that told a bigger story but how do we get um how do we inspire songwriters to also pursue different kinds of music and different lengths

how do we how do we do that without them feeling like they're playing in this quantity world is there some way that we can you know is there some way to all almost split up a 14-minute song without it being split so that way that if they it's listened to for a certain amount of time you know that if you write a classical piece and it's

a one hour one track you get paid I believe similarly to if it was a two minute and 15 second song correct in the streaming world yes so how do we how do we find a way to incentivize

someone to not worry about the length of the song and the duration of the song and somehow inspire them to write whatever kind of music they want and even say if you exceed a certain amount that we then tack on another stream or tack on another stream. Is there any way to do that? It's an interesting question, but it sort of requires

industry-wide consensus because you're talking about dilution in the streaming world. So if a long track is, counts as two plays, three plays, four place, five plays, then that dilutes the market share of other people. Sure. I mean, it's fascinating because you watch a song like a day in the light for the Beatles would be three tracks today. It wouldn't be, it wouldn't, it would never be a song.

And I'm not somebody who thinks music was better before. I think music just is. But I think that that's something that people aren't in, incentivized to go and write and labels aren't incentivized to promote and to record that. Why would they make that the single? It would cost a fortune to go and try to get either a radio station or, you know, to record it. It would be almost impossible to do. But I mean, like you said, that hasn't changed, really.

I mean, Bohemian Rhapsody got played on the radio pretty much by accident because someone just played it. Oh, right. even though they weren't supposed to. So it's, you know, nothing has really changed in that regard. I mean, it's always been harder for long tracks to get airplay in whatever form. I mean, in terms of incentivizing it, I think, you know, it's something I'd have to go away and think about. What's advice you'd give to a young songwriter? I would say, don't be constrained by what you think.

the market wants create great art you do you if you like because I think our job as a DSP is to support that and not to tell you what to do

I think it would be supremely arrogant of me to sit here and try and tell a song I to what to do why Apple and not the other streaming services what do you mean like why should somebody

subscribe to Apple, what is the difference between the DSPs? Well, the biggest thing is the human element and the fact that we, you know, it isn't all based on an algorithm. We are trying to, we have a army of people trying to figure out, you know, what songs go really well together and what, you know, if you like this, you are kind of likely to like that. And I think it's just, there's a much more human,

touch to it, which we think is just as important, or at least is very important as having humans actually creating the songs in the first place rather than computers, which some people seem to think would be a good thing. There was a point 10 years ago, and I forget what the website is, where you'd see in our people take the track, they'd put it in this website, and they would say, you know, I'd tell you all the basics. The BPM, it would tell you the key,

and it would give you a score, and then they would do that with all the songs in the album, and they would partially choose singles off of the parameters. Because if you have a lot of DJs doing things

between 120 and 128 and BPMs, and they'd want to see what fit best. Just complete lack of human you know I just like this song we've also been doing a lot of work to really bring more sort of richer surround to the song so

more interviews with with artists and songwriters and more sort of track by track information and really try and bring some of the richness and life back to the music and we're trying to to highlight songwriters much more than we have before. And I think these are the differentiators you sort of have to look for

when the reality is that every streaming service has all of the music. It's really all of the context of the music that makes the difference. I suppose it's not different than the way record stories work except for, you know, you can walk into a tower virgin and you'd see the same records in the same sort of aisles, but some would have...

That's presented. What was that? It would be how it was presented. Yeah. And how easy it was to find things. How does an independent... You know, in that world it was difficult because N-CAPs were often owned or pushed by major labels. You know, there are other streaming services that are partially owned by major labels.

Do you... How does somebody who's completely independent... get highlighted on Apple. We have human beings that they can speak to and they can play their music for and we decide if it's something that we think should be highlighted. It's really very, very human.

You're going to get hit up by so many people because of that comment just now. They're all going to be sending you a lot of music. But thank you for doing this. Welcome. Is there anything else, any other message you'd like to give our audience? Really that's, well, the songwriter audience, really, that they matter and they, they, without

them, we are nothing, the music industry is nothing. And anyone, I shocked to hear that anyone doesn't get that. Yeah. Are you optimistic for the future of the music industry? I am. I think there's a lot of change ahead. various ways. And... But I am. I mean, I think as far as I can tell songwriters are a very determined community

and an amazing community and a really coherent community. And I think they can and will thrive. I think it just takes... You know, there have been some bumps in the road that will be ironed out. Well, again, I appreciate. appreciate you doing this. I think, you know, the

music industry needs to have people who are, who can do a lot of things and choose to do music. You know, there are a lot of people who you know, you know what the Peter principle is, you know, the Peter principle is where

people sort of fall up. And there are a lot of people historically in any sort of ladder type community where they get a job, somebody gets fired, they get the promotion, somebody gets fired, they get the promotion,

and you end up having a lot of people at the top who shouldn't be there. And so whenever you're having a conversation with someone who not only should be there, but is leading the way with what you're doing, it's really respected, not just by me, but the rest of the community.

I know that we've had as a sort of come-to-jesus moment for the songwriting community in the last few years where we realize that this is, even if we can't unionize, we still have a voice. And it's easy, you know, having firsthand knowledge

of how certain executives feel about the songwriting community and positive or negative, it's just, it's rare to find a community of people who are determined to and aggressively trying to find a way to evolve

the relationship between us and the streaming services and we are open ears and we want to have a good relationship we're generally pacifists you know we want to be able to you know

cohabitate and build together and do stuff together and we also don't want to go broke and you know we need to that's a fair that's a fair desire we need to find ways

to incentivize songwriters to celebrate songwriters because you know we have no album tracks anymore there are a lot of things that we're missing on trying to find to make a living as songwriters and we need to have people who are

who are teammates in keeping our vocation alive and so it's good to hear your support for us and we appreciate you. Thank you. We appreciate you too.

We would be nothing without you. Thanks for listening to this episode of And The Writer Is. If you want to hear music from this songwriter I just interviewed, be sure to check out our Spotify playlist or visit our website at and thewriteris.com. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe to us. You can also like us on Facebook and Twitter. And The Writer Is is produced by Joe London,

edited by Miles Berg's mom and published by Big Deal Music. A special thanks to David Silberstein from Mega House Music and Michael White. Until next time, this is Ross Bowles.