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PledgeMusic’s Benji Rogers and Vevo’s Tom Connaughton among those set to speak at CMU Insights @ The Great Escape this May
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 18 February 2016
With May insisting on getting ever closer by the day, today we announce more details about CMU Insights @ The Great Escape, the conference that sits at the heart of the new music festival that takes over Brighton for three days from 19-21 May.
After revamping the TGE conference last year, the team from CMU Insights will return to put the spotlight on four key themes: the debates around data and transparency; the CD and merch markets; the role of YouTube and video; and diversity and health in the music industry. Each topic will be dissected over a full day of sessions, with a mixture of talks, interviews, training elements, original research, case studies and lively debate.
Today’s announcements kick off with the first speakers for the strand ‘Transparency! Data! Blockchain! Let’s make buzzwords happen!’ ‘Transparency’ has been the big buzzword in the music community this year of course, while that other buzzy term – the ‘blockchain’ – has been increasingly held up as the technology that could make digital music more transparent and more efficient. Leading the debate around the blockchain in recent months has been PledgeMusic founder Benji Rogers, who got lots of people talking with a blog post on the topic last year, and has been busy sharing his vision with the industry ever since.
Rogers will keynote at CMU@TGE to once again outline that vision, and delve a little deeper into what is possible. CMU’s Chris Cooke will be on hand to provide a beginners guide to the blockchain – so no techie knowledge is needed in advance – and then digital music experts Sammy Andrews and Andy Edwards, both also vocal proponents of the need for more transparency and the role technology can play, will provide their perspectives.
Earlier in the day Cooke will be joined by music lawyer Nigel Dewar-Gibb of Lewis Silkin to explain how revenue currently works its way through the system, identifying where the blockages lie, and identifying what questions need to be asked of digital services, labels, publishers and the collecting societies. After all that, CMU will put on its well worn cynic hat and ask the really tricky questions, to overcome all of these challenges, what hurdles must the industry cross first, and who needs to play ball? And why would they?
Meanwhile, next door, Tracks2 co-founder Brittney Bean will be busy putting the spotlight on YouTube. How is the damn thing licensed exactly? Where precisely does Vevo fit in? What’s the ‘safe harbour’ and ‘value gap’ thing all about? And is the music industry missing a few tricks with YouTube? Spoiler alert: it almost certainly is.
As part of the discussion on how the music community can get the most out of YouTube, Rebecca Lammers of Laika Network will talk Content-ID, Claire Mas of Communion Music Group will discuss YouTube’s role as a marketing channel, while Chloé Julien of BandSquare will run you through the data and analytics the platform offers.
But what about the content? None of this is any use unless you’re creating great video content. And there’s now more to music video than the music video. Delving into how artists, labels and promoters can create video content that really engages and excites fans online will be SVP Content And Programming at Vevo, Tom Connaughton.
This is just the start of the proceedings, and we’ll have more updates on these two strands – and those focused on physical products and music people – in the coming weeks. To get into all this you need to make yourself a TGE delegate, which is something you do by clicking here and spending £185. Though don’t forget, that also gets you into everything else too – priority access to the hundreds of bands playing over the three days, plus networking meetings, parties and a whole load more. See you there!
For more information about the data and transparency strand click here, and for the YouTube and video strand click here.
