Innovating Music Maremel Institute

Michael Huppe, CEO of SoundExchange, fell in love with IP and came into music through law. He had played keyboard and trombone as a young person and ended up at the Recording Industry Association of America, which led him to SoundExchange. He shares how SoundExchange is also a tech company, needing to help and represent its members with opportunities from new technologies, as well as providing a system's backbone for a growing streaming music industry.

Guest: Mike Huppe, President and CEO, SoundExchange

Michael Huppe is the President and Chief Executive Officer of SoundExchange, where he champions creators and spearheads the use of technology, data, and advocacy to power the future of music.

Whether he is leading efforts to launch new lines of business or advocating on the steps of Capitol Hill for creator-first legislation, every aspect of Michael’s work is undertaken on behalf of SoundExchange’s larger mission: to ensure that creators are compensated fairly, efficiently, and accurately for their work. To date, SoundExchange has distributed more than $9 billion in digital performance royalties to over half a million music creators.

In addition, Michael is an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School, a frequent contributor, published author, lecturer, and active community member. His opinions have been published in Variety, Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal, Music Business Worldwide, Billboard, and The Hill, among other outlets.

What are you most passionate about with your current work? : "Being able to champion creators and helping to create a fairer, simpler, and more efficient music industry through innovative technology and data solutions."

Dave Ratner moved from managing bands into law, and now works with creative companies out of Boulder, CO to understand how to maneuver so many different new opportunities in music. He shares wisdom in how to evaluate risk, plan for success, and use both common sense and contracts to decide what innovations to pursue and how to understand the questions under the legal hood.

Many of our guests move on a nonlinear line between jobs and ideas.  Kevin in one of our few guests who has been with a single company -- CD Baby -- for a long period of time.  He shares his journey with both CD Baby and as an artist with Small Town Poets.  We talk about challenges exploring new technologies that don't yet have revenue models, educating creators on how to better engage and focus, and producing the long-time CD Baby Podcast with more than 300 episodes.  Guest: Kevin Breuner, CD Baby’s SVP of Engagement & EducationCD Baby’s SVP of Engagement & Education, Kevin Breuner, has spent over 25 years working in the music business, both as a recording artist and an industry professional. A San Diego native, Kevin went east to attend Belmont University in Nashville, TN where he studied Music and Music Business. After college he joined the Atlanta-based band Smalltown Poets who later signed a recording contract with a major label under the EMI umbrella. Their self-titled debut album received critical acclaim, selling over 200,000 copies and landing the guys with a Grammy nomination, plus multiple Dove Award nominations. Over their career, Smalltown Poets has amassed ten Top 10 songs on radio, with two reaching the coveted #1 spot.Now residing in Portland, Oregon, Kevin heads up CD Baby’s content marketing efforts and hosts their popular DIY Musician Podcast, with the goal of helping artist understand the vast opportunities they have in this new music economy.“I’m very passionate about helping artists understand that they can have a career on their own terms,” says Kevin. “I’ve been on a label and I've released music independently; I know what it feels like for an artist to pour their heart into a project and then send it out to the world.”Smalltown Poets (smalltownpoets.tv) recently celebrated the release of their 10th album titled NWxSE. Kevin has also had songs used by the NFL, Peacock, ABC, Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, and countless indie film productions.What are you most passionate about with your current work? : Helping artist understand how they can build a career on their own terms.Mentioned Links: Twitter: https://twitter.com/kbreuner Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kbreuner DIY Musician Podcast: https://podcast.cdbaby.com/ DIY Musician Blog: https://diymusician.cdbaby.com/ CD Baby: https://cdbaby.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-breuner-a512938 EDM article: The Changing Role of a Music Distributor in 2022: https://edm.com/industry/the-changing-role-of-a-music-distributor-in-2022 Small Town Poets: https://smalltown-poets.lnk.to/LITO and https://smalltownpoets.tv/

Jessica's journey -- what a ride! Music change agent Jessica Powell shares her Roads Taken, ranging from following a now-ex boyfriend across countries to using her languages at CISAC and on a wild boar farm (!!) -- to Google London, Google Asia, and to her current AI and Stems startup, AudioShake. And even that founding with her co-founder Luke Miner began as a "What If" exercise around bass lines and karaoke, before landing with Billy Mann and peermusic to experiment with AIs and stems to create a next-generation stem separator for artists and next creative technologies. We ran into her at Music Tectonics' annual conference as AudioShake won the Swimming with Narwhals startup competition, the latest in a recent series of wins for this new company.

We are in post-production on new episodes, so our host, Gigi Johnson, shared a story about "Postcards" and Postcard Moments that has come up in prior episodes and in many recent conversations. She shares how a single postcard created a pivot that changed her direction when a TA offered the suggestion that she apply for USC Film School after a single class. She challenges us to explore "postcards" in our lives -- both given and offered.

Bruno shares his saga from playing the drums and enjoying international music, mixing songs and culture from Tunisia, France, and LA. Those facets led to studying at UCLA Ethnomusicology, becoming a DJ at KCRW, and building a record label in his living room. His own independent label became his inspiration to work to streamlining the complexity of running a music label. His work in Filemaker Pro and Salesforce for his own company became the early stages of the 2015 go-to-market for Revelator. He became a “product guy,” helping labels in many regions with streaming music processing and accelerating catalog valuation and fractionalization processes.