Michael Walker: All right. Excited to be here today with my new friend, David Israelite. David is the president and CEO of NPNMPA. Since 2005, he's led the National Music Publishers Association, securing historic victories for publishers, including the largest CRB rate increase and the creation of the Mechanical Licensing Program.

I was just talking with them a little bit backstage about what exactly that means, and I'm really excited be able to share a little bit of, behind the scenes around music publishing, how your rights are paid out, your royalties, which David's really an instrumental impact on that field and really helping even the playing field for songwriters like yourself.

So, he also served as a former US government leader and legal experts. You were the Deputy Chief of Staff at the Department of Justice and Chief of Staff for Senator Kit Bond. You have a background in commercial litigation, so you have a lot more experience than I have as it relates to publishing and how to, like the legalities of it, collect your royalties as an indie artist.

So, David, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the podcast today.

David Israelite: Thank you so much for having me. It's really an exciting opportunity. You've built an incredible audience of… I know a lot of songwriters and artists who want to learn more about the business side of their art. And so, I'm really excited to talk about that.

Michael: Absolutely. So, to take things off, maybe you can share a little bit more of an introduction in terms of what some of those terms are, even though we described earlier a CRB increase and some of the details about how you are able to change the music industry as it relates to those royalties.

David: Sure. So, if you're a songwriter, you either have a music publisher that represents you for those rights, or if you don't, you are a music publisher. You are what is known as a self-published songwriter. So, when we talk about publishing, it's really all about the songwriter and the rights that are involved with the melodies and the lyrics that are created with songs.

That is a very distinct and separate right from when you make recordings of those songs. Artists are often represented by record labels, or if not, they may hire out those services or provide them for themselves. But if you both write songs and perform songs, you live in a bifurcated world where the rights that you have are split between you as a songwriter and you as an artist.

And so, what my trade association focuses on is the songwriting side, the music publishing side, and we live in a very weird world where if you are a songwriter, about seventy-five percent of the money that you make as a songwriter is regulated by the federal government, and a lot of people in the business don't even know this.

So, for example, the amount of money that you get paid from the most important revenue source as a songwriter, which today would be digital streaming companies like Spotify, Apple, or Amazon, the amount you get paid is not negotiated. Between the people that represent songwriters and the people that run these services, but rather the federal government sets that price.

There is a three-judge panel. It's called the Copyright Royalty Board, or the CRB. And every five years we go to a trial, and on one side of the courtroom is an MPA representing songwriters and music publishers. And on the other side of the courtroom are all the digital companies that pay us like Apple, Amazon, Spotify, YouTube and Pandora.

And after a trial, this three judge panel… this court, tells us how much we get paid for a five year period. It is a bizarre way to do business. It is a leftover from a law back from 1909 when Congress thought that music publishing had monopolies on player piano roles, believe it or not. And that law that Congress passed in 1909 still exists today where we're told the value of our intellectual property or our songs. We don't get to negotiate or even say no. And so, yeah, a big part of what my organization does is represent songwriters in those trials to try to make sure that they're paid fairly.

Michael: Wow. That's wild. I, myself, too, like having conversations like this. I didn't even realize that, that's how it came down to in terms of like, literally it's like governmental regulation of the price point.

David: If you're an artist or a record label, you get to negotiate with these services over how much they're going to pay you. And if you don't like the price they're offering, you can actually say no and not have your music on their site. As a songwriter, you don't have the power to say no.

You have to license it to these services. And what they pay you is the same for everybody. Based on this last trial that we had, which were about two years into the five-year period, songwriters are currently getting 15.2 percent of the revenue that's generated by these services. It's quite a bit less than what the artists and the record labels get, and that's largely because of this regulation by the government.

Michael: Hmm, wild. From your perspective, what's the reasoning? So, it's really just because in the nineteen hundreds early on, like it was like this leftover rule. Is there any other benefit to doing it that way or from your perspective, what might a better path look like and is there actually a trend, a path for us to get there from where things currently are?

David: Sure. So, to be fair, if you were the other side making an argument, what you would say is that because songs are often owned in fractions, there's not a single owner of the entire song because songwriter is mostly a collaborative exercise. You have multiple songwriters on most commercially successful songs that it would be so difficult to go out and get the permission of all the different partial owners of a song that it wouldn't be fair to the digital company.

And it might end up with consumers not having access. That would be the argument on the other side. Now, it's ridiculous, and the better way to do it is the way that record labels do it, which is that if you're on Spotify, Apple or Amazon, you just come and you negotiate terms with music publishers the same way that they do with record labels.

And there's a really interesting fact about this, which is that… if there's any video involved, it takes it out of this law. So, for example, a service like YouTube, TikTok or Instagram… that's what they do. They have to go to all the music publishers, negotiate the terms to be able to use the music. But when you take the video element away and you just have a streaming service like Spotify, Apple or Amazon, then they get to take advantage of this law.

And what's so crazy about it is it's really being done under the guise of antitrust protection. Well, who needs to be protected from whom? We're talking about the largest companies in the history of the planet. Thanks. On the other side of the table, they don't need protection by the government to negotiate prices.

So you'd think we would just get rid of this old, outdated law. But unfortunately, that's really hard to do. Because everyone who benefits from keeping songwriters under this price control, they will fight to keep the law. And so, we haven't been able to get Congress to abolish this law. But long term, that would be the best-case scenario.

Michael: That's wild. So if I'm understanding you right, this law, it would be quite a transition to move away from it. But really, it's sort of just like, put there as an antitrust to protect us from a monopoly. And now it's kind of like the roles have reversed around and now this regulation is really serving some of those… the biggest companies in the world.

And gosh, nowadays, do you think that we're on the precipice of any revolutions as it relates to things like… obviously, AI is having a big movement right now. And there's a lot of technology that seems to be kind of aimed at making rights management simpler and more automatic and less complicated. Do you think that there's a path to abolishing that old law now and moving to like a better way? And what might that look like?

David: We hope so. And in fact, we have a proposal that we've made to Congress about just how to do that. Yes, I think that technology is growing in a pace that is far faster than before, but we've always confronted technology challenges and opportunities as a music industry. We all haven't always taken advantage of those opportunities in the best way, but I'm very optimistic… that AI is not just a threat, but it also is an opportunity for the music industry. And so, we spend a lot of time focused on how do we make AI work in a positive way for songwriters and artists, even though a lot about it is scary, to the point about rights management. I do have a very strong opinion that it's not really a technology problem.

It's really an information problem. And so, on the songwriting side, there is often a lot of money that doesn't get paid out to the proper owners because people don't know who to pay. It's not a question of having the right technology; It's having the right input of that information. And we've developed over a very long time: a culture.

In the music industry, your listeners are really the best people to hear this message. Artists and songwriters are generally very creative people. They don't always focus on the business side of what they do. And so, in the process of creating music, we don't always pay attention to the legalities of who owns what.

What are the exact splits? Where do we enter the information of who the publisher is, who the songwriter is? And with a lack of information, you get money that then can't flow to the right people. And so, it's really important that when you're making music, you pay attention to these issues at that time, not wait to try to do it later.

Because what often happens is, if the music doesn't ever become really commercially successful, people don't worry too much about who owns what. But if it blows up, then you start fighting over who owns what because now you have a pot of money and you don't know whose money it is. And so, when you're in the studio, when you're in the songwriting room, you've got to address these issues.

And if you do that and enter the information in the proper places, then you don't need AI. A really good Excel sheet can solve the problem. It's really more of a focus on getting the right answers when you're making music.

Michael: Great point. Yeah. So, it sounds like one of the biggest challenges or issues is just not thinking about the legality or who owns what until the moment that it really matters. And at that point, now it becomes a big issue. And also on the flip side, I'm sure for a lot of artists, kind of the challenge is wondering how do I best bring that up in a way that… I mean, this may not be a great analogy to make, but it reminds me of like dating, you know? Dating girls and sort of wondering when's the right time to kiss them.

And it's important, for it to be mutual. But also, you don't want to ruin the vibe and it's important to figure that out. What might that look like in terms of best practices? If someone is in the room, how do you recommend that to an artist who's listening to this right now?

David: It can be very awkward to have these discussions when you're trying to be in a creative atmosphere, but I'll give you just one example. We have a massive problem. It is a wonderful time to be an independent artist because it is easier than ever to make a record. It is easier than ever to then distribute that record to all the different places where your fans might listen to that record. And so, you have a lot of independent artists that are producing their own records using a service. To then distribute to all the streaming services to Youtube, places like that, and maybe they don't actually identify who owns the song, the publishing, and as a result, you have a massive amount of music on the streaming services where there is no publishing information.

And so, maybe it's because you just didn't even know you were supposed to enter publishing. In addition to that, I’m the band or the artist that made this music and I own the recording of it, or maybe you never worked that out, or there's all kinds of reasons. But what we are seeing is that, if we're not matching, say, 15 cents on the dollar, a good chunk of that is coming from this new kind of wave of self-produced artists who are using aggregators to upload a massive amount of music without publishing information.

So, I think that even though it may be awkward, the best practice is to address it at the time. So, if you're in a writing room, you talk about it ahead of time. Hey everybody, what are the rules for today? In Nashville, they have a very great practice where generally people just split evenly. But outside of Nashville, that often doesn't happen. And what further complicates the problem is that in today's music world, often music is made in pieces. So, you'll have someone make beats, and then later a producer might bring a bunch of beats and sit down with a songwriter and come up with something different.

And then later, you might have an artist put a voice on it, and so it's not all done at the same time. And so that can also make it hard or awkward to get agreement on the splits of who owns what, but it's really important. And so, we just need creative people if they don't have another publisher that does this for them.

If they're their own publisher, pay attention and it really matters because those pieces add up and you want to make sure that you're collecting all of the money that you're owed, as both an artist and a songwriter. And you just can't do that unless you've identified the splits of who owns the song.

Michael: Got it. Awesome. Yeah. So it sounds like in Nashville in particular, it's sort of assumed it was with the culture that it's split evenly for everyone that's in the room, but especially, I mean, regardless of whether you're in Nashville or anywhere, just at the beginning, just have a short conversation and get it out in the clear. That makes it simple. And that way, there's no disagreements later.

David: That's right. And look, if you're just a songwriter that gets invited into a room with an artist, you often do not feel empowered to raise these issues because you're just happy to have been invited to write with this artist that may record your song. And so, it can be a very big power imbalance in that situation for the songwriter, and that's how you end up with some really bad situations where some artists might try to take credit for the songwriting that they didn't do, or they might bring in a producer or some other figure that might want part of the publishing. And songwriters need to stand up for themselves. And that's why it's really important, if you're a songwriter, to join the advocacy organizations that exist to protect your rights. Learn about these things. There's power in the numbers. We've got to change the culture. We've got to make it so that when that song goes up on an Apple music or an Amazon music or a Spotify music, we know who owns the song, because that's just how records are made.

Michael: Absolutely. Yeah. It almost feels like it'd be nice if there was a requirement before you release a song and distribute it. You have to basically put who owns it.

David: There kind of is… but it's one that the music industry has largely ignored. There's something that's known as a first use, right? Which means that if you write a song, you get to decide who records it and releases it publicly for the first time. After that, you lose a lot of control. But for the first time, you have to give your agreement, and for decades, this practice was basically ignored by record labels.

They would put out records where they had not properly cleared what are known as first use rights. And now that has just expanded into the digital world, where you still are having the same problem. But you have a third party now involved… collecting the money, which is the digital service. And so just as a songwriter, protect your rights.

Make sure that you give your first use rights. Make sure that you stand up for yourself in these rooms or in these situations where, yes, you maybe are just lucky to be there doing it, but don't forget, this is a business and the more that writers do that, the more it'll become the norm of how music is made.

Michael: It's super valuable to have conversations like this and to be able to help change the culture because if we can make that movement where it's just part of the standard and it's just something that happens, then this seemed like the normalization of things. It makes everything a lot easier if you do it right from the foundation.

David: And one important point, this isn't just something I'm suggesting we change moving forward. You also have to go clean up the past. And so, we are very fortunate today that we now have a public database that is owned by the Mechanical Licensing Collective, which if you're not familiar with it, you need to be.

The MLC or the Mechanical Licensing Collective was created by a law called the Music Modernization Act, and it basically has been in existence now for about six years as a concept. And at the MLC, you have a database that is transparent, that is public. You can look at it, you can have a copy of it. If you're a songwriter, you need to go and make sure that all of the songs that you have written, that are up on streaming services, are listed properly in the MLC database.

And if they're not, go through the process, which is very easily understood and explained by the MLC, about how to fix that because you may be owed money for a long time that you haven't been collecting. It's not just about going forward. And so, I really encourage songwriters to make sure that they check the MLC database and get it up to date.

Michael: Fantastic. What an awesome resource. So, step number one for anyone that's a songwriter, who has released music, is listening or watching this, go to the MLC public database, search for yourself, look at the songs that are listed and make sure that they look correct and what I'm assuming on the website, there's also going to be some instructions in terms of what you're looking for.

David: And they have a very good customer support team that you can call and talk to. And remember, the Mechanical Licensing Collective is there to collect and distribute your mechanical reproduction royalties. So, that used to mean things like when records were sold or downloads were downloaded today, it mostly means streaming.

You want to do the same thing with your PRO, your Performance Rights Organization, which exists for a different type of your right called public performance. And so, as a songwriter, you've probably chosen to join ASCAP or BMI, or there are some writers that belong to CSAC or GMR or Alltrack. You need to make sure that the data that they have about your song ownership also is correct.

And so, after you've gone and made sure that the MLC public database is all proper, I would take a copy of that to your PRO and say, I want to confirm that your records have all of this in there. So, I'm collecting my public performance accurately the same way I'm now collecting my mechanical reproduction; very important to do as a songwriter.

Michael: Got it. Awesome. So, a thing that we touched on a little bit earlier was AI and music, and you brought up the point that there's both valid concerns to AI and there's a path forward that ideally is going to be a win-win for musicians, kind of fairly compensated musicians, as well as give us capabilities to extend our creativity with these tools.

I'm curious to hear your general perspective as someone that clearly has a lot of experience from a legal background. I know it's the wild west right now. We're still kind of figuring out a lot of stuff as it relates to how AI works, but what's your general perspective on what's happening right now with generative AI, as it relates to music and how to properly be able to use these tools, while also protecting your rights and using it in the right way?

David: Sure. And like I mentioned earlier, we spend an enormous amount of time. I have lawyers dedicated to nothing but these issues. I think that starts with what you're concerned about. As an artist, you're often concerned about someone using your name, your image, your likeness without your permission. So, you think about the deep fake example where someone makes a song that sounds like you but it's not you and you're not collecting any money from it.

As artists, that's what you're really concerned about. As a writer, you're concerned about these AI models ingesting your intellectual property, your songs, your work, and then spitting out new songs that they claim are theirs and not yours, even though the only reason they exist is because they were trained on your copyrights.

Those are generally, at a very high level, the concerns we have about AI. But there are also tremendous opportunities. So, for example, imagine that you're a songwriter and you've written a body of work, and you now potentially could have every famous dead artist sing your songs if you have the permissions and create all new versions of your songs with famous voices In partnership with the estates, let's say of those artists, and that's a tremendous opportunity.

When you think about it is to be able to imagine your songs in anyone's voice as long as they give you consent in their part of the economic chain of what you're doing songwriters today already use a I significantly in their writing. We know that, and that's been true with all technological advancements with songwriters, right?

I mean, you go back, and you think about other things that came about. Yeah. And it's helping a songwriter write a song, whether it was a thesaurus early on, or a beat track or for voices, maybe even auto tune. So, it's really about how you use the tools. And you're exactly right.

We don't have established rules yet on AI. But when I think about AI, I generally think about it in three buckets of issues. You've got the legal buckets. What can these AI companies do and what can't they do? There are a couple of lawsuits that are pending right now in the music industry where we're waiting to see the outcome. Very important lawsuits. I'm sure there'll be more. It's going to be a long time before the courts tell us exactly what the rules of the road are. And I wouldn't be surprised if we get mixed results from those lawsuits. The second bucket then is, what's the government going to do about it? Should they change the laws?

How do we regulate this stuff from a government level? And again, that's going to take a very long time to flush out. And the music issues are quite honestly, very small compared to the larger AI issues that the government's dealing with. And then the third basket is really commercial or business issues.

And those are the ones I'm most excited about, which is who's going to figure out how to do things with AI in partnership with the music industry, where we generate a new revenue source, where we create something novel, something new that fans and consumers like, but with our permission and our consent and with payment to us, and that's really the area that's probably going to develop fastest and the one that I'm most excited about, being involved in trying to figure out as we go through this day by day.

Michael: So awesome. Yeah. It’s kind of a wild, wild time to be alive and be making music too. I just… I have this dream of being able to sit down at a piano and like start playing the song and then having like a symphony just starts swelling in behind me and harmonies and John Lennon pops in on harmonies.

So it sounds like the kind of the main buckets that you broke those up into were one was around kind of a clear cut, case of, what's kind of over the line, which is literally someone just using your likeness. It's like, “Oh, this is AI Drake.” And like someone who's not Drake is using it and it's like, they're Drake's. Like, that's not cool.

That one to me feels like there should be a way to compensate and for the creator to be able to share in the royalties optionally. Right. And I think there's probably not a whole lot of controversy there. The one that I think is really interesting right now is the original works that are based off of trained data.

And, the case on both sides, like one is like, we're using the songs, that quote unquote are like publicly trained or publicly available. Which maybe, yeah, I'd love to hear what that means exactly. And hear your perspective on like… cause that seems to be at the crux of that specific issue is like, is it publicly available? Cause that's one of the key issues.

David: Yeah, we should never use that term again, because if you listen to people who work at AI companies, they have been using that term of publicly available. Legally, that means nothing.

Michael: Mm.

David: To scrape it, feed it into their machine, and then claim it was theirs and they didn't have to get permission or a license and it's bogus. So, I reject this whole idea of publicly available. I'll give you an analogy. If I'm walking down the street and your car is sitting on the street and I jump in again, drive away and I say, “Well, it was publicly available.” Okay, it was publicly available. I was sitting on a public street.

The door was open. I got in I drove it. It's mine. That's what they mean when they say publicly available. They are making copies of this music to train their models to generate new publicly available songs that they want to claim as their own. They can't do that, in my opinion. And the lawsuits will determine what they can and can't do.

But in my opinion, they need a license to do that. They're not allowed to just say it. I mean, if you think about any other use of music, right? I want to put your song in a movie. It was publicly available because I could record it off iTunes. So, I don't need to come license it from you. I mean, it's the same logic that these AI companies are using when they use that terminology.

And they're doing it on purpose. They know that it sounds like, “Oh, it's just something for the public to have advantage of.” It's not true at all. A copyright is a property interest, permission and a license in order to make copies of it for your benefit. And that's what these AI companies are mostly not doing.

Michael: That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. That analogy of car available on the public street, just like hopping over publicly available. It's super interesting. A counterpoint, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well, is around creativity and like what merits original work versus a reproduction of the work. As far as I understand it, which is very, very little, this is way beyond my ballpark, but from the parts that I understand, part of the crux is that, we're training these models based on existing songs, but they're actually outputting something that is new.

It's not reproduced work, therefore it's not copyrightable in the same way. Maybe the same way you might say, us listening to our favorite songs and being inspired by our favorite songs. Like, as long as we're not reproducing the actual song, but we're inspired and we kind of have the DNA of it, then, like, that's okay. Which to me is also kind of like very gray. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on where does that factor in as well in terms of this big discussion.

David: Yeah, no, I think you did a very good job explaining the concept. Although I will say in some of these examples, the AI model is spitting out exactly what was inputted. So, for example, there's a lawsuit right now against a company called Anthropic. It was brought by three music companies, Universal, Concord, and Abkco. And in these cases, you would go to their model and say, write a song like this artist, and it would spit out exactly verbatim lyrics from that artist. So, in that example, it's not even taking it to learn and create something new. It's just reproducing what was already copyrighted, but then take the example, as you suggest, of where it's no different than a human being that listened to something was influenced by it and created something new.

I think that there's a fundamental difference between what the human brain does by ingesting all of these things on the outward and then using the human brain to create something new that maybe it sounds kind of like it or the plot, reminds me of some other plot that I've seen before to a machine that is actually breaking down the copyright and then producing something else with just those building blocks. Right? And that's what we think requires a license and compensation. If you want to do that, you see a lot of lawsuits where people will allege. Oh, that song was stolen from me. The court progression is too similar, or the sound is a sound alike to the voice and things like that. And we go to court, and we make fact judgment sometimes about that.

When you're talking about these AI models, the scale, that they can do this, the volume they can produce of things is just scary. And I really think that if the law doesn't already say this, and I think it probably does, the law should say that you cannot train a model on someone else's property without their consent.

Michael: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It does seem like one way to just clean up that whole issue is just making it seem like there also have been some pretty big deals that are happening recently between Open AI and some of these other big companies around… like they are paying to license a lot of available data so that they can, with no sort of inner qualms or issues, actually use that data.

There's a video I saw, it was a woman that was working at Open AI, who was questioned point blank on what trained the model for their opening. I saw her. I don't know if you saw that video, but it's pretty funny. Like it's… she's like… and then there's a public.

David: Yeah, they don't want to really say because they know. They know.

Michael: Yeah. So, one way to move through that would be just making sure that these companies, if they are training a model, that they have some sort of way to compensate the owners of the training data that they're using for it. And then lastly, the point that you made was around new ways to use AI and music, that maybe we're not even thinking of right now, but can actually be used to create new revenue streams for artists in the industry.

David: I hope so. I mean, I do think there are going to be ethical AI companies out there that want to partner. No different than we went through… an era with Napster where people stole music. And then you went through an era with Apple, where Apple licensed music and, to the consumer, they want what they want.

But I think most music fans care about the songwriters and the artists that produce the music that they enjoy. And so, I think it's a big conversation with fan bases as well about what you're supporting and paying attention to. And there were all these campaigns about consuming products that were made ethically, right? Some people, they'll only drink coffee that was ethically sourced, or they'll only buy a diamond that was ethically sourced. Music's no different in that. You should be supporting the creative community by making sure that the people who you patronize with your business, your eyeballs, your subscription fees, the ads you watch, are ethical companies in how they treat creators.

Michael: Yeah. That makes a ton of sense. One question for you, as it relates to AI and music, for a lot of the folks who are listening or watching this right now, they're independent artists. And in a lot of cases, we are very concerned about the state of AI… is AI going to sort of like replace us or what's going to happen there?

And I think there's a lot of folks who are very hesitant even to use it because of the unknowns, because of the scariness of it. I'm curious to hear your perspective on it, for someone who is here right now, who's sort of in the middle of the wild west. Who, is kind of standing on the sidelines right now, how should they think about these tools?

Do you recommend they should look on a weight on the sidelines and wait until the smoke clears before they start using these tools, or do you see it as more beneficial if they start exploring more, experimenting. How do they do that in a safe way? To really be able to use the tools without having to worry about the potential legal risks of it.

David: Sure. I don't presume to give advice about what a creator should do in his or her creations, but I think it's important they understand the rules. So, for example, the United States Copyright Office has been quite clear that a work generated by AI doesn't have a copyright. They've also suggested that a work can be divided into a part, which is copyrightable by a human and a part, which was AI generated, which is not copyrightable.

You should care about that because the copyright is the basis of all the economic activity that happens from the music. And so, I think that if you're an independent artist or a writer, and you're considering how to engage with these tools, just do so with open eyes. Like I said, I think a lot of songwriters already use AI for some kind of input into the creative process, but then ultimately, the output comes from that.

It's just a suggestive tool. No different than these other things I mentioned, like a rhyming dictionary or something like that. And so, just be aware of what you're doing. I think that the bigger concern is that if you start allowing AI generated music to sit next to human created music and compete. For the limited time and ear time that you have of listeners, you're going to get just flooded out. You're going to be a drop in an ocean. There are so many songs that are uploaded every day. And the challenge for most independent creators is breaking through the clutter. And AI has the potential of creating just a lot more clutter.

And that's why, generally, I believe it goes back to fan engagement. I don't know that we'll ever live in a world where fans want to follow fictional artists who play music that was created by a machine. I think you want to have a fan connection to the artists themselves. And so, I think that's a big part of why, if you do use AI, it's within the limits of what makes sense to you as a creator.

Michael: Got it. Yeah. So it sounds like your recommendation is to, if you're using these tools, just do it with open eyes and use them as a creator. But understanding that ultimately, the most important thing is actually connecting with your community and the fan engagement. And that's the part that probably people aren't like, in the community part.

It's like, I'm just going to go live with a family of robots as opposed to the connection part of music, the communities themselves, live music coming together with other humans. So leaning into that is one thing that could be more future proof than a specific technique or tool that you're using to create the music.

David: Yeah, that's right.

MIchael: Awesome. Well, David, man, this has been a really interesting conversation. Thank you for coming on here and enlightening me as it relates to some of the finer details of the music legal scene, both in terms of where things are now and where they were in the 1900s and also where we're going with AI.

I know you've been a part of some amazing resources creation for artists. And so, for anyone that's listening to this right now, who would like to go deeper and be able to understand more of the intricacies of what we talked about today, also to be able to explore some of the associations that you're a part of, could you share a little bit more about what you'd recommend for them in terms of next steps?

David: Absolutely. So, by definition, if you're listening to this, you are a creative person who's taking an interest in the business side of what you do, and you want to learn more, which means you already are focused in doing the right thing by paying attention. There are so many resources out there for you as an independent songwriter, independent artist, to learn more, get engaged, have your voice heard.

We put out a lot of content at NMPA. And I do personally. So, I welcome you to follow my Instagram @disraelite, or my X Twitter @DavidIsraelite. NMPA’s website… our social media @NMPA. If you're a songwriter, there are some great songwriter organizations to join like NSAI, the National Songwriters Association International, SONA, Songwriters of North America, the Recording Academy, which has an active songwriter wing.

If you're an artist, there are also lots of great artist organizations that also speak to artists. Organizations, also like the Grammys or the Recording Academy, the Artist Rights Alliance, places that focus on independent creators as well. So, get engaged, pay attention, and I think you'll learn that you can have an impact on how this develops by just becoming active as an independent creator.

Michael: Awesome. Well, like always, we'll put all the links in the show notes for easy access. And David, thank you again for being on the podcast today. And for everything that you've done to help support independent musicians.

David: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.