It’s no secret that a number of deep-pocketed companies have been scooping up some of the biggest hits over the past few years. While music publishers have been doing this for decades, the sheer amount of funding provided in these recent purchases has been unprecedented, and frankly, mind-boggling. These deals…

Once upon a time, artists survived solely through generosity of their patrons. They were beholden to their whims and desires, and devoted great parts of their lives to creating work for a single individual or family. They had little control over their destiny, and no say in their compensation. Over…

When it comes to song royalties, Initial Song Offerings Have An Edge Over Non-Fungible Tokens — When we started Vezt in 2017, my co-founder, Robert Menendez, and I took a long, hard look at the music business and realized that song rights were the key to a massive transformation in the way artists are compensated and fans are incentivized. We set out to build a platform…

What Part Of That NBA Top Shot Do You Really Own? — I was on a Zoom discussion yesterday, and when I mentioned the importance of understanding exactly what rights are conveyed with an NFT (non-fungible token) purchase, one of the panelists seemed to brush it aside, as if to say, “Everybody knows what they’re buying.” The panelist was a top US…

Something seismic just happened in the music business, and it had nothing to do with streaming services, labels or publishers... For those that haven’t been following the latest phase in the digitization of everything, NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), grabbed the spotlight earlier this week with what was the biggest NFT sale…

Elon Musk Announces A Huge Bitcoin Purchase And Will Accept The Cryptocurrency For Tesla Purchases — If there wasn’t enough heat on Bitcoin’s volatility recently (bouncing rapidly between the low $30K to mid $40K mark in less than a week), the world’s richest person announced this week that his company, Tesla, had purchased $1.5 …

The new iOS app draws celebrities and billionaires for in-depth discussions — Sunday, January 31st, 2021 was the first time Elon Musk participated in a dialogue on the newest hipster social platform, Clubhouse. …

Tracks Like “Mood” & “Wellerman” Are Breaking Artists & Attracting Major Labels — Just a few weeks ago, Nathan Evans was delivering the Royal Mail in a suburb of Glasgow, Scotland, called Airdrie. At 26, and with a new wife, he wasn’t pursuing the typical path to success that many artists find familiar. There were no flights to New York, fancy dinners or…

A Cautionary Tale For The Very Hungry… — The day was Saturday, May 22nd, 2010. Summer was just beginning in Jacksonville, Florida, and Laszlo Hanyecz had an appetite for some pizza. It was nothing unusual for the 20 something year old programmer. …