Episode 109: How and Why Sync Licensing Is About To Change (with Nathan Duvall)

Sync is meant to be simple: a great track, a clear brief, a fair fee, everyone gets paid. In reality, it can be weeks of chasing split sheets, conflicting PRO records, missing contacts and approvals that arrive too late to matter. I’m joined by hitmaker and builder Nathan Duvall to talk about what happens when the modern pace of content collides with a licensing system that still struggles to answer one basic question: who owns what, and where?

We get into what Nathan is building with SyncIt, including the unglamorous but essential work of collating rights ownership data at scale and reducing the friction that slows down music licensing for adverts, TV, film, games and social campaigns. We also explore why big brands like L’Oreal cannot wait for endless back and forth, how licensing terms can price music out of the market, and why AI is already part of the toolkit whether the industry feels ready or not.

Then we zoom out to sport and fan culture. Nathan explains Fanthem, an AI-powered fan engagement platform that lets supporters generate chants and anthems, and why FIFA is trialling it for the Under 17s World Cup. From there we move into artist strategy: building an audience while creating a licensable body of work, the shift towards visual-first music discovery, and the practical reality that expertise still matters when brands need cut-downs, mixes, masters and fast delivery.

We close with a straight-talking look at masters ownership, multiple income streams, and the contract details artists overlook, especially retention period and consent clauses. If this helps, subscribe, share it with someone navigating sync licensing or label deals, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

https://syncit.ac

Transcript

Welcome And The Sync Problem

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Music Business Body, the podcast decoding how the modern music industry actually works. I'm Johnny Amart, industry consultant, artist manager, producer, educator, and author of the music business for music creators. Every Wednesday I explore the idea of technology and industry shifts shaping the future of music. This show helps creators navigate the rapidly changing business of music. I am really excited about the guest that I've got in today. I'll be honest with you, I've been really excited for weeks, knowing that I was going to talk to him because he's such a fascinating guy. I'm a big fan of his music as well, which is also exciting. And he is a very, very, very insightful, generous, kind, warm human being by the name of Nathan Deval. So some of you might know uh his work from uh Disciples, which is uh a London-based uh electronic trio, uh, or some of you might know his solo work, uh Deval. Um, you know, so hits like How Deep Is Your Love, On My Mind, uh, you know, he's uh as a as a music creator, he's got credits for the likes of uh Calvin Harris, Little Mix, uh Craig David, uh many, many more. So as a music creator, yeah, he has done extremely well, he's very successful, uh, sold millions of records and billions of streams. And we do talk a little bit about that today, but what we really mainly focus on is uh another thing, right, which is sync it. Um, and this is an area um that I uh am particularly interested in, as you well know, right, is sync licensing. Now, what Nathan has built um is a very interesting infrastructure to be able to license music at scale, and sync it is a company which is kind of um I would say a bit of a Maverick model. Um, he's working with some big brands, uh L'Oreal, uh McLaren, Formula One, uh football teams like Real Madrid, all sorts of different things. He's created a kind of niche number of products within this uh line, which is Syncit. Now, Syncit is doing something which is kind of removing a lot of the traditional barriers, let's say, um, of uh traditional sync licensing, but doing it in a way that remunerates fairly to everybody involved. Um, there is AI built into it, and he has a great deal of respect uh for that and also for the rights of music creators and rights holders everywhere. Um, I'm gonna hand over to the interview because he explains it all a lot better than I do, right? But have a listen to this, everybody. Nathan, welcome to the music business, buddy. It's really good to have you here, and it's great to meet you. How are you? Oh, I'm fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

I'm really excited for this talk. Likewise, mate, likewise. Um, so let's go let's go straight into it because there's so much to cover.

Building A Rights Source Of Truth

SPEAKER_01 2:59

So let's think about rights ownership, right? It's still one of the most kind of painful parts of the sync process, even now in 2026, and there's fragmented PROs and disputed splits and a long weeks of back and forth between different parties, even on just a single placement, in order to sometimes just get it cleared. But you've built Sync It specifically to solve that kind of problem. Um, what has surprised you when you started to pull together all of that ownership data at scale?

SPEAKER_02 3:32

How sporadic it is across multiple different sources and the fact that there are too many paywalls behind specific information as well. Or the fact that there's certain PROs that don't allow you to kind of scrape the data that should be public knowledge. I think that's probably the biggest, our biggest hurdle. Because what we want to do is just have one source of truth where everyone comes to and can understand who owns what and at what percentage and in what territory. And before you can license a record to adverts TV, gaming or film, you need to have those bits of information collated so you can attack all the rights owners at one at one time. And so even before licensing, you need to fix that part. So there's met there's multiple parts that need a fixing. We started our company just at the end going, right, we want to create a marketplace where you can license your record to have a TV game and film. And we're not realizing that, well, there's a step, a few steps before that where you need to try and get all the information of what those songs are, who represents those songs, and the contact information for those people who own those songs.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Wow, that's so interesting. Um there there are a okay, so if you think about music supervisors there, right? So uh that there's a maybe there's quite a lot of music supervisors who are extremely good at what they do on a creative level, but then there's the other part to it where they may not even know what you know about that information that you're finding out. Um, and it makes you so so so crucial to so many people. I mean, that traditional kind of sync model was built around, you know, sort of like a handful, let's say, of like sort of high-value uh placements, like a TV spot, a film trailer, uh, a campaign, you know. But you're now working with the likes of uh FIFA and McLaren and like Real Madrid, you know, Real Madrid, the football team. And that those aren't sync briefs, these are these are fan experiences, right? How how did you end up building a product for for sports? Um, and what what does that tell us about where kind of music and brand activation are actually sort of uh heading towards?

Phantom Turns Fans Into Creators

SPEAKER_02 5:41

Well, music has always been synonymous with sport, it's the biggest driver of emotion and fan engagement, and always has been from the beginning of time. Um specifically coined from the Europeans, especially the British as well, with the chance. Um but there's no real ownership surrounding that moment between the club that they're speaking about or the fan themselves. So, what we've done is we created um a platform called Phantom within our sync it um ecosystem, which allows fans to generate um different chants, um, different anthems about their specific player that they love, about their specific country. It could be a match day, it could be uh a kit drop. I mean, the list goes on and on um for why and when you need music. And this is the introduction to people who would not normally use um the technology we use to create music for the masses, they're able to now use it. So that's the beauty of having AI generative music. Um, so we've put it all in a nice bow wraps up called Phantom, which FIFA are deploying towards the end of this year for the Under-17s World Cup. It'll be the first of its kind, it's the first ever um fan engagement tool that exists, to my knowledge. Um, and yeah, we're really excited. We we started speaking with FIFA about a year ago, and um they got back in touch at the beginning of this year saying, yeah, they'd like to go forward and and give this a trial. So uh yeah, let's let's see how it goes.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Wow, God, well done you for making that happen. I can't think of anybody that's ever tried to do that before, and I'm now wondering why, but it doesn't matter, you've done it. That's that's trailblazing, mate.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

That is that's well, yeah, it happened by accident. We were obviously we were speaking to football teams about sprucing up their anthems, like you know, having producers go in and recreate what they consider their song, um, and then we hit a brick wall because some songs that are considered, say, a Chelsea song, aren't actually owned by Chelsea. So um we got in with their marketing team and the head of marketing, and they said, Well, is there any way we can just create our own music? And we thought, hmm, if Chelsea needed records and they want to use songs, then I'm sure all the other clubs across the globe want to use songs. So then we got in touch with FIFA, and that's how we created Phantom.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Wow. Wow. By the way, what a brilliant name, Phantom.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

And we trade we trademarked it uh a couple of weeks ago as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

So Oh really?

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Okay, yeah, we want everyone to say I just created a Phantom.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

That's the wow. Some of the best ideas are often the kind of like the simplest names, aren't they? And that's that's that's a fine example of it. That's amazing. Wow. Um the let's think about like the so the creator economy, let's

Brands Need Music Faster

SPEAKER_01 8:43

say, right? So, you know, it it needs music at at scale, you know, um, in fact, at a scale that traditional licensing was never really kind of designed for, right? Millions of placements, not thousands, right? That's what we're kind of starting to build towards, right? And you're building an AI infrastructure that actually, you know, uh across discovery and metadata and rights, but uh let's let's go for a slightly harder question on this, right? Is the music industry actually ready for that type of infrastructure? Or are the labels and PROs and the publishers, you know, kind of still the biggest blocker for that to work properly?

SPEAKER_02 9:19

I think what's gonna happen, they have to be. They have to be ready for an infrastructure that meets the demand of today. Predominantly, right now, it takes too long to license a sun. The information's fragmented, there are too many people to talk to. The birth of AI and generative AI is a problem. Not for the individual creator, but it's a problem for our industry because our work we work with massive brands, we work with L'Oreal. L'Oreal don't have time to wait for you to license to get a Sun license. Their product or project needs to come out when they say it needs to come out. If they're dilly-dallying with trying to find someone who hasn't answered an email, they're just going to move on to the next. And we've created a rod for our own back in that sense because, as I said before, the information is too fragmented, too many people to talk to. The terms and conditions, like you know, the usage is an issue as well. Like only able to use it for six months in this territory. Can you only use the chorus if you want to use the verses where it costs more? Like, desktop. It's just nonsense. And what we're doing is we're pricing ourselves out of the game completely. So unfortunately, we do have massive brands that we work with that are indifferent to whether it's AI generated or human-made, and that's just the reality of it. The most important thing is the music, the music helps tell the story that they need to tell, doesn't matter it comes from. There are certain brands that care more about the artist because obviously, if you match a song and a product, it's about the artist and the demographic they reach. That will never change. That's fantastic. Love doing that. But the majority of brands want to create content at scale. So it could be social media campaigns, ad campaigns, they need to test as well, right? So a lot of our brands that we work with, they do like 30 pieces of content to test the market and not even do it publicly, just small testing. They need music for it. You know, they're getting bogged down with licensing issues, you know, so they're having to use the players like Epidemic Sound or obviously offer stock music, but you know, that can only go so far. So the only natural progression is um we need to create an infrastructure that allows brands to access music quickly and at scale. And that's what we've started to do. The other side of it is we are also using AI to help speed up our processes, whether it's creating the infrastructure to help them or the fan engagement tool, like I just said, Phantom. It's within us now. AI is here to stay and it's only going to get better. But what people do value, what brands do value is your expertise. So you need someone who has 10 years, 20 years experience behind the tools we're using because it's not as simple as oh, I can create a song and now I can put it to my ad. You need cut-down versions, you need mixes, you need masters, you need stuff without vocals, with vocals, you need to understand the nuances behind creating music, and only experience can get you that.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

That's a very, very good point. I think a lot of music creators as well will find that deeply reassuring. Um it's just it's not that they're not needed, it's just that they're needed in a slightly different way than they were perhaps before, um, which makes makes perfect sense, especially when you look at um, you know, we're all consuming media differently, aren't we? Now we're not all watching legacy television, etc., like we were, and and our needs as consumers have changed, and therefore the needs for brands and how they use music has also then changed. Um, and it's my goodness, it's changing quickly. It really is. It's kind of hard to keep up sometimes, actually, isn't it? But you know, but like if you look at like production music and how how how well it did last year, it's because it's quick and easy, right? It's because people can just get it, it's quick, it's easy, it's clearable. But then what they don't get is something that's bespoke or unique to them.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

So you know, you've kind of got the best of uh best of both worlds, but you know this, that's why you're doing what you're doing. I mean it's it's fascinating,

Building Audience And Licensable Work

SPEAKER_01 13:24

really is. Um, so um let's let let's let me ask you about this, if I may, Nathan. You start as a as a you know as a as a as a music creator, as an artist, right? 50 million records sold, um, goodness knows how many billion streams, um, Brit nominations. You if you were an independent artist starting from scratch today, would you be more focused on building uh you know a streaming audience or building a licensable catalogue? And and and how how does that answer change your product decisions at Syncit?

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Both things are true. I think you need to do both. You don't need to think about both because I think if you think about building a licensable catalogue, um it won't happen the way you think it would happen. I think building an audience in general is super, super important and knowing who you are as an artist is super super important. I think people build publicly now as opposed to in their bedroom or in their garage. I think showing people the steps of how you made records to the point where you get to your first show, to the point where you set out your first stadium, it's now documentation is the most important thing, not just creation. So we sell music visually now, not with our ears. We people we sell things with our eyes. So if I'm gonna play you a song or if I'm gonna show you a song, it's a completely different emotion altogether. Most songs are hits today because of something they saw alongside that song, not just something they heard. Radio is the only time to hear something, Spotify, streaming services is the only time to hear something, but we all consume music visually now, which is the weirdest thing to say because it's like music is is for your ears, but actually no, it's for your eyes now. So it's completely changed.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Well, a superb answer. So insightful, thank you so much. Um, I'm just thinking, you know, of um emerging artists then that you know sometimes they'll come to me and they'll say, I've got this, let's say it's an EP, you know. Should I go down this route, you know, and waterfall it as and collect it into an EP and do that, or is this something that can be used to stop music? I might make more money, you know, and and and it kind of if there is a sort of uh middle piece where you go, let's make this commercial music, but let's also make it available to be licensed, then artists can build that audience and do the sync thing at the same time, right? Yeah, I think you should only be doing that.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

I think building bodies of work will never go out of fashion, it's the most important thing. Um, being part of uh albums where I produce songs for other people and being part of singles that I do with my band, I see a clear difference between bodies of work and singles, and the single life is fantastic. Like it it gets us so far. But when I've been part of albums and and material that can stand the test of time and there's a journey to it, brands really care about that. They care about licensing music that has a story behind it, and you can do that through EPs and LPs. Um, so I think that's the most important thing to do as a new artist. How to get it out, I think too many people think about that too early. It's important to get your music heard, but it's important to know that your first song, your third song, your fifth song, it doesn't matter. The result doesn't matter because you have no idea when people will pay attention. You know, it could be 10 songs down the road, it could be 50 songs down the road. The most important thing is the output, getting it out in front of people. They will tell you what they like and don't like, and then you can iterate from there. I think even where we are, you know, we make that mistake a lot because we come from a different area where we've got to get the music right first, and then we'll go and launch this EP or then we'll go and launch these three singles. We have no idea what the singles are gonna do unless you show someone first. So today you're able to show an audience first. Even if your audience is 25 people, that's still an audience. If 17 of them are like, yeah, this is the one, then that's the one to go with it. And then you grow from there. So I think there's we we bog ourselves down too much with how do I do something? Do it and you'll find out. I think the worry is that you don't have enough songs to do or to get through after that. And what we need to be, unfortunately, today is about quality, but quantity as well. Quantity matters unfortunately just as much as quality does today.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah, that's that's that's a very good point. Yeah, that's a fine line, isn't it, between sort of building in public and building sort of um behavioural data, um, you know, even mimetic data, people getting involved with things. But then also going, well, I'm gonna have to have quite a few singles ready to go. I suppose there's a balance there, you know, but but that's yeah, that's always been a part of the game, you know. Um so so let's let's look ahead then. Let's

AI Shift And The Value Of Expertise

SPEAKER_01 18:15

let's let's think sort of five years from now, right? You know, a sports team wants to create, you know, uh uh 10,000 personalised fan anthems for their stadium, right? A brand wants a bespoke, you know, 30-second piece of music generated and cleared in like under a minute, right? Um, you know, a film director wants to search through an entire uh catalogue by emotional arc rather than genre, because they don't know what genre they're looking for, but what they know what mood they're looking for. Are any of those you know uh science fiction or or you know, or or or are all of these things technically uh possible? It's happening now.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Right as we speak, that's the way the world is moving. It's going towards that and it's doing it silently, and I think that's why we haven't felt the shift yet. You know, any any major change in life actually happens slowly. It happens very slowly to the point where you don't even realize. You know, from you know, a war to to you know, do you remember remember when COVID happened, right? Instantly, on this on the day we knew, the world didn't fall apart. It happened over months.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_02 19:27

This is what's happening now with the encroachment on AI. It's already taking over, but you're not realising, you're not feeling it. You still think how you released music last year is the same way you should release it this year. The game has changed completely. And we're not ready for it because we don't one, we don't want to be, so we're closing our eyes to the fact that AI is is coming. Um and two, we got we don't even realize as well, because it's happening so slowly. I think it's a beautiful thing that's happening. It's a ch it's gonna change everything. I mean, as did the CD for the vinyl, as did the MP3 for the CD. It's where you sit within it all. You know, are you gonna be the ones trying to stop it from happening, which will you know you could never do enough to stop something like this? Or are you gonna get behind it and be you know steer it, be the experts of it? Because as I said before, expertise still counts for something. And we forget as musicians that we are an expert in a specific field, and what I've discovered with artists is that they don't actually know how to articulate that to people. It's like you know, if you want a song done, you think someone like L'Oreal is just gonna jump on Suno and do it themselves. No, they're like, what Suno? And it and and and rightfully so, that it's not their wheelhouse. So they are looking to partner with producers, with artists to help them on this journey, and we can sit in that driving seat for a long period of time. They want partners that they can have relationships with, not just a one and done, you know? So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Yeah, it's an ongoing, ongoing thing. It's not like they need just one song, they're gonna need a lot of music for a lot of different uses.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Yeah, no, that makes that makes that makes a lot of sense.

Masters And Audience As Leverage

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Um, Nathan, you've sold records, you've you've built tech, you're you're you're sitting on a a growing catalogue of sort of you know client and and fan data. So as as a you you you're uniquely positioned here, right? Because you've lived on both sides, you know, as the artist and also as the infrastructure builder. Um, which asset becomes more valuable over the next decade? Is it the songs, the audiences, or the data from the interactions that that generates?

SPEAKER_02 21:46

I would say there's two answers to this question. Uh your masters, the most important thing. It always has been. You know, that's why it's called a master. Um is the most important thing, and an audience is the most important thing because you can leverage an audience. Because if things hit the fan, which they always do in life, you can count on your audience to pivot with you. You know? I think we didn't pay enough attention to that when we were coming through. You know, we released songs, we spoke to our audience a little bit, never did anything else other than invite them to shows and treat them really well when we saw them in public and and gave them a really good performance, and that's where it ended. Today your audience needs to be your family because they will back whatever you do. And we're in a phase of transition now. The money is not where the money was yesterday, it's now changed somewhere else. So when you move there, if you have an audience that moves with you, you're good. Um so yeah, I'd say the audience and the masters are the most important thing. And the reason for the masters is because it's important that you have control over your masters, or at least understand who is control of the masters so you can move that around. A master placed on DSPs is different to it being placed on radio, is different to it being placed on an advert, different to it being placed in a film or a game. If you have control over all of that, you now have six or seven different income streams right for music. All we think about as artists is getting on Spotify or Apple Music and then shutting down a really big show and maybe selling some merchandise. We need to broaden our horizon. It's not there anymore. It's not, and if you're playing that game, you're playing it with a a million other people, and that's just within your own genre.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

The so the ideals of the dream have evolved before us.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Absolutely, it's it's still the same dream, but just don't put a value behind posting your song online to gain money or um you know, just dreaming of of selling out a show. Those things can still happen. Cool. We all want that. I still want that now. You know, I'm touring in IB for this summer. I do it for the love of it though. You know, do we make a bit of money? Of course. But you can't sustain a career unless you're one of the top, top 20, 30 guys and girls. It's just not doable because of the sheer volume of people making music, the barrier to entry is so low. Any geezer with a laptop now can do it. You know, any geezer with a laptop can post it on SoundCloud, it blows up, and now they've taken your spot for We Are Festival or whatever festival's coming up next. It's really now a case of being clever and putting your music in different areas and being in control of your music so that you can maneuver, you know, so that you can go and get a licensing deal or speak to someone like me who can help you um get on the line up with Formula One. Um, we worked with Silverstone uh the year before last as well with Red Bull as well. So they're they're really into music, they're really into championing artists of all different backgrounds and giving them a spot. You know, I know all this because I'm looking for different things to do with my music and myself as an artist. And then I create long-lasting relationships with the likes of Red Bull or Silverstone or L'Oreal or whoever it may be, and that's where for me the value lies. It's in the relationships with the people who value music the most. And it's not the industry, it's not the music business, it's the brands, it's the people that know that without music their story sucks.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so interesting. I mean, you're saying so many things that I've been thinking for a while, and it's so useful, I think, for um, I was gonna say for artists to hear what you say. I think I'd extend it beyond that. I think anybody to do with any part of any artist team to be thinking in the way that you're thinking. Um, and actually that that maneuverability that you spoke about earlier about having you know the recorded music in different positions, um, it's nigh-on impossible to be able to do that if you don't have flexibility on ownership of that master,

Retention Periods And Deal Fine Print

SPEAKER_01 26:02

right? I mean, even if you don't own all of it, but if you own enough of it or you you know who the other owners are and you know how flexible they are in working with you on new ideas and being open to it, um, and and just knowing what that ownership looks like, that's that's a very, very good thing. Because I think it's very easy, isn't it, uh that for artists, especially early in their career, to sign away their IP because they need money. Um and then they they spend years then regretting it and then go in into uh a label services model or or whatever. We've seen that so many times in recent years, and and I get it, and it makes sense, but if we think ahead of that and go, right, there's loads of artists that have done that over the years, there's a reason why, because they know what you just talked about. Um to get ahead get ahead of that and go, right, hang on, can I cope with that in advance and instead just own my masters and be able to trade in the way that you're explaining? And you know, they'll reap the rewards of it.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

So, you know, I don't do you know, uh and I to that point, I'm not you know shitting on anyone who does a deal like we did a deal with Warner, and without Warner 12, 13 years ago, we wouldn't be here today. Now, where you need to look is the retention period. How long do they own your songs for or their pelvision of the master for? And how much flexibility do you have over your own music, right? Now we've got great flexibility over our music, but Warner owned a good chunk of it for a very long time. So assigning a deal at the time meant that we could get on finally. We weren't great at building our own audience, we didn't really believe in ourselves in that way. So having Warner in the machine that it was back then, second to none. Never regretted it. What I do regret is not looking at the fine print a bit more and being like, that retention period is a bit high. If anyone doesn't understand the retention period is how long they hold on to your um records even after the deal is the term is is is done. Um, it could be anywhere from 25 years to 50 years, too, in perpetuity, meaning forever. You've got to be careful of those things because do a deal if it's you know they hold on to your records uh retention period for 12 years, it's fine because they're giving you something, giving you money, they're giving you a platform. And sometimes, a lot of the times, it's a win. It works well. What happens after that? What happens after that deal is done? One, are you flexible with the ability to move your masters wherever you want to move them, or work with, in my case, Warner to get more deals for that? Luckily, we have a great relationship with Warner, right? So I could just call them and say, look, FIFA want to use uh one of our songs. We good to go? Yeah, we're good to go. Cool. So the flexibility is there because the relationship is strong. I know those people who've fallen out with their label, can't get them on the phone, and now they regret ever signing to them. And now, you know, that said company owns, still owns the masters and they can do what they want with them, really. Um, it's just a bit of a mess. So always if you need to sign the deal because you you feel like it's the right thing, go ahead and sign it. But please, please, please understand the retention period is the is the biggest thing. And who has access? Like sometimes now they're doing deals, now it has the ability to put the master wherever they want without your consent. So they could go for an advert in a different country, you had no idea that it was there. Like, you just need to understand those those small things because that's what makes the deal. Take the money up front. We needed it at the time 12 years ago, it wasn't much, like it was literally with our first song. I think we we paid that mark, we paid that advance back within like six months. It was crazy. That's how small the advance was. But at the time, the machine really put us on and gave us an audience across the globe. And I can I always will thank them for that.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

That's uh that's really nice to hear. Thanks for opening up about that, Nathan. It's very insightful and very useful for people to hear. Um what's one of the key things that you just said there as well is the idea that you still have a really good relationship with the guys at Warner where you can, where there's not friction, right? Where uh because this just in case anybody perhaps misunderstands, this is not about greed, right? This is going, I own my masters, I make all the money. It's not that, is it? It's about the freedom of letting those masters find uh a place where they can be licensed and be licensed. Absolutely. Um, and so you know it the fact that you've got that relationship with them, A, by the way, speaks volumes about you, and B, uh it is really useful for people to hear because even if they go, Oh, do you know what? Yeah, I I thought I'd signed a two-year term and then there was a 20-year retention. But uh, let's work with that instead of trying to challenge it. What do we do about it? Well, we work with them. How do we do that? We communicate well, and that is a massive lesson in itself.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the retention doesn't matter so much if you're working the records together, you know. We didn't answer, we didn't ask any questions in the first 10 years because everything was going swimmingly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then and then when it starts to kind of your career starts to take a different turn, you start thinking, hang on a second, how much of this, how much of my music do I actually own? And then you start looking at the the fine print, you're like, ah, damn it. But but we be careful about regret because do you really regret it or you know, are you annoyed at yourself for not doing the right deal for yourself at the time? It's just you know, the the label are gonna do what they do. You and your lawyer should do what you do, protect yourselves at all costs, don't take so much money up front if you can drop the uh retention period. Make sure, you know, even with your management, make sure the sunset clauses aren't too high, meaning the terms after you terminate, you know, they could be eight years, they could be ten years, you know, try and get that out to three to five. These are things that you need to speak about with a really good lawyer. And lawyers are annoying because they don't care about what's happening now, they care about what's happening in five years' time, and you're not there. You're thinking, how much money am I getting now? Where's the money now? I want that now, and it's like, all right, cool. You want that money now. Let me help you think about five years' time and let me put all these little clauses in so that in five years' time you're gonna come back to me and say, Oh my god, I can't believe you made me sign that deal.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know it's so funny, right? Because you know, I I I used to be the artist and now I'm on the other side of it, and and I and I'm telling people all the time, you know, think long term, think long term, think about what this might be in you know, 10 years or 20 years. And of course, people aren't always doing that. And I and I think to my I say to my wife, I say, I wasn't thinking that when I was in my 20s, like you just don't. You don't, you're not thinking like that.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

And also it's it's unsexy, isn't it? It's like who the hell wants to think about retention periods and and and all this stuff that actually sucks the fun and joy out of making music and becoming who you want to become. It's I don't blame uh artists for not thinking that, but you're if you have a manager, they a hundred percent should only be thinking that. If you have a good lawyer, a hundred percent they should only be thinking that. So it frees up your brain space to enjoy what you do best, you know? That's that's the important thing.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

Yeah, and then for those artists that do know that, that do think ahead to that, that do do that, can then entice a better manager to work with them because they'll you know be like, oh, okay, yeah, this artist knows the business. This is good. We don't have to educate them, let's work, okay. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

And unfortunately, that often happens after you've been stunned or after you've had five, six, seven years in the business, and you'd be like, ah, I'm not gonna let that happen to me again. Normally it's a lesson learned uh experience.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

So yeah, no, that's that's very true. Um,

Closing Reflections And Encouragement

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Nathan, thank you so much for your time today. You are you are a true gentleman and you are so incredibly impressive. Congratulations for all that you have achieved and all that you will continue to achieve. You're a top man. I really appreciate your time. Oh, you're gonna make me cry now, stop it. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

But it's been an absolute pleasure. I'd love to do this again uh when we've got some more updates for you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

You would be welcome anytime, mate. Okay, there you go. What a dude. What a dude. Um, what a lovely guy as well. You're like, you can um, do you know? Um let's just go back to just you know, come away from business for a minute, right? Which I know this is a music business podcast, but music's about people, isn't it? And about moments and about events and about songs and things that touch people and move people. And for all of those things to work, we need people, right? Special people. And Nathan DeVall is one of those people. There are so many strings to his bow, he's so impressive on so many levels, but I think more than anything else, he's just a lovely guy, right? You know, he's the kind of person that, like, you know, let's say it's Warner's, as he was talking about, and whoever he's talking to, and his name pops up. I bet that he is never the kind of guy where people go, Oh, I bet it'll be. Oh, because he's that, he's special, he's wonderful. And I hope that well, I know that that came across to you, right? So I hope that you take a look at what he's building because anyone can be a part of it. Um, this is not a closed door exercise, in fact, it's the polar opposite, it's about working uh to bring out the best of everybody to find a home for their music. You know, the lot of the things that he's doing is is working for brands, but as he says it himself, he needs music to be able to do that. Music, so much music, is needed all the time, and I think sometimes it's easy for music creators to not necessarily always understand their value. And um, I want you to know, and so does Nathan, and so do many other people, that there are an enormous amount of people in various aspects of music and in media that really, really value and need music, right? And yes, I am talking to you when I say that, right? So have a think about all this, let it marinate in your mind, and uh let it help you to evolve your ideals moving forward because my goodness me, there's a lot changing, isn't there? And it's hard to keep up with, and I know it's overwhelming, and hey, that's why I'm here to try and break these things down, to try if I can to simplify things as much as I can in an ever-flowing, ever-evolving, rapidly changing world. I know there's a lot to keep up with, but I think that what we spoke about today could be something that's open to you moving forward. So have a think about that. Uh, until then, have a great day, everybody. Thank you for being here and a part of this community, and may the force be with you.