Today we have a fascinating conversation with Randy Nichols, artist manager and CEO of Force Media Management. Randy’s been at the forefront of attempting to figure out the ticketing strategy math, especially the scalper side of the equation. We hear about his dive into the cold hard data, scalper chat rooms, and that time he sent someone undercover to the Ticket Scalpers Convention. We also talk about the allure of the “super fan” and why that is… baloney. Also we get into merch, and the general state of live music today.

News!

YouTube to demonetize AI-generated videos starting July 15

Why fandom’s ‘more is more’ era could backfire

YouTube’s ‘Ask Studio’ feature adds AI insight to its analytics

Report: Threads is closing in on X’s daily active users total

Shoutouts!

Immensity_AI

Klaviyo

Openstage

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

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Today we talk with Cullen Hendrix, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, about the impact of tariffs on musical instruments. A trained political scientist as well as having a background as a touring musician, Hendrix has a really distinctive lens in which to view the tariff news. We talk about how tariffs on Chinese imports could stifle the next generation of musicians, the potential consequences for the used instrument market, and the effects on American culture as a whole.

News!

The Velvet Sundown is an AI band after all, with its music created on Suno, confesses a spokesperson

AI in disguise? Music lovers angry at Spotify for promoting an allegedly fake band

Can the music industry make AI the next Napster?

Cloudflare launches a marketplace that lets websites charge AI bots for scraping

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

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Join us today as we talk with Jessica Sobhraj, the co-founder and CEO of Cosynd; a platform that helps creators protect their copyrights. We start by talking about the complex legal maneuvers involving the US Copyright Office; we then head into the ongoing impact of AI and the proactive steps you should take to safeguard your intellectual property.

But first, the news!

Anthropic Scores Major Fair Use Win in Authors’ Infringement Suit: ‘Using Copyrighted Works to Train LLMs to Generate New Text Was Quintessentially Transformative’

Affordances in the brain: The human superpower AI hasn’t mastered

Deezer Exec Says ‘There’s No Going Back’ on AI Music: ‘The Industry Will Need to Make a Decision’

The music industry is building the tech to hunt down AI songs

Shoutouts mentioned

5 Calls

Sureel

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

Get Dmitri’s Rock Paper Scanner newsletter.