Niclas Molinder - In Session
Niclas Molinder is a Swedish songwriter, producer and CEO of Session (formerly Auddly) - a music rights startup with some phenomenal industry support. Session is working with ProTools, Universal, Spotify and others to ensure that rights are tracked and reported accurately right from the point of creation on through to the end consumer.
Niclas’s story is both inspiring and familiar: he’s someone who started out a little lost, doing the wrong thing in the wrong place, and realised that he needed to follow up his passions and interests with a lot of hard work and tenacity. In his case, it worked out pretty well. He found himself among pop music royalty and has created an idea that’s already had a lot of traction in the industry he loves.
AI Transcription
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
music, studio, pro tools, creators, songwriters, sweden, song, mtf, realised, big, played, swedish, producer, partner, music industry, session, problem, tech fest, talking, data
SPEAKERS
Andrew Dubber, Niclas Molinder
Andrew Dubber
Hi, I’m Dubber. I’m the director of Music Tech Fest, and this is the MTF podcast. Okay, so we’ve been sitting on this one for a little while now, but for good reason. I met Niclas Molinder, in Austin, Texas at South by Southwest. And if you follow the music industry events calendar, you’ll know that this was back in March a good six months ago. So when Niclas talks about an announcement he’s making about something that’s going to happen very soon, you can rest assured that it already happened and that it went very well. But we’ve kept this one up our sleeve because it ties in very nicely with an announcement that we wanted to make. And we wanted to ensure that we had all of the pieces in place and locked down before we do so for background Niclas is the founder and CEO of Session formerly known as Auddly and is basically a member of what you might call the Swedish music royal family. He’s half of Swedish songwriter producer duo Twin and his partners in Session are Joacim Persson, who’s the other twin, with credits including Kelly Clarkson, john legend, Kylie Minogue, Lady Gaga, Jonas Brothers, Mary J. Blige, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Armin Van Buren, Robin, Jamiroquai. The second partner is Max Martin, whose credits are way too long to list but suffice to say that other than Paul McCartney and john lennon, Max has written more number one songs than anyone on the planet ever. And he’s just one hit record away from matching George Martin’s record of number one hits as a producer. And then there’s the other partner, someone we’ve had on the podcast in the past, Björn Ulvaeus, who you know, as one of the Bs in ABBA. So Niclas is from a town called Örebro, where they have this great university with a reputation for their AI research, as well as the music school there. It’s a town with a really strong startup community and ecosystem as well as a fantastic music showcase event each year called Live at heart. Anyway, Nicholas and I got talking about Music Tech Fest and live at heart and Örebro and all these shared interests, overlaps and mutual connections. And well To cut a long story short, the thing I’m excited to announce today is that Niclas has pulled a lot of strings opened a lot of doors and had a lot of meetings that mean that MTF Labs in Örebro is sheduled for next month in partnership with Örebro University and creative house alongside a live at heart pop up event, as the first step in an ongoing collaboration that we’re gonna be looking to build year on year. We’re working with Amy Loutfi, who’s the AI Professor Örebro University, we’re bringing together some brilliant people and projects from the wider MTF, community and running labs focusing on democratising AI innovation, accessibility and performance. And we’re also going to be running a track athon there a 24 hour music, songwriting and production challenge in the recording studio facilities in the music production department at the University, who claimed to have the best studios in the country. Now, as it happens, despite having a brand new album due out that same week, MTF regular Graham Massey of 808 state miraculously had that weekend free in his calendar. So he’s going to pop over to join us and lead that trekearth on with me, which, of course, I’m super excited about. And we’ll make sure we get him on the stage as well. Anyone who’s seen Graham perform at MTF before, and it’s happened a few times now. They’ll know they’re in for something really special, and for the track athon. Well, there will be no shortage of experienced songwriters and producers swinging by to listen to work in progress, give a few tips and words of encouragement along the way. There are more details to come over the next week or so about MTF or abre and beyond. But I just wanted to let you know what’s in the pipeline. The moment we could say something publicly about all this. Keep an eye on your inbox more info. So anyway, this conversation that you’re about to hear is the conversation that started what’s been a six month journey now with Niclas, who’s been a fantastic champion for Music Tech Fest. songwriter, producer, and music tech CEO, Niclas Molinder. Enjoy. Niclas Molinder is the founder and CEO of Auddly a connected online music rights platform. Niclas, thanks so much for coming in. We’re not going to call it Auddly, though, after today.
Niclas Molinder
It’s crazy. Yeah, we’re changing name. Yeah.
Andrew Dubber
Wow. Yeah. about that.
Niclas Molinder
Yeah, we have been talking about this for a very long time. And there is actually funny name, how the name came up because it was born out of a need. For many years ago, like seven, eight, maybe nine years ago, I needed something like audit for my own publishing company. And when I started, you know, with early drawings with I realised, oh, wow, many more than I really thought that was a good idea. The Swedish copyright society steam setting, I did work on this and, you know, and then I showed it to the great Max Martin and he said, Yeah, let’s go ahead. I mean, I need this as well. So okay, we had something to start a company on, but you know, at the time, it was just a side project. So but we got to a point where Where we needed a name for it. I were in Thailand at the time vacation with my family. My other partner was here in the US. And our tech developer was in Örebro, in Sweden. So we were in three time zones with a very big difference between us. And I was I seen a bar had a couple of beers. And we’re just like, we need a name. We need a name. And at the time, yeah, what every company tech company at that time now is like, five, six years ago should end on L Y, for some reason, L Y or wise though and find domains was impossible. So we’re like, Yeah, what can we were working with audio, we worked with lyrics or Auddly, our perfect audience comp was free. And boom, that was the name. Not so well thought through, but it like it was what it was. In the beginning, you know, as a new company, you struggle with the name, you need to learn people. So in the beginning, we were pretty cool, because I’ve heard so many weird pronunciation so we’d but you know, anyhow. But it was a little cold in Europe and Sweden, of course, in Europe, but then we got here to us with our product. Oddly, oddly, so it became so weird, you know, and no one could even relate to what it was. Yeah. Audio lyrics. Yeah, it was a good idea. But you know, don’t don’t come out that way. So we start started the discussion about changing name, like years ago, two years ago, maybe. And Björn Ulvaeus, which I’m really honoured to have as a partner, Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA a supporter. He actually said to me one time, Niclas, I’m going to be straight on as we do, I hate or lose, I don’t like that. So, okay, so the journey started, and I’m like, Okay, what should we name it to what should be able to service B. And I’ve been, you know, awake night after night after night, just thinking about it. And then one day, not so long time ago, boom, it was there. I am a songwriter, and producer. And I’ve been doing that for more than 20 years. And every time I went to the studio or to work with people to write music, I used an expression. And that expression is still the same today, all musicians, songwriters, artists, when they’re going to the studio, they’re going to session, right? In session, of course, the name should be session. And we are your identifier in your session, we identify you as an individual. So we are even going to skip the .com domain, we are just going to be session.id. That’s simply what we’re going to do. So boom, we got it. And we’re here in Austin, actually to announce that so tomorrow, Wednesday, 13th of March, we’re gonna go on stage and say, yeah, we’re changing name. We know it’s going to be complicated. We know Auddly worked in name, but now it’s going to happen. Right?
Andrew Dubber
So I mean, you’ve you’ve already dropped a couple of really seriously big names there, Max Martin, Björn Ulvaeus and others. And so you’re obviously somebody who works at this level of music production and songwriting in Sweden. What’s your journey? What’s your story? Where did you start with music?
Niclas Molinder
I started when I was young. School was nothing for me and I hated school, to be honest, and I didn’t fit in. So and the funny thing with music, I cannot find anyone except for my granddad, that in my family that was you know, played any instrument. So not a musical family, not a musical family. So the funny thing is that the music My parents, you know, they listened to to Abba when I was young and now it’s funny that partner which is
Andrew Dubber
which is pretty cool. They must be very impressed. Yeah,
Niclas Molinder
they are actually, no, but you know, so but music were always I was, you know, love music. And actually, my mom, she she has a picture of me when I was three years old next to my granddad because he was playing the accordion. And I’m sitting there on the picture on and he’s playing the accordion and I have a tambourine in my hand. And there’s a lot of people around like the family was standing and mom, sometimes telling me about this picture. Like everyone was so impressed how is a three year old could actually play in tempo. As a three year old, somewhere, that’s where when my music interest was born, I have no idea but I had, so so it started and but you know, I was since the school was not my thing. I couldn’t even go to music school, you know, I want it. I’m a self learning person. I need to learn things on my own. When I got 13 and started, what we call the hug started, I don’t know. When he was 13 years old, seventh grade. For the first time I got into, like, music free because the music, he started the band. When in school, I could get in the like the local I don’t know what you say if you call it like the school arena where there was upstage and a piano, okay, and I got access to that and I’m stopped playing and I was I love this and every time even though The venue was empty. I was playing for a full stadium every time and so I must self learn on the piano. So what and then everything took over everything. So music became my, my total passion and my potent total life. And of course, school had to suffer from that, you know, I had low grades and and when it was time to apply for high school, you know, I couldn’t even get in anywhere. So it I ended up actually getting on the, to become a chef. Okay, so I was educated chef because that was the only education that was not it was practical. It was not reading, because I think I have I don’t know if you can have dyslexia, do you say just like this? Yeah, just like, I, I have a bit of it, but I can read but you know, when I get too much text in front of me, it gets like, blurry. So I don’t know if focus problems are dyslexic? I don’t know.
Andrew Dubber
But your brain works in different ways. And it seems to work very well in the domain of music. Yeah.
Niclas Molinder
Yeah. So that’s, yeah, so I did this gold. But you know, after after my, I graduated as a chef, you know, I, I worked for two months in a restaurant. And then I said to myself, I’m doing the right thing, and I’m on the right wrong on the wrong place. I’m in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing. But there’s only one person on this planet that can change it, because no one else would do it for me. Sure. So I just quit my job. I just got my apartment. My dad was crazy. Like, are you gonna pay your rent, bah, bah, bah, all that stuff, you know, but then I made myself I forced myself in as an intern in the studio. They didn’t want me but by force myself in just kept turning up
Andrew Dubber
until they put me on payroll.
Niclas Molinder
That’s exactly. Yeah. So and actually, I worked for free in the beginning, so I was just there. But afterwards, you know, I’m now I know, the guys that run the studio. And they said, Okay, this idiot, we need to, like, paint the walls. We need someone to clean the place, make coffee for us, let him do it. Because I mean, so after a couple of months in the studio, I was bored again, because I was not doing what I would like to do music. But then I realised something, hey, I’m not at the wrong place anymore. I’m actually at the right place. I’m still doing wrong things. Sure. So who we still only one that can change that? myself. So I started to force myself to the studio. And I was there early mornings. I just to be able to touch the console. Because now I’m, I’m 47. So when this you know, it was like tape recorders and big mixing consoles. So first time I, I decided that, you know, I need to learn the stuff, you know, because they’re not going to learn it for me. I went there early in the morning before anyone showed up. So I was just sitting in the studio alone, touching the faders mixing song, but I didn’t even have the power on was just me mixing a song in my head and just touching the faders. So and that led to after a couple of months more. I said, Guys, let me show what I can do. And from that moment on the let me work as an engineer.
Andrew Dubber
Fantastic. So you were shadowing people, or you just took over the studio kind of took over the studio.
Niclas Molinder
No, but those guys became my friends for life afterwards. So I mean, I really appreciate that. They, they you know that they let me You know, they could have said like, no, no. So
Andrew Dubber
it seems like the gamble paid off pretty well, though. Yeah. So what sort of, what sort of music were you making when you started out? Because you you, you know, you weren’t just a studio producer, you have songwriters. Yeah,
Niclas Molinder
I started out that because then during all this time when I was in university and was educated myself to check you know, I, I played in bands still. So up to the point where I started in the studio, I thought I was going to be an artist. I wanted to tour you know, but when I got into the studio, I really found my environment. And that was actually a relief in one way because I remember I don’t know how young I were, but that when I heard songs on the radio, I could like go to but I could be annoyed over something. Yeah, it could be a synthesiser. It could be sound weird, but I could not even relate to what it was. It was something I heard that I didn’t like Yeah, but when I were in the studio, recording bands, I Oh, I’m producing I hear sounds I hear like so. So that was really an aha moment for me like yeah, this is my place. Right? I should be here helping others. I’m not an artist. And I really love the studio environment. So I started out as a producer and an engineer and that led me after a short time tools to start writing songs because I’ve been doing for my band all the time. So sure, sure. So then I became a songwriter and producer and at that time that role started actually to grow with what we know now known as Max Martin and all you know production houses with songwriters and producers that use write songs for others that was not as common as it is today when I started so I was early in that like
Andrew Dubber
yeah, cuz because the one thing that you hear about Sweden when it comes to songwriting and and music, I mean Sweden is the single largest export Music per capita in the world, and there are only three there’s there’s Britain, the US and Sweden. And per capita, Sweden just kills it and and what is it? Is it what’s in the water? What’s You know what, what’s so great about Swedish songwriting? I hear
Niclas Molinder
that I mean, what’s in the water? I hear that, especially from the US from from from Americans. What’s in your water? I mean, you’re so I have no. I mean, I just have my own thoughts and I, I think that first I think that Swedish language is very melodic we talk up and down, we talk up and down and very dynamic. So maybe the way we talk also makes it easier for us to do melodies. Right. So that is an idea that I have been having. And, and then I must also say a more practical difference is I mean, I’ve been working here in the US, especially in Los Angeles suites. We come in time, we have our sit together, we bring our stuff, Americans, they show up two hours late work for a couple of hours, and then they want to head out I mean, right, right. Not everyone, but work ethics. I think we’re really good at work ethic. Yeah,
Andrew Dubber
certainly one of the things I found when I moved to Sweden, punctuality is quite important.
Niclas Molinder
Yeah. Say I that came show up today. 15 minutes too late. But you know, it happens even to us.
Andrew Dubber
But you’ve gone from that into creating a tech product. Yeah, essentially, how did that happen?
Niclas Molinder
So after a couple of years, you know, in the studio, that I did my internship and I met a guy, pretty early days, and we’re really he was a heavy metal guy. And I come from, from the electronic background. So we were totally different in in the music we like, but we really liked each other. And we had, we both liked high house music. So we started to play with some house beats and and that led to a very long partnership, because this guy is joking that the guy that I today, today run my company, we’ve been running the company together for 20 to 24 years. So that’s how we met. And after what when I was done with my internship in the studio, we started our own studio, and we we started writing songs and producing music. And after some time, we found talented kids up and coming creators. And what do you do? Would you sign them? So and you sign sign creators, songwriters, producers, and they’re out in the world working writing songs. But for the first time, we were actually on the other side of the table before we had been negotiating with with with my publishers and manager, but we were on. On the other side. The artists Yeah, yeah, no, I was the publisher. And I were the manager. So hey, I, I was so naive at the time that I thought I could run a publishing company with my right hand and still continue producing writing music. But I realised Oh, my God, what this is complicated. I needed to know everything about who they worked with the name of the songs, the other songwriters, publishers, managers aren’t like, it was a mess. And there, that was the time when I realised how deep and dark the whole of metadata is music metadata.
Andrew Dubber
Yeah, oh, my God, that’s a mess. I mean, even even with everybody’s database, there’s so much like not even consistency of information, which is, which is very
Niclas Molinder
true. It’s like and, and something really happened when when music distribution got digital, then something really bad happened because the music stayed, but the data totally disappeared, or, you know, the data wasn’t collected in the same way. So I was there in it in a situation where I needed to have a solution for this, and I started as everyone else with spreadsheets. Sure, yeah. But you think a creator will bring out a spreadsheet in a studio, even remember to now it’s not gonna happen. But and then now, I’m also this is a few years ago, so the dear old phone smartphone was not used in the same way as it is today, though, but I realised, wow, everyone’s got a phone. And they’re using it for so many purposes, sometimes purposes, that not even give them something more than pleasure, but why not using this for getting the data? Because I realised that how the music industry looks today or how it will look in the future, there will always be creator. And we need to capture the data as early upstream as possible, as close to the creation process as possible. And in the studio. And I see in the studio, sometimes music is not even created in the studio, it can be created in different places all over the world. The creators don’t even have to be in the same room. She also therefore even more important to have some kind of platform where we gather the data.
Andrew Dubber
And is your interest in songwriter publishers name or does it go to this person played lead guitar on this track and this person was the drummer on the song or, you know, to get to that deep level of metadata because yeah,
Niclas Molinder
we everything because there’s two reasons for it. One is credit. I mean, the dear old booklet we had on the CD times. And I mean, for me personally, that was the first thing I did I opened the booklet when I just bought a CD, right and see what oh, who played that? Where was it played and lyrics and all that. But when music updated, oh, that totally disappeared. So credit is one thing. But the same information that we use for credits is the same information that we use for what we say registration. Sure registration, they get that get people paid. And I mean, we should not even maybe in another podcast or some other time, we’re going to go deep, deep, deep into how the the music industry works on the rights management side, because this is complicated. And I used to say like, how can something that is so fun, to be in the studio writing a song be so complicated in the end when it’s out on the market, because it’s super complicated. But to simplify it, I realised that you as a single creator, you might write a song, you might be a producer, you might be a musician, you might be an artist, but it’s the same person we’re talking about. But in what we call a song that we hear on Spotify, or any other streaming service, when we hear we call it a song, but that song has so many different legal aspects. And the same person we just talked about that could have that could be producer songwriter, they have so many different legal aspects and legal relationships to it. And we cannot expect that the creators can keep
Andrew Dubber
track of all this. So is your ambition to take the the not fun part out of the creation process? Yes,
Niclas Molinder
right. The not fun part. But the also important, you know, because what I see today, and I’ve seen actually, for a long time, when the royalty statements comes to the creators, to songwriters, to artists, producers, they all not all, but the majority of them scream and shout that they don’t get paid properly. Yeah, but they’re part of the ecosystem, they need to be part of this because without the clean data from the only ones that actually knows the truth about because they are no manager, no publisher, no record label can say anything, because they were not there. They might have manager and what a boring word here is authoritative source of data, we need to who is authoritative sources, sometimes it’s a manager, sometimes it’s the creator themselves, but we need everyone to agree if since there’s so many different involved parties in in what we call the song. And there’s no problem with many different representatives in a song. But the most important thing that everyone involved needs to have exactly the same view of everything. Because if we have slightly different, it could be to simplify like title of a song. If you and I write a song together, you have manager’s publisher on your side, and I have on my side. And we write a song together that we call I love you. But when we leave the session, I said session was good. When when we leave the session, you think the song is called love you and I think is called I love you. Right? That small difference could end up that we don’t get paid. Because we don’t have the same view. We’re not disagreeing or anything we just mistake we don’t know what I don’t know. So that is what I thought sought out. And all information we collect, it ends up in four different music industry identifiers, standard identifiers, because there are codes and identifiers for this. So what we do, we make sure that the information that we collect ends up with these identifiers because when we have those identifiers, without problems and disputes, the creators gets paid.
Andrew Dubber
Right? And in order for this to work, you need buy in from lots of people house, how’s that? How’s that going?
Niclas Molinder
How many hours do ya know, but of course, so here, I got the idea. I got the support from the beginning from many different players in the industry. And and they said this is a good idea because you realise the big problem, because we need clean data. And this was like 567 years ago when I started talking about this. And the situation now is even worse, of course, so I decided to do it. But with all my years in the music industry, I have so much knowledge how it works. So politics, I mean, it’s whole complex, and you need to grow the right person and that company don’t work with that company. And you need to say that otherwise, blah, blah, blah. So I thought okay, if I’m going to do this, I need some powerful partners that because success is gives you keys to things. Sure. So therefore, I was so happy proud. When when Max Martin said Yes, let’s do it because he was actually the first one in right. Well, he was the first one in and he said to me when in that meeting is Nicholas, I know what you’re going to talk about. But you know, I’m not investing in companies anymore. I write music so but if your thing is good, maybe we can use it took me like 10/15 minutes. And then he stood up and said, Shane, I need to invest in your company. So that was a good start fantastic
Andrew Dubber
you’ve got some, some incredible partners on it. And I guess that would open huge doors for you. Yeah,
Niclas Molinder
I needed it, you know. But even though with those names on board, it has been a roller coaster to get to disposition where we are right now. And But finally, I think that what we have proven, is that we’re sustainable. We went on here just for for a day. And we have also, I’ve learned so much about how the service is, what we deliver, how it should be structured, and how we communicate about it. This like you cannot be disruptive because we’re not in it to, to take out anyone, we just want the existing industry to work as it is right that it might be a new situation in the industry on in five years. But we just want it we we know that this is a problem, we need clean data. And that’s what we do. So where are you at today? what’s the what’s the point in the journey that you find yourself at? Is it sort of a big leaping off point to a big launch? How do you sort of Yeah, I mean, we’ve been, we have, I think we’re close to 20,000 users on the platform right now, which is too little, of course, we need much more than that. And the industry support has been good from some directions. But in general, it has been really hard. And adoption is a big problem. So my challenge is actually been to, to get the creators to use something new. And even though as I said before, creators are screaming and shouting when they don’t get paid properly. They’re really hard to just get them to use a new tilde. Yeah, the response I get no, not another app, you know, I don’t want another app. So. So that has been a problem. And also, the industry like it needs to be very independent, it needs to be an open platform, we cannot be disruptive. And I understand that industry has been a bit slow, even though they know I’m talking about the right thing. So adoption, that can be a key for everything. And I, we use the app, Android and iOS, and we’re on the web, but I’ve said from day one, our front end should be in what we call the DAWs digital audio workstation where the actual music gets created Logic Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Steinberg, and so on. It’s actually I was surprised when I started looking into this because those companies that develop the software’s I mean, they are actually the first surface for where the music is born. But they were not involved in the data collection at all right? So therefore, I start working on them. And not the maybe the biggest one at the time when I started a couple of years ago, but it’s still a huge player is Pro Tools. Yeah. logic and Pro Tools. I would say the biggest one but there’s so many new coming. So but I I’ve been working on Pro Tools. And so actually when this is to be aired that this podcast, we have been on stage and announced that finally finally after years Pro Tools has joined and was was previously former oddly, that’s now called session will be built in into
Andrew Dubber
part of the actual operating system all Pro Tools. Yeah, because
Niclas Molinder
there’s been different initiatives and tries of doing this with plugins and stuff, but that’s not gonna work. You know, it needs to be built in, in the in the software. And we’re doing it as an open standard. And of course, I’m talking to Apple for logic and Ableton and all the other as well, you know, it’s it’s an open platform.
Andrew Dubber
So that suddenly millions of creative users around the world are using a platform that has session built into
Niclas Molinder
built into it. Amazing, you know, I’ve learned as I said before, how how we communicate and one big problem and one, I wouldn’t say mistake, but yeah, maybe mistake I did was I went out to major players in the industry kind of said, you’re doing a bad job. For your creators. Here’s an app that will make you do good. I’m gonna fix what’s wrong with the way that you do business. Yeah, so I maybe I was a bit too disruptive. So now instead of going production directly with with the Pro Tools, collaboration, first, we decided that now what’s the old app that’s out today is still going to be the old the app, the new version of it is going to be called session. And it’s so many differences. And that’s the reason why we changed the name as well. So it’s going to be a total white labelled application. Because another problem was when I went to ask at prs steam universal, and I said guys use this third party branded application. And they’re like, why should we promote a third party branded application? We want our own. Yeah, so it’s all going to be white labelled. So anyone that’s using it can brand it exactly as their own app. And this has opened amazing opportunities, especially with the corporate societies, because there’s so many other societies that don’t have an app,
Andrew Dubber
right? So songwriters in Britain can use a prs app and it’ll be session. That’s the engine for that. Yes,
Niclas Molinder
it was called powered by session, but it will be a prs branded app. So it will be much more neutral. So but then I, I, when when, when Pro Tools joined, I decided I’m going to do this right now we’re not going to go in production, we know that we’re going to do a white label application. So what we’re announcing here at South by this year, except from the name change, is also this collaboration. And what we’re announcing is a project that we call an end to end proof of concept. So together with a number of important players going to do the structure for how session will be built in and how the information will flow, we will not say to the industry, this is how we’re going to do it, we’re going to do together with them. So I have now gathered a few of the most important players. And when I say end to end, I mean from the studio from the single creator all the way to the speed and the streaming service. So in this project on the creator side, it’s going to be Max Martin and his team MXM that represent the creative part. So they are going to be part of telling us how do they want it in Pro Tools. Because Pro Tools becomes the next partner, the software, how do we make this as simple as possible. And we are looking at amazing new technologies, how we use Wi Fi to order the tech people in the studio, so it’s going to be amazing. So MXM with Max Martin and Pro Tools, the data effect is fed into session. And we are using industry music industry standards, something called D tech standards and pushing it out. And then we needed the music company to be part of the proof of concept and their Universal Music said yes, we want to be part of it, which was great. And they do what they need to do with the data that they got from us. And then they are using the direct standards to send it to the last part. And that’s the streaming service. And I asked Spotify if they could be on board in the proof of concept. And they said yes. So finally here, actually tomorrow, not the day after tomorrow, Thursday, this week, I’m going to go on stage here on South by and for the first time have a vivid universe universal Spotify next to me on stage, finally saying yes, now we understand what you’re talking about, we want to be a part of this proof of concept and, and we’re going to do the proof of concept during this year. So in November, this year, it’s the big DDEX meeting in Stockholm. So then we’re gonna announce the outcome of the proof of concept and then start going in production. It makes a lot of sense to me that Stockholm is the heart of this for this sort of the pop music capital of the world really to be the heart of what goes out into the, you know, commercial
Andrew Dubber
music industries through universal through through polls and avid and all that so that that basically the kind of the place that gave us Abba is built into songwriting right throughout the world. It’s fantastic. And
Niclas Molinder
I like to say that Sweden is really big when it comes to writing and producing music. Sweden is a very big of distributing music with Spotify, SoundCloud. And now we’re also going to be very important for music rights management. So everyone involved don’t get paid and get the credits.
Andrew Dubber
So it’s very organised and very punctual and everything will be completely Swedish and will solve the music industry.
Niclas Molinder
Completely deleted. Yeah, fantastic. Thanks
Andrew Dubber
so much for your time, Nicholas. It’s been an absolute pleasure to have you.
Niclas Molinder
Thank you so much.
Andrew Dubber
That’s Niclas Molinder. And that’s the MTF podcast. If you want to hear more about what’s coming up for MTF in Örebro. Thanks to Nicolas and friends, sign up to the MTF newsletter at Music Tech fest.net slash newsletter. If you want to get involved in any of our upcoming events, you can register at Music Tech Fest dot net slash register. And of course, if any of this was of any interest to you whatsoever, please feel free to share like rate review and of course, subscribe. We’re going to be talking a lot more very soon about all of this. So cheers for listening and have a great week.
