Company
Music DNA
Music DNA, as described on the show by Pål Bråtelund.
Episodes (1)
Pål Bråtelund of Music DNA explains how music tech companies can share data and revenue through collaboration instead of chasing an acquisition.
Questions these episodes answer
Why does Pål Bråtelund think music tech companies should collaborate instead of chasing acquisition?
He says most small companies fix one narrow problem, find some customers, then stall, and the traditional way past that stall is a big cash injection or acquisition by a roll-up. His alternative lets companies keep their independence while sharing data or components with each other for a fee, so smaller players can keep innovating and get paid rather than being absorbed into a bigger company.
What did Pål Bråtelund observe about Utopia's acquisition strategy?
He says Utopia came in wanting to build genuinely new infrastructure while also wanting to profit from a large-volume royalty business, and it hired aggressively. A lot of its deal flow ended up being companies looking to cash out rather than strong complementary pieces of the infrastructure it wanted to build.
How does Pål Bråtelund's collaboration model let companies share data without merging?
Using an intermediary like Dan Archer's Copyright Delta, a company can put data such as radio detection logs on a shared table and set a price for its use, for example asking for a fifth of a ten percent royalty-recovery fee, with blockchain used to make that pricing trustworthy without a merger or acquisition.
What does Pål Bråtelund see as a simple example of music tech collaboration?
He points to Masterchannel's mastering API, which lets a partner add mastering to its own product by calling a single line of code. He calls this the right level of frictionless collaboration, far simpler than heavier data-sharing arrangements between companies.
What EU regulation does Pål Bråtelund expect to reshape music royalty infrastructure?
He expects an EU directive on royalties and credits, which he compares in scope to GDPR, to force a new way of paying creators like session guitarists directly rather than through a label or management.