Building the Infrastructure for Scalable Music Licensing

Jakob Wredstrøm

Chantel, welcome on the podcast. It's so good to have you here.

Chantal Epp

Thank you very much for having me, Jacob.

Jakob Wredstrøm

So we met a year or two ago at Walifornia and we had a great talk and you have such a fascinating journey. You have a very multifaceted personality and that career to some degree where you've done a lot of really cool stuff. But what we're gonna talk about today is obviously your founder journey and clicking clear. For people who don't know you, who are you and what do you do?

Chantal Epp

Thank you.

Chantal Epp

Thank you.

Chantal Epp

Who am I? Well, I am a music rights and licensing specialist. I am a two-time world champion cheerleader. I'm a pioneer of disability inclusive cheerleading and recently launched the world's first Paralympic style cheerleading team. And I guess you could say I am a builder, I'm a visionary and I like to create change and have impact.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Great. Well, let's talk about cheerleading because I think it's gonna have a very natural sort of next step into your business. But let's set the scene with the cheerleading and what was it about that ultimately led you to start a business?

Chantal Epp

So I got into cheerleading when I was at university. I've actually studied music my entire life. I'm also a multi-instrumentalist, piano, violin, guitar, now ukulele. I have loved music my entire life, but I started doing cheerleading at university and fell in love with the sport. It was performative as well as it is physical, and it links music together with the routine. And at university my coach suggested that I should create the music mix to accompany the team's routine. I was captain of the squad and so I did and I started my first company when I was at university called Synergy Sounds and I was creating music mixes for cheerleading and then later dance and gymnastics.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. Okay. So at one point you must have seen okay there's something here to build a business around, I guess.

Chantal Epp

Yeah.

Chantal Epp

Well, so I knew I was using music and had to look into licensing and at the time there wasn't really anything to properly license the music. PRS had advised me to do like a limited online manufacturer license which really didn't give the rights that I needed. And so yeah, kind of saw, well, this looks like a complicated thing. After university I went into... the music industry, was working for a company owned by Peter Gabriel called Q-Songs. It was a startup trying to streamline the licensing of music in online and digital media. And so I started getting understanding of the right side of things a lot more. And as I was progressing my cheerleading career, I realized that actually there was a big problem, but really the spearhead of Moving into starting ClicknClear was the company QSongs that I was working for went into administration the same time cheerleading got sued by a major label. And so I walked into work one day to be told I didn't have a job to come back to. In the same week that the Federation cheerleading announced you needed to license music if you're using commercial songs, I was like, well, I already have the understanding and experience on the music licensing side of things. I'm a cheerleader myself and a coach.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Chantal Epp

And I was starting to get to know people in the Federation, so why don't I just combine my knowledge and understanding on both sides and create a solution to the problem. And that's what I did.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay, but let's, you know maybe let's explain a bit more in depth what click and clear does, and then we'll go back to the origin story a bit more in detail.

Chantal Epp

So, Click and Clear is a micro-licensing and compliance platform that connects music IP owners with music IP users. So we've created a technological solution enabling the licensing of music into untapped markets. And we're initially working with choreographed sports, so sports like dance, gymnastics, figure skating, cheerleading, where music is intrinsic to the routine. And they edit and adapt that music into a mix. Put their choreography to that music, create copies, the event happens in person, then the event organizer might want to live stream and create video on demand content from the routines containing the music, and you start to see that there's a multi-layered licensing challenge where multiple different ways in or rights of music is being used and needs a solution. But it can't be a case-by-case licensing solution, which is the traditional way of licensing music, because the scale of music needed is like over a billion licenses a year. One large cheerleading competition can have 8,000 songs in a weekend. No one can clear that on a case-by-case basis. So Click and Clear solves that problem by connecting record labels and music publishers with the industry, and we bridge the gap. And we've got global full catalog deals with every major record label and music publisher.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hm.

Chantal Epp

We've built technology from rights management to a licensed marketplace and verification technology to enable the licensing of music and then the checking of music as well, the kind of compliance piece. And we work with international sports federations to eliminate copyright infringement risk and ensure compliance of music copyright.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. Okay, so we'll get back to the origin story. I just have a question as an outsider, which I think is interesting. You know, say you have an event with eight thousand songs playing in a weekend. Again, me as knowing too little about this, I would just say, Well, if they gotta pay for all of that, then no one's gonna afford it. Like, what's the dynamic here? Like

Chantal Epp

Yeah, well, you know, these teams are paying to go to their competitions. They pay for choreography, they pay for their uniforms, they pay for their training, they pay for their competition entry, they pay for their travel. And the one thing, and they actually often pay for a music producer. And that music producer is making money out of somebody else's music, but not necessarily paying for it. And so we've factored that in and we've made the pricing very accessible.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Chantal Epp

To help an unlicensed market convert to a licensed market. And so we're only talking 10 to $25 per song for one year's use for one country. And then the fees are higher if you're competing in multiple countries, but it's accessible. So it's not a huge change. It's actually the teams that are licensing the music, just like they pay for their uniforms, they pay for their music. It's not the event organizers or the federations.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Chantal Epp

They'd be responsible for video on demand. And that's really where the challenge is from an affordability point of view, because traditionally the music industry have set fees and minimums for sync, but we're not talking about individual syncs for videos. We're talking about mass scale use of music and none of them can get the rights for VOD. So we have some of our customers who are either infringing or you've got others

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Chantal Epp

Who are working with, who literally have paying subscribers watching silent cheerleading videos and silent marching band videos because they can't secure the rights. And they're making money from it. But they want to pay the music industry, but there's never been a way to bridge the gap between the music industry and those platforms, or even an understanding of what music is being used.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay, yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

So how do you how do you do this? It's like this almost like a blank license type style agreement or?

Chantal Epp

Yeah, so it's multi-layered as the rights are multi-layered. So you've got the teams who need to license the music for their routines to edit the music and so on. So they pay a license for that. Then the event organizers need to know what songs are being used if they want to secure the sync rights. So we've got a compliance tool which collects all of that music data and information and also checks their license information. So those event organizers can ensure compliance.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Chantal Epp

And then they have the list of songs being used. We can then grant blanket licenses for video on demand where we have the rights to do so, or get some of those other additional rights holders on board on a project by project basis to implement a kind of more blanket solution. And we have automated technology that sits on VOD services and automatically mutes or makes audible the music based on what's available for license. So it's very clever tool and the music industry was never able to do this type of licensing, but it's highly complex when you really dig into the detail of it. It is a multi-layered, multi-faceted kind of challenge requiring a solution that meets everyone at where they are.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm-hmm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Anyways, okay, so I have so many questions about that and we'll get back to it. Because I'm very curious to hear it and obviously this is a very big problem, very complicated. So let's not spend all the first time of the podcast on that. So I want to understand how you got into this because obviously that's not something you just venture into, and I'm sure when you started attacking the problem that was not like, I have a quick solve for this. Like this is must have been a quite interesting first part of the journey.

Chantal Epp

You

Chantal Epp

Yeah, so obviously that first part started when the company I was working for went into administration and Chaelin got sued. And I saw, there's a big problem here, I can solve it. And I started speaking to record labels and publishers, I spent about a year building the business plan and having conversations as to whether or not the music industry would actually engage and support a solution, like support a solution here. And they did, they said, yes, we would give you top 40 content. Which is not the experience we'd had when I was working at QSongs. So that kind of gave me the confidence to go for it. And I set up the business and I was working three or four other jobs at the time in the music industry. And I just kind of took it step by step, getting some advice here and there as and when I needed it. And knew I needed to get investment, so I got my first investment in May 2018, which was kind of a couple of years after I'd actually started developing the idea of the company. But I did think it was going to be quick, a quick solution, and it has taken significantly longer than I anticipated.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay, that's really interesting. And I want to understand what was it that wasn't quick? Was it the technology that wasn't quick? Was it the agreements that wasn't quick? I could a assume it's everything, but like what was it that wasn't as easy as you thought?

Chantal Epp

Was the licensing. The time to do the deals. It took seven years to get every major record label and music publisher on board.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay, really.

Jakob Wredstrøm

So there's obviously a rich history of slow adaptation and reluctance to new approaches. But I but you know, things change over time. What was it in particular about this that people were reluctant about? Was it you? Was it the business? Was it

Chantal Epp

It wasn't really a reluctance. Everyone wanted to do it. It was actually a legal challenge of, we don't have an existing framework to do this deal, so we don't have a template agreement. Or it was, our artist or writer agreements don't allow us to enter into a blanket agreement for adaptation rights. Or it was, this is just so new. That this has to go through so many levels of approval, it's going to take a long time.

Chantal Epp

But everyone was actually very supportive and behind the idea of the company.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay. So when a company takes so long to develop and have an impact at the scale that they want and get the licenses they want, I'm sure the fundraising journey would have been interesting as well because when things stretch out over time, it gets expensive. Like what was your journey there? You said you raised some capital at the beginning, but was that it and you did need to raise capital again or

Chantal Epp

Yes, so we've raised multiple rounds, but I haven't taken a traditional approach to raising capital because I couldn't. Because I knew after the first couple of years, I knew it was going to take a lot longer to get those licensing deals in place. And so if you took too much money, you'd have to spend it within the timeframe and then you'd be constantly chasing your tail, having to get bigger and bigger rounds every time. So we did smaller investment rounds.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Chantal Epp

Every sort of one to two years and ran the company very lean. Of course, we then had a global pandemic, which obliterated sports anyway. So we had to rethink our approach there. And actually it was hugely beneficial because it gave us the extra time to get deals in place, to build the tech once we had some more capital. And when we came out of the pandemic, we were in... that was perfect place for sports to start coming on board and then they did. And so over the last couple of years, two to three years, things have been growing a lot faster and more and more sports have been coming on board because we're now actually ready as a solution and we're not too early and we've built a very good reputation that they want to work with us. So I actually see it as a benefit and I think we've been very clever about how we've raised capital and when we've raised capital. But now we're in the place where we can raise a much bigger round. I'm very well positioned to do that because all of the foundations have been laid and we've got really great traction.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. So let me understand sort of the founder team. Are you a sole founder? Or how did you do this?

Chantal Epp

Yes, I am a sole founder. But my very first investor, he works for me full time. He basically paid to work for me for the first few years. It's how much he believes in the, in the company. He's an amazing person. He's helped IPO arm and frontier developments. He's got a very long background in IP and licensing, strategic, like strategy, marketing, business, you know, kind of everything. And he's kind of. Played that co-founder role for me where we bounce ideas off of each other, we talk to each other every day about challenges, problems, where to go. So I don't feel quite like a sole founder.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. But still, so as far as I understand, he was still not the necessarily the technical development part. Like you're a tech company. How did you get that how do you get the component into the business at the scale that you need?

Chantal Epp

Yes, we are a today company.

Chantal Epp

Yeah, so we hired in developers and we went, you know, hired some people earlier stage that weren't quite the right fit. And it was around about 2020 when we really found some solid developers who've been with us ever since and are leading the development team. And the first few years, we weren't quite a tech company. Were... just securing the rights and I was using kind of an off the shelf platform for a licensing marketplace. But around, must be about 2019, we then started building our own rights management database and worked with a music industry developer consultant to do that. And then we started to build everything else around that. And really, like we have a huge amount of technology doing, we even have our own audio recognition tool. So we've got a huge amount of really quite wide range of technology that is running this whole solution and actually makes it possible to piece together that complex jigsaw puzzle of music rights, creating a licensing marketplace and then the compliance tool, which is I think where the more interesting tech lies.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. So I can imagine you as a founder also needed to learn technology. Like it's you know, you cannot develop a product that's that fits without you actually understanding how to build this, I guess.

Chantal Epp

Yeah, so I've always loved tech. When I was younger, I actually wanted to be a robotic engineer. So I really like tech and I'm pretty good at problem solving, but I was never a coder. And I think that's partly societal because at the time that wasn't an option, but I did study technology like IT at school all the way up until I almost left. So I had a good enough understanding of tech.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay.

Chantal Epp

And then when I was working at QSongs, we had developers and I was working with them and explaining, hey, we need these things to do. And then when it came to Click and Clear, the biggest challenge in not being a developer myself was how do I know who I'm hiring is good enough? And I had some friends who were cheerleaders, who were developers, and so they kind of helped me in that process. So I got support in where I needed it. But fundamentally, Tech is just ideas and anything, really anything is possible, it's then working out how you do it. And there's always, in my head anyway, there's always a tech solution to a problem that you're having. So I knew it would be possible, it was really just a question of how and then speaking to the right people to see that vision through.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. Now I'm doing some assumptions, so correct me if I'm wrong, but this is sort of like the imagery I get in my head. So you come from a position of being a cheerleader, which is inherently social. Like you have people around you, you're cheering on other people, it's something you support each other. And then you are a sole founder with a partner, but the s still a sole founder and, you know, music industry and being a female have as Trishan not been like the kindest place, with a lot of prejudice. It must have been a quite big contrast between cheerleading and then being a tech founder in this space, I guess.

Chantal Epp

Maybe a little bit. But so the other piece we're missing is in the early days, when I lived in London, I used to ride a motorbike everywhere. So I'd rock up to these music industry meetings with my leathers on and my helmet in my arm, talking about starting a cool music tech company that solves music licensing issues for sports. And I'm a cheerleader. And I think that was quite memorable. And I think any of that prejudice or like stereotyping around being a cheerleader.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay.

Chantal Epp

Was really not part of it. It was, hey, this is really cool. This is a really cool thing. So I think the motorbike piece really helped. And I've always been, I'm not a girly girl, like, and that traditional stereotype of a cheerleader, I love my glitter. I love sparkles, but I have, I've always kind of pushed against this classic stereotype of a woman or a girl. And I grew up with two brothers, so I always wanted to be treated the same way they were being treated and have the same things they had. And I think that has been very natural in me. And so it's, for me, I walk into a room and I'm like, okay, I'm the only woman here, but I don't care. I know my place and I know who I am, but I still feel comfortable and confident. And I think that was more of a... Yeah, just kind of an upbringing thing. It doesn't really feel like a...

Jakob Wredstrøm

That makes sense. That makes sense. Because you know I'll ask you this, and I haven't asked a lot of podcasts about this, and but I'll say my opinion and just because okay. So my experience of the music industry, I wouldn't say I'm a part of the music industry. I'm definitely on music and audio tech, and behind the scenes and I'm very much involved in the surroundings of the music industry, but I'm not a part of the music industry. And one of the reasons why I'm not a part of the music industry is

Chantal Epp

A different challenge, you know?

Chantal Epp

Mm-hmm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

I really don't like what I call the toxic culture when it comes to trying to break into new spheres, trying to stick out, trying to be ambitious or trying to sort of break the normal sort of order of things, I guess. And there's a lot of that culture for me is like a very unhealthy thing to be in. So I guess also you try to break through with some problem that hasn't been solved before. What is the again, I'm asking from my own personal angle, like how did he handle what I assume would be toxic behavior from the people around you, opposing this? Not opposing the idea, but opposing the nature of it.

Chantal Epp

Mm-hmm.

Chantal Epp

Yeah, I get what you're saying and I agree to some degree. I guess the benefit I had was I left university and I went to work for a music tech startup. And so it was a startup. Everyone was quite friendly. You're kind of trying to get somewhere and build the company. And I never really worked for a big corporate in the music industry.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Chantal Epp

So I wasn't as exposed to those cultures. And you only know what you know. So that wasn't a barrier for me because I wasn't so aware of that. And then in the starting of Click and Clear, yeah, I faced some issues. I faced some harassment things, but I've also faced the same in sports. I think it's just part of a woman having a career and being ambitious and being a leader, you face some challenges.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Chantal Epp

Sometimes with men, right? But yeah, wasn't, almost every rights holder I spoke to was like, yes, of course we want to work with you because this is new, you're telling me this is new revenue. This is something we're not monetizing in. People are just using my music. So it sounds, your solutions sound sensible, so why not? And I don't think, there are occasions where, yeah, okay, we've had lots of issues trying to get that deal done. But I don't think I experienced that kind of toxic culture as much until actually later on. And it's really only been in the last couple of years where I've started to see a new layer of the industry that I didn't see before.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. Hm. And do you think that's because you moving up the value chain or like what's

Chantal Epp

It might be, it might also be, you talked about ambition earlier and when you're really ambitious and it might just be that kind of, well actually now I'm a bit more successful, you become more of a target.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah. That makes sense. So one of the things I think is really interesting about your business and your journey is you know, a lot of startups when they're trying to do something new, they sort of hit a wall of reluctance. Like that's not been your case. It's been okay, people understand that there's an opportunity here, they want it to actually work, they want it to monetize. There's really no losers in this game. So you've had a different side of it. Like, okay, everyone, yeah, they want you to succeed to a big degree, but then things take such a long time. Like, what are the emotional journey going through there? Like that must have been a bunch of frustration,

Chantal Epp

So much, so much frustration still today. And I think one of the biggest frustrations is obviously because of the time it's taken, as a company, it's taken you slower to grow in terms of revenue perspective. And when you're trying to then raise capital, investors aren't as interested because it doesn't meet their normal like fast growth calculators, right? You're not at this. At this year in the company, you're not at X revenue, why is that? It must be a failing company. But they don't realize or understand that if you're working in the music industry, it's a lot more like med tech or biotech where you have to go through all these approval processes and licensing things in order to actually get set up and sell. And once you've done that, you're actually in a really strong position. Look how many streaming companies there are. You can count them on your hands. Look, like,

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hm.

Chantal Epp

The music industry has always worked with aggregators because they, because music rights are so fragmented, you don't have a universal music for streaming. And I think because of that complexity, it, and once you're a company that's been able to break through and get the deals done, it puts you in a significantly stronger position and much more attractive. But yeah, the biggest frustration has just been, well, like I'm really trying to progress. Progress things, progress the company. And in order to do that, you almost always need more capital to help grow and investors aren't super keen on, not really super keen on the music industry. It's harder for a woman to raise money, especially a sole founder. And when you then look at the timeline, it doesn't add up to their expectations.

Jakob Wredstrøm

One second, one of my kids just go home. But I'll cut it out.

Chantal Epp

No worries.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Sorry.

Chantal Epp

No worries, how old?

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay, three of them, so this is just one I just go. Yeah, it's a different.

Chantal Epp

Three, gosh, don't know how you do that.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Nice good. Okay, so I heard you and let me just respond. He's trying to close the door. There we go. Okay. So your last point just to let me rewind, you what was the last thing you said? So just to like

Chantal Epp

About fundraisers, like the challenges with fundraising because of the length of time is so frustrating. It's been very frustrating in terms of that time perspective.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. Yep.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yep. So what is the type of investors you brought on board? Like who is it that actually wanted to back this?

Chantal Epp

Funnily enough, not very many music investors. I mean, my very first investor Dave, he comes from the creative industries gaming background. And then he brought on Dave number two and Dave number three. And we got, Dave number four on board and then Dave number five came on board. Then we kind of diversified getting a John and an Omar. So they're all angel investors. They're all across.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah.

Chantal Epp

Tech and sport creative industries. I think my first music investor, also a woman, came on board sort of five years in to our fundraising journey. We have a VC as well, but it's really just been a mix of tech, sport, and now a little bit of music.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. So what do you think is the actual potential of such a company? Like again, it's a long growth thing and it is something we see a lot in the music industry and in music tech. Like it takes a lot of time to build something successful and at scale. But if you were just to sort of look from a capitalistic gain, return on investment from investors, like where do you think this could be taken in order to justify investment over such a long time?

Chantal Epp

So when you compare the music industry against other entertainment verticals, there's a $100 billion monetization shortfall between music and film and TV and gaming. And I believe that is because we haven't figured out this licensing piece. It's an absolute wild west. It's a nightmare. Music is so fragmented. Anyone who wants to use music has to go through this wild goose chase trying to find out who and then negotiate things individually and negotiating things individually is not scalable. We're good at monetizing music from the point of view of streaming, performing rights, but only about 4.5 % of revenue comes from other types of licensing, which is basically nothing. And yet in order to grow the business, need to grow the TAM by identifying these untapped markets where music is already being used.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Chantal Epp

But it's not being monetised. And the only way you can do that is through technology that pieces together that complex jigsaw puzzle of ownership, have an aggregator with multiple different sets of rights, while still giving some control to the rights holders and then ensuring that there's compliance or verification technology that can check that the terms of agreement are being adhered to. And there are... We're currently in choreographed sports, but you look at student films, wedding videos, gaming, like the video game industry is really struggling to license music for all the different types of mediums that they have and the complexity of video game lasts for in perpetuity. And the way that licensing is handled is still done on a case by case basis. But again, the volume of music being used across gaming is huge.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Chantal Epp

So, and it's not about replacing existing teams and licensing teams. You always still need to have sync licensing teams that handle these big, big ticket projects. But everyone calls them sync licensing teams. Sync is not the only type of license that needs to be negotiated. It's just one form or one type of license.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Chantal Epp

And so I think really like the potential is huge. The potential for ClicknClear and the markets that we're moving into is multi-billions. We've estimated the sort of global micro-licensing market to be about 14 billion annually in untapped revenue for the music industry. And I imagine that will only grow as more opportunities for businesses to grow with music continue to grow. But the opportunity for music is huge.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm. There's one interesting perspective I'd love to talk with you about is obviously the perceived value of music. So going back to that example of a event with eight thousand songs being used and music being one of the only things freedom not being paid for, that's also a big barrier, right? Because over many, many years the perceived value of music have been it's free or it's almost free or like we don't really care. So th the market opportunity and the size of these micro licensing is also depending on

Chantal Epp

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

You know, changes in consumers, like that they understand that something needs to be paid for. Like how do you how do you think about that aspect?

Chantal Epp

Yeah, it's education. It's education and it's working with partners to help educate. So for us, in some markets, it will be incredibly difficult to change that perception and make a big change like that. With Choreograph Sports, we work with international sports federations and they write the rules for the sport. So they have the power to check that people are licensing music and to enforce and ensure that copyright. Is upheld. They also have their own needs for doing that because they want to secure additional rights to grow their sport. So that is how we currently help change behaviour, is by working with international governance structures to educate and assist them in that journey of understanding. And actually, you'd be surprised at how many people Like, I didn't realize, well, I'll happily pay for the music, you know? But they just didn't know how to before. When you're looking at the video on demand side of things, when they're muting that music, they want to pay. Like, they're literally like, hey, I'm waiting to pay for this music, just tell me how. And it's really that the industry hasn't had a solution, so people haven't been able to then. Actually do things the right way. And I think that's more so what has led to much more infringement.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Just give me one second, give me one second, Chantel, because my computer's crashing. I'm just figuring out why. About

Chantal Epp

Kind of similar.

Chantal Epp

Thanks. No worries.

Jakob Wredstrøm

You're doing great by the way. Like you're really good at communicating.

Chantal Epp

Thank you. Thank you.

Jakob Wredstrøm

This might take two minutes, so if you need something in water and stuff like that then

Chantal Epp

No, no worries, yeah, will grab some water right now actually. My computer is like being cooked by the sun right now so it's occasionally getting a bit jittery.

Jakob Wredstrøm

I have the issue. I have a few different computers and I do a lot of I do a lot of coding. So like I function as sort of almost CTO for a lot of the companies we're building for. And a lot of things I need to run locally and not in cloud. And this is the computer I don't use that much for coding sessions, but sometimes there's like a background process that started running and it's just like and I can't figure out like what I triggered. So there's just something right now and I haven't I don't know. Okay, there we go.

Chantal Epp

Yeah, it just kills memory,

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay. I was just asking to kill it here.

Jakob Wredstrøm

And then also because I treat this computer like a dev computer, like I just trash it with stuff. Like it, you know, I do a lot of experiments and sometimes I'm gonna just crash my own computer. So it's that's what's happening right now. But let me just quickly kill some processes. I'm sorry.

Chantal Epp

No worries.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay, it's being killed now, so I think I'm not crashing anymore. That's great. Thanks. That was the second stuff I needed to do. This is my ADHD hitting me again. What was the last thing you said so he could see you naturally?

Chantal Epp

We were talking about the, I was talking about the kind of the cost of music, like the value of music, the perceived value of music. And I was talking about how we work with international sporting federations, governance structures to help assist in that change of behavior. But actually a lot of people are happy to license music when they have a way to do so. And...

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yes, the value of music. Yeah.

Chantal Epp

On the VOD side of things, have people who literally want to pay, but we just don't have a way for them to do so. I'm gonna move back again so I'm not in the sun. Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah. I'll play off that. So one of the interesting parts here is of course compliance, which you've talked about a few times. Like compliance is a given in most industries and people understand that you need to pay for something or there's repercussions. I think, you know, that has been sort of missing, I guess, in music. Like it people have not even thought too much about compliance because it we've never really paid for it before, so we're not even gonna think too much about it now. Is that sort of the what you've met in the market?

Chantal Epp

Yeah, I mean, I completely agree. And something I've always thought about is, you know, when you look at a film, you go to watch a film in the cinema, there's a big, do not copy, is copyright, this is copyrighted content, do not film this, this is illegal, you'll be prosecuted. When you listen to a song, there's no message or anything saying, you cannot copy this, right? And I think it's partly because of the medium, the way in which music is consumed and how it's... little easier to rip than something like a film or a video game. And so I think that messaging around compliance hasn't been there. And the mechanism that the industry has had to use is heavy handed lawsuits against people. But I also think there's a little bit of like, reluctance sometimes to actually just create a solution to the problem because

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Chantal Epp

Maybe one, it's too complicated for someone to figure out, two, it takes too long. I can definitely attest to that. But also, someone the other day said to me, the music industry was kind of run by lawyers. And so maybe there's a benefit to some lawyers for there being this mystical way of trying to secure rights because then they can go heavy handed on someone and get a claim.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm-hmm.

Chantal Epp

And in copyright law, not knowing that you've infringed, even accidentally, it's not a valid reason in court, so you get stung. And so, yeah, maybe there's a little bit of that element too. But in order, in my opinion, in order for an industry to really grow, you need to have ecosystems enabling people to transact.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Chantal Epp

And have a happy business. And the way you make money out of music is licensing. Even streaming is a form of license. And so when we start to think about the music industry in that way, then I think the industry can grow massively just thinking a little bit differently and creating ways in which to accommodate for people who want to use the music, while still valuing the creator.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Chantal Epp

Who may or may not want to do x, y, and z things.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm. Because you know, at the beginning of the interview you said something with these teams licensing these songs ten to twenty five dollars a for year for country for their team and obviously my immediate cut reaction was well that doesn't sound like a lot but then you also go back and say you believe there's a 14 billion market in the future for this. So try to explain to me like how this will become worth a lot for the industry and how this will help grow. Like what is it specifically that happens at scale to make that happen.

Chantal Epp

So that 14 billion is across global micro-licensing. So all the other different types of micro-licensing, like podcasts, there's no commercial music solution for podcasting, video games, spatial computing, all sorts, like wedding videos, student films, all those kind of things, social content. Those are all micro-licensing. When I'm talking about micro-licensing, we're talking mass scale, like huge volume, lower fees. And in the sports market, we've estimated that to be 2.4 billion, then there's an additional 1.6 in video on demand. And of course, as these industries grow, let's say with video on demand, they've never had a solution. Now they can actually get video on demand content on bigger platforms. People watch the sport, enjoy it more, want to participate in the sport, then you're actually growing the industry to be even more. And those video on demand services are generating more revenue because they've added music as part of that offering, right? And so as each of those markets grow, the music industry is able to grow with it.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. That makes sense. It but so but right now still it's a very small fraction of the total revenue associated to this right now. Like w what where are we right now when it comes to microlancesing and sort of your world in total revenue around the world right now?

Chantal Epp

Well, yeah, in terms of micro-licensing revenue as an industry as a whole, it's very, very small because there aren't enough companies that have been doing this and entering all these untapped spaces. We've made really great progress and great traction, but we are still in that very early days of really significantly improving this.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm-hmm.

Chantal Epp

But all of those signs are there and the growth rates are growing year on year that we are getting to that point where we're not actually having to do very much work to then bring on board sports. We're getting sports federations coming to us.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm, that makes sense.

Chantal Epp

And so you hit a tipping point with all of these micro-licensing. The same with QSongs. It's a micro-licensing company for online video content. And it's built on scale. So you hit a point at which it becomes very, very scalable.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. And then obviously you need to not necessarily wait for the market to change, but there's also a adaptability, like the adaption of the market, which is something you obviously can affect, but not a hundred percent, also, you know, determines how fast you can grow. Like the pressure from the other side, as you as you also describe it. Amazing. Well Do you do you expect this to change in its speed moving forward? Like or do you expect like this will still be like a slow growth type industry? Like what's the what's the rate of change you believe will happen?

Chantal Epp

Well, I think it's going to speed up and it has to. I mean, you look at AI and how everyone's trying to implement AI licensing deals. Those licensing deals aren't taking as long to implement as they had previously. You know, so like the industry, think recognizes that this needs to change. You've got music tectonics talking about growing the term. You've got other organizations talking about how do we add more value to the music industry? How do we generate more revenue? And when you've got more and more people thinking like that, we're going to have more innovative solutions that are solving that problem and more pressure being put on rights holders to like embrace new ideas.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hm.

Chantal Epp

And explore new markets. So I do think that rate of change is going to speed up. And so I see for us as a company, we're already seeing that growth rate increase further.

Jakob Wredstrøm

If you would have known the effort it would take to build a company, would you have done it again when you d when you started?

Chantal Epp

I don't think so. I mean, I would always start another company. I could always say, you know, when I eventually exit Click and Clear, I'm going to start another company because I'm just naturally that type of person. And I've got lots of different ideas. Would I start this company again? I don't think so. Just because it has been so incredibly difficult.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Chantal Epp

But I also think any other company I start in the future is going to be significantly easier because I already have a huge network. I have a lot of people supporting and backing me already. I'm not in my twenties just starting out. I'll be taking a lot more seriously because I have a huge wealth of experience and success behind me. So it will be very different. But yeah, I think had I known it was going to be this challenging, maybe I wouldn't have started. But I don't regret starting this company and I absolutely love what we've done and what we've achieved and I'm incredibly proud of where we are today and I'm excited to continue to the market and the company to the world.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

That's amazing. It's very inspiring to hear you and I love the clarity of which you bring to the conversation. It's rare you hear a mixture of honesty and confidence like package that well together. But I guess that's also the experience of trying to find that battle. Like you really get formed as a person. You mentioned exit.

Chantal Epp

Thank you.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Is that where you see this going on behalf of your investors? Or is that the natural path for such a company? Is that where you need to do in order to reach scale? Like what's the what's the reasoning behind that word?

Chantal Epp

I've, well, like, I think as a founder, there's kind two types of founders. There's one that just builds companies and sells them. And there's one, I can't remember if some founder told me about this, so he's like a king or whatever is the way he worded it, where your company is basically your life for, well, it's like 20 odd years. And they're very different strategies, but many of them still have some form of exit.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hm. Mm-hmm.

Chantal Epp

And for me, I'm quite excited about the prospect of an IPO. Now it may be that's not the right thing for the company. But it's something that I've always been interested in, whether it's for Click and Clear or maybe a future company, I don't know. But that to me has kind of been in my head as the thing to exit rather than an acquisition. And I think it's more so because we're a multi-revenue stream company, kind of like Amazon in that respect. And...

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Chantal Epp

There's very few music companies that I think would be really interested in an acquisition of ClicknClear. There are some, and we've had some conversations in the past. But yeah, I mean, you never really know, so I kind of keep an open mind, but I build the company in the direction that I'd like it to ideally go in. And if it changes course, then I'll adjust it that time. But yeah, I think it's about getting that value back, isn't it? You know, the value for all of that work that you've put in. And the thing I also like about an IPO is they, public market investors, back the management team, rather than taking it in a different direction. And I think, you know, as the company grows, like this isn't it. This isn't where we're not finishing at sports, we're not finishing at music, licensing. There are many other avenues that we can go down where basically you're building multiple companies just under one roof.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. Well it sounds really interesting and I'm very happy to follow the journey. I've been lucky to get a few updates here and there and follow the journey and it's very impressive the tenacity that you that you show. I know how difficult it can be. And I'm very happy to follow the next five years and see what happens.

Chantal Epp

Thank you.

Chantal Epp

Thank you. It just all makes for very good book.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Yeah. Yeah, that's what you started Nicole with saying before we recorded. So thank you so much for being on today. Yeah. We'll talk again soon.

Chantal Epp

You

Chantal Epp

No thank you, it's been an absolute pleasure. Sounds great.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Stuffing the