Daniel Abowd, President and General Counsel of the Royalty Network, stands at the forefront of the evolving music industry, navigating the complex intersection of technology, law, and human creativity. With a dual background in law and music, Abowd brings unique insights into how AI and copyright laws are reshaping music publishing. In this interview with TechBullion, he discusses Royalty Network’s long-standing success, which he attributes to its client-first approach, personalized care, and ability to adapt to industry trends.
Abowd highlights the potential of AI to enhance creativity and improve copyright administration, while also emphasizing the need to protect creators from AI-driven risks like unlicensed use of copyrighted works. He underscores the importance of educating songwriters about the value of their work and the intricacies of the music business, noting that this approach has been key to Royalty Network’s ability to maintain strong, long-term relationships.
Drawing on his litigation experience, Abowd explains how his legal background informs his approach to copyright disputes, focusing on avoiding unnecessary litigation but fighting strategically when necessary. Overall, he reflects on the company’s commitment to balancing technology with a human-first philosophy in a rapidly changing industry.
Please tell us more about yourself.
My name is Daniel (Danny) Abowd. I currently work as President & General Counsel at The Royalty Network, which is among the largest and oldest fully family-owned, independent music publishers in the United States. In addition to my training as an attorney and litigator, I have a background working through many of the thoroughly unglamorous, but impactful (and often vexing) issues that are at the core of modern music publishing – things like Big Data and metadata management, digital licensing, the regulatory forces that constrain songwriters’ royalties, etc.
Daniel Abowd, President and General Counsel of the Royalty Network
Royalty Network has been an independent player in music publishing for nearly three decades, despite a rapidly evolving industry landscape. What has enabled the company to maintain its unique position while many others have folded or consolidated?
There are, I think, many answers to that question. To start – and I suspect this sounds like sales rhetoric, but it’s absolutely true – we’re a company that genuinely prioritizes client relationships. What we sell to clients is, above all else, access, attention, and individualized care. We then also work hard to respond to evolving forces and trends in the industry, both creatively and with respect to the nuts and bolts of administering and monetizing copyrights. That combination of care and competence has created a community of clients and other professionals that is both loyal and enthusiastic about referring potential new business to us.
The music industry has witnessed a significant rise in AI-driven tools for composition and production. As someone who emphasizes a “people-first” approach, how do you see human creativity balancing with AI advancements in music publishing?
I’m far from the first person in the industry to voice this perspective, but our industry has a pretty spotty history when it comes to responding to technological disruption. We’d like to do better this time, and I think we are doing better. AI brings a lot with it: some good, some bad, some neutral, some uncertain.
Clearly, there is a lot of good in the AI-powered tools that enhance, power, and even spark human creativity. That might mean AI tools that make creative tasks easier like, say, editing breaths out of a vocal track, or mastering, or prompting a songwriter with a foundational building block that the writer then constructs a song atop. If our job is to make the people we work with more successful, and if there are things out there that help people create, then we simply have to embrace those things. We also appreciate AI’s power to make the work of administering and monetizing copyright more efficient and effective.
The trick, of course, is to harness the good while also protecting against the rest. There has been no shortage of press about the dangers of AI, including well-publicized instances of AI-powered fraud, name/image/likeness issues in AI, the unlicensed use of copyrighted works to train generative AI tools designed to capture market share from the very human creators whose work those tools imitate, and so on. All of those things are very much on our radar as AI continues assimilating into our lives and workflows.
Royalty Network is known for its deep commitment to educating songwriters. Can you elaborate on why education and empathy are so vital in this industry, and how they contribute to the success of both songwriters and publishers?
I don’t know if they’re vital to the industry (I can think of some people in the industry who seem to have done well for themselves without those things) but they’re certainly vital to us. That’s true for a lot of reasons. Some come down to basic human decency. Some come down to people – who we are, the people we hire, the people we do business with, and so on. But there’s also an element of self-interest: we’re an independent, self-funded, and family-owned company, and we rely upon long standing relationships with current clients, and referrals from clients and their networks. None of that happens if we take advantage of people. And so it’s important for us that our clients feel (and are) cared for, and that we help educate them so that they can understand the value of their work, which also allows them to understand the value we add to that work. That’s the only way a company like ours can thrive.
With the increasing complexity of copyright law and numerous high-profile cases (e.g., Miley Cyrus and Nelly), how is your background as a litigator influencing your approach to handling these cases within the music industry?
First of all, I think I’m well-positioned to understand the transaction costs of litigation. Some of those costs are pretty obvious, because they show up in my inbox every month with hours and hourly rates on them. And because music infringement litigation is notoriously fact-intensive and expert-dependent, those bills tend to keep showing up again and again for all the many years it takes these kinds of cases to resolve in federal court. But those aren’t the only costs: there’s the time spent internally assessing the case, marshaling facts, crunching numbers, assembling documents and communications, huddling with the client, etc. And there’s the stress, anxiety, and tension of uncertainty (again for years). There are missed opportunities while licensees, or potential samplers, etc. steer clear of a work bogged down in litigation. And so on.
So really the bottom line is that I know enough to understand why these kinds of prolonged, formal disputes are worth avoiding if possible. But I think I also have an understanding of when to fight – maybe because a particular fight is worth all those costs, because the fight is one we should win, and because I understand how the fight can and should be fought. And I think that’s especially helpful in today’s industry because, as you mentioned, these kinds of disputes are only becoming more and more common.
You’ve emphasized the importance of helping songwriters collect all revenue that they are entitled to. What are some of the biggest challenges you face in ensuring this, especially as the music business becomes more fragmented with digital platforms and licensing complexities?
Well before we even touch on the licensing issues, which is itself a significant undertaking, the sheer technical challenges immediately jump to mind. We’re investing in data infrastructure, personnel, and procedures in a way that we probably couldn’t have imagined even 10-15 years ago. In that time it’s become increasingly, and really exponentially more difficult to (1) maintain a comprehensive database of all the works we control, (2) collect and curate all the metadata necessary to fully monetize those works, (3) track the performance of every work in that catalog across every service and in every territory where those works are being consumed, and (4) ensure that we’re capturing all of the income associated with all of that consumption. We’re constantly evaluating our current technical solutions and working not just to keep up with, to stay ahead of these challenges.
As someone who has litigated high-profile copyright and intellectual property cases, what trends do you foresee in music copyright litigation, especially in light of AI-created music and evolving laws?
There’s obviously a lot of attention on AI right now, as there should be. And all that attention, in all those different contexts you mentioned, is likely to lead to a period of uneven, perhaps somewhat disjointed, developments. So for example as that attention works its way through the courts, you might end up with inconsistent caselaw developing on fair use in the context of copyrighted works implicated in the output and/or training of generative AI models, or on the extent to which AI-authored works are entitled to protection under US copyright law. As that attention works its way through legislatures, you might end up with inconsistent or even competing bills addressing the same policy concerns but in different ways and with support from different constituencies. Or you might end up with state legislatures that outpace Congress on these issues (and then, presumably, at some point, litigation teasing out the contours between state and federal power to regulate this stuff). Meanwhile, you’ll have AI companies that themselves take inconsistent approaches to how they use – and license – copyrighted works, and so various (perhaps, again, inconsistent) industry practices and standards will evolve.
Long story short, this is just going to take a while to sort out, and it of course will never be entirely resolved, because the technology and surrounding industry landscape will always continue to evolve. And yes, it’s certainly not inconceivable that we’d end up involved in some of the litigation and, particularly through our trade associations, plenty of the policy work.
Royalty Network has long-standing relationships with its employees, producers, and songwriters, which is uncommon in today’s fast-paced, high-turnover music industry. What strategies has the company employed to build and maintain these enduring partnerships?
I think we try to work with people who are not only talented, but who also place the same premium on things like decency, honesty, stability, and professionalism. I’m sure this sounds like a platitude, but I genuinely think that collaboration among people with similar values – whether between employees, between publisher and songwriter, between company and partner, etc. – tends to last longer, and also tends to be more fruitful. We’re not in this for a quick buck, but rather to build and sustain something lasting and meaningful. That’s been our approach since Frank founded the company in 1994; the same is true of the vast majority of people we work with. And I think on some level, that’s one of the biggest reasons why we choose to work with them and why they choose to work with us.
The Royalty Network’s catalog spans diverse genres and decades of music. How does the company manage to effectively service such a vast and varied catalog, and what role does data management play in ensuring accurate royalty collection for all your clients?
Data management is essential to what we do. It’s simply impossible to be a music publisher today at any kind of scale and not have robust data infrastructure and personnel. So that’s the first answer to how we’re able to successfully care for such a large and eclectic catalog. But the second answer is that we also have dedicated creative and administrative teams whose job it is to understand, and to communicate with, our full client base. They know the client. They know the client’s catalog. They understand whatever idiosyncrasies make that client – their music, their career, their data – unique. Which means they’re equipped to handle all of the matters that might come up with that client at, say, a rights management society, or in licensing that client’s repertoire, or in collecting royalties for that client, or in pitching that client for a particular session or placement.
The bottom line is that our job is to be as efficient and comprehensive on the macro level as possible, without ever losing sight of the granular, client-level, human stuff that allows us to effectively serve each particular client. In other words, we have to do all things necessary to ensure that all our clients and catalog are cared for, while also doing all the things we have to do to ensure that each of our clients and their catalogs are cared for. It’s a big undertaking, but it’s our job and we take pride in being able to do each half of that equation without sacrificing the other half.
You’ve written extensively on the intricacies of Copyright Royalty Board proceedings and other legislative changes. What recent legislative or regulatory shifts do you think will have the most significant impact on songwriters and music publishers?
Well apart from AI, which we’ve already discussed, since you mentioned the CRB I’ll go there next. It’s not any secret that we’re in the midst of a significant and contentious dispute between Spotify and rightsholders concerning the royalties Spotify pays to publishers/songwriters for the use of musical compositions under the compulsory Section 115 license. That lawsuit will, in all likelihood, take years of painstaking (and painful) litigation to resolve. In the background, rightsholders and digital services alike are also gearing up for the next CRB proceeding in a couple years. I don’t think I’m spilling any state secrets when I say that Spotify’s attempt to reclassify its music service as a bundled service, and ease its royalty burden accordingly, will be front of mind for everyone.
So right now, the parties are in federal court arguing over whether this is a legitimate loophole available to Spotify and to other digital services. Regardless of how that fight resolves itself, for rightsholders the next CRB will center on addressing that loophole (if it is indeed held to be legitimate) and/or heading off other unilateral attempts by digital services to invent or widen or exploit other potential loopholes. The digital services will presumably have the opposite strategy. I think there’s a general consensus that this one is unlikely to be resolved by settlement.
With your background in both law and music, what are some misconceptions about music publishing that you frequently encounter, especially from songwriters or up-and-coming artists, and how do you address them?
There are many, and not just from up-and-comers. The biggest one that always comes to mind for me is just the sense that, for any given issue, there is an answer. That there is a definitive rule…for anything. That there is a bright line rule saying that infringement requires the copying of x number of consecutive notes in a melody; that educational uses, or commentary, or self-professed “transformative” uses are definitively fair use (or vice versa); that digital service y pays $0.xx per stream; that PRO-a is “better” than PRO-b; and so on. None of those definitive rules exist, and all of them touch upon complicated questions of law and policy and history and industry practice. But whether out of the (not unreasonable) belief that there should be an easy answer to questions like that, or through some non-comprehensive exposure to some of the relevant issues, there is a tendency to act as if those issues are far simpler than they actually are.
Naturally, addressing that misconception is a challenge. There’s an unavoidable tug-of-war between giving a straightforward answer and giving a complete answer to a seemingly simple question that is actually not at all simple. You want to provide both clarity and accuracy, and it’s tough to do one without sacrificing the other.
I think my approach, and our company’s approach in general – in line with our mission to help inform and educate our clientele – is to try to give a simple headline answer, immediately qualified by context. We deal with incredibly smart people who aren’t any less smart simply because they’re young, or creative, or experts in something other than the thing they’re asking us about. So the goal is not to oversimplify, but rather to address the complexity in a manner that is accessible to a lay person. It’s really not unlike briefing a technical, industry-specific issue for a generalist judge…except without in-text citations after every proposition of law!
