Since I missed Last week's, here is a bit of a fusion of 2 different topics in one.. — 📍 1. CONTEXT / INDUSTRY SHIFT Two signals are colliding this week. On one side, creators are seizing new ground. Reports from Epidemic Sound and Summit Partners (Sept 9–12, 2025) show how creators are demanding direct monetization, smarter AI tools, and ownership of their pipelines. The “middle class” of artists is being rebuilt around subscription models, live commerce, and community-powered economies. On the other side, legacy systems show cracks. In gaming, Nobuo Uematsu (Sept 8, 2025) warns that mainstream soundtracks are becoming “less weird,” more risk-averse, and more formulaic. Creativity narrows while independent spaces still experiment. Why it matters: as creators gain tools to monetize directly, large-scale institutions cling to safer formulas. The battle line is between empowerment and stagnation. - 📂 2. CASE FOCUS / BREAKDOWN • Epidemic Sound “Future of Creator Economy” report (Sept 9, 2025) – creators now want workflow speed, AI integration, and ownership, not dependency on legacy distributors. • Summit Partners trend note (Sept 12, 2025) – brands and creators are collapsing the “discovery to commerce” pipeline into one step. • Nobuo Uematsu (Sept 8, 2025) – mainstream game music has lost experimentation, with risk only showing up in indie titles. - 📈 3. STRATEGY OR BUSINESS PRINCIPLE The principle revealed: platform divergence. Where risk is punished at scale, creators are building their own economies where originality thrives. For music licensing, this means the most valuable placement opportunities will increasingly come from platforms, games, and communities that are structurally aligned with creator-led experimentation. Safe formulas dominate the mainstream, but new monetization models are rewarding uniqueness. - ✅ 4. TAKEAWAYS / ACTION STEPS 1. TRACK CREATOR ECONOMY TOOLS - Monitor how AI and subscription platforms are reshaping creator revenue. These tools will dictate future placement flows.

@Gilde Flores reminded me of something I kind of let slip away in my music production journey. When creating music, especially for TV, there's a certain way to produce that meets the expectations of major companies—they have their style and sound preferences. But amidst all the technicalities and guidelines, it's crucial not to forget the parts that truly "hug" the sonic spectrum. These elements bring warmth, fullness, and a sense of belonging to the music—reminding us that at the core of production, it's about emotionally connecting with the listener and bringing the sound home. Never lose sight of that balance between professionalism and the soulful touch that makes music resonate. Hope this reminds and helps anyone else on their journey.

A lot of musicians I know really dislike creating content, or promotional short videos for branding because it could come off as narcissistic, inauthentic, or is just a pain. I'm definitely one of those people as well... but I feel that creating videos like these could become invaluable as AI becomes more prevalent. We could establish a connection instead of just being a music printing machine. Through my foray into creating these small videos, I'm happy to share the ones that did better than others: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/a25St3bzA-A Evidently, I'm still an extreme novice in creating these types of videos and would love to learn from the hivemind here. I'd love to hear what you are learning in the content creation space, what has stuck and what have you learned?

- 📍 1. CONTEXT / INDUSTRY SHIFT TikTok just folded Chordal’s InstantClear licensing tech into its Commercial Music Library (CML). On the surface, that’s another “integration headline.” But the weight is deeper: this marks a decisive turn from licensing as negotiation to licensing as infrastructure. TikTok’s CML already housed around 1 million pre-cleared tracks. With InstantClear, even songs with multiple co-writers and publishers can now be auto-cleared, fractionally split, and paid out in real time. No endless back-and-forth, no weeks of waiting. Why it matters: Music licensing is becoming invisible to the end-user. For brands, this means one-click access to soundtrack ads. For creators, it means your catalog either fits into the pipe -or gets left behind entirely. And the context is bigger: TikTok has been under fire for years (remember Sony yanking its catalog in 2022, the spats over unpaid royalties, lawsuits circling AI training data). CML was born from that pressure-to give advertisers a safe sandbox. Now it’s evolving into a full-scale licensing utility. Parallels abound. YouTube’s Content ID system once felt like a policing tool. Two decades later, it is infrastructure for billions in payouts. TikTok’s CML + InstantClear could become the Content ID of micro-sync. - 📂 2. CASE FOCUS / BREAKDOWN • TikTok × Chordal integration (MBW, Shore Fire, DMW) - Chordal’s InstantClear tech drops inside TikTok’s CML. Songs with fractional ownership can be cleared in seconds, and automated payout flows to rights-holders. • Chordal API expansion (Music Ally) - Chordal opened InstantClear to other apps beyond TikTok, signaling this isn’t a one-off. The goal: any platform that needs music licensing can plug into pre-cleared rights. • TikTok ad market scale - Global ad spend on TikTok crossed $15B in 2024 (Insider Intelligence), much of it reliant on music in branded campaigns. Now, the majority of that ad spend can flow through a single pre-cleared music pipe.

Hey composers! I just wondered if you all might drop some tips to getting that first cue placement. I’m really grinding to figure all this stuff out but I was just wondering if anyone here had some good general tips to getting that first big milestone!