\u201cThis magazine was talking about what the internet meant for content and how music, TV, software and games were going to be consumed,\u201d Wells reminisces. \u201cI remember thinking, This is going to completely revolutionise everything, from storage to the attachment to a physical product. It was a real lightbulb moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given that this was the mid-1990s, it would be a while before a Philips 100-watter appeared above the heads of most other execs in the music industry. But that journey set Wells on the path to become perhaps the music industry\u2019s leading digital evangelist; the missionary who would convince the biz\u2019s biggest players that Spotify and other streaming services should be encouraged rather than feared.<\/p>\n
Wells had joined BMG in 1994, after he returned home from a three-month surfing trip around Europe. As he parked his camper van on his parents\u2019 drive, the phone was ringing \u2013 and on the other end was a music biz mate who told him the label needed \u201csomebody who\u2019s tall and can lift heavy boxes\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018OK, I\u2019m qualified for at least one of those two things!\u2019\u201d laughs Wells. He\u2019s been doing the industry\u2019s heavy lifting ever since.<\/p>\n
At BMG, he set up a (then) ground-breaking e-mail database for clients such as Take That that drove unprecedented levels of sales and engagement. He adopted all the possibilities of the worldwide web, winning numerous digital awards along the way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But, in a still heavily physical business, Wells was always the last speaker in the marketing meeting (\u201cNo one really cared \u2013 it was really funny,\u201d he laughs). So, when David Joseph gave him a call, he headed for Universal UK to run its \u2018new media and digital services\u2019 unit in 2000.<\/p>\n \u201cI left two weeks before BMG acquired Napster and everyone was like, \u2018Oh, did you leave because of the acquisition?\u2019\u201d he laughs. \u201cAnd I was like, \u2018Yeah, I left in disgust!\u2019 But I had no idea it was coming, I left because I got a better job!\u201d<\/p>\n At Universal, Wells became the industry\u2019s digital savant, moving up to run UMGI\u2019s digital operation and then heading for Los Angeles as President of UMG\u2019s Global Digital Business. There, he and Sir Lucian Grainge reshaped the company\u2019s strategy, going all-in on streaming and, ultimately, sealing UMG\u2019s market dominance.<\/p>\n So, it was a big surprise when Wells left suddenly in 2015, although he has only good things to say about his UMG days (\u201cLucian runs an amazing regime. The whole thing was executed brilliantly and the timing was great\u201d).<\/p>\n Many expected him to turn up in another top music job, but instead he helped\u00a0 <\/span>various start-ups before becoming Chief Commercial Officer and CEO of the Americas for CrowdMix, a social app for music fans that collapsed spectacularly in 2016 after burning through \u00a314m of investment without ever actually launching.<\/p>\n Today, speaking to MBW<\/i>\u00a0from his Malibu beachfront office, Wells describes that experience as \u201ca well-documented trainwreck\u201d, but it didn\u2019t put him off start-up life. Since 2018, he\u2019s been CEO of Orfium, a global rights management technology business that aims to solve the industry\u2019s royalty collection issues. The company says it has already delivered hundreds of millions of extra dollars to creatives and rights-holders through AI-driven techniques for matching catalogues and resolving asset conflicts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Orfium\u2019s clients include major and independent publishers and record labels, plus broadcasters and collection societies. It recently did a deal with PRS for Music to extend the society\u2019s music licensing into Africa, and Wells hopes Orfium will ultimately become to music what Plaid is to banking: a data transfer network that powers an entire sector.<\/p>\n In the meantime, Wells continues to enjoy the California lifestyle \u2013 although he complains that, these days, he spends more time observing the breaks from his office window than he does surfing them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He\u2019s kept the South London accent (\u201cPeople give you a wide berth in the surf, because you sound like a Hollywood villain,\u201d he chuckles) and the love of digital innovation (he\u2019s convinced AI is \u201ca Spotify moment\u201d for the biz, rather than a Napster one), although he does admit to despairing at one of his son\u2019s teenage friends who \u201csees himself as an artist, but all he does is take records, speed them up and release them on YouTube\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n These days, of course, Wells is largely preaching to the converted when he urges the music industry to embrace new technology. But, as he settles down to talk MBW<\/i> through his journey since the train ride that changed everything, there are still plenty of revelations\u2026<\/p>\n When I was running the UK digital thing [at Universal], all the litigation that was happening in the US was quite disappointing. I\u2019ve always been a commercial entrepreneur-in-residence and it was all done wrong.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But I don\u2019t honestly think they had a choice. There are echoes of that in the whole AI thing that\u2019s kicked off in the last six months, but I think the industry has learned its lesson. The news about Universal doing a deal with Endel means I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to go down that dark path again; they\u2019re a lot more embracing of new tech.<\/p>\n When I got the international gig in 2005, things were pretty bad. Financially, the industry was contracting because of piracy and it was like, \u2018Let\u2019s license our way out of this hole. We have to be a lot more liberal with how we grant licences to services\u2019. If we hadn\u2019t done that, we wouldn\u2019t have learned the basis of the Spotify deal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That wasn\u2019t the first deal we did at Universal on a full streaming, all-you-can-eat consumption model; we did other deals internationally before that. We\u2019d licensed pirate services in various far-flung corners of the world, we\u2019d done a deal with Baidu in China and Soribada in Korea. None of those deals were commercially game-changing, they weren\u2019t changing the course of the industry from a revenue perspective. But the information, the data, the behavioural analysis that we pulled out of those deals was the formulation of understanding what consumers do when they\u2019re faced with everything for a fixed price.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When the Nokia Comes With Music deal went live, we really got a bead on what it means when a consumer has access to everything. And it was completely unthreatening. Everyone thought they were going to download thousands of tracks, get whole catalogues and listen non-stop, but that\u2019s not how it works. And that empowered us when Daniel [Ek] came in to see us. We weren\u2019t petrified by a model like Spotify so it was like, \u2018Let\u2019s make it work financially\u2019 and we ended up doing a deal.<\/p>\n There are a few label bosses that remind me I told them at the time it was going to change their lives! They were like, \u2018Idiot Englishman doesn\u2019t know what the fuck he\u2019s talking about!\u2019 For our American colleagues back then it was all a bit, \u2018Not invented here\u2019. It wasn\u2019t an American service so it was never going to change the way Americans consumed music.<\/p>\n Well, the alternative was dark. It was going to be next to impossible to get people off pirate services without catering for why consumers were on those pirate services in the first place. And it wasn\u2019t just because it was free, it was because there was everything here, they had great search mechanics, it was convenient\u2026 I was on a panel with some movie industry people and I remember saying, \u2018You punish your legitimate consumers\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Back then, you were forced to watch all the trailers the studio wanted you to watch and an anti-piracy message from FACT. I was saying, \u2018You guys are mad, you\u2019re disadvantaging legitimate consumers \u2013 it\u2019s a better experience to go and steal it\u2019. It was like I\u2019d pulled the pin out of a grenade and rolled it across the stage \u2013 \u2018What have you said, you heretic?\u2019 But Spotify provided that legitimate alternative to piracy. Everything they did with the product was amazing, it was push, play, hear music. And that resonated with me \u2013 you have to think consumer first.<\/p>\n Something else might have come along. It was just the timing. There are TED talks on what makes platforms succeed or fail \u2013 and timing is the single most important element. And Daniel\u2019s timing was good: the market was as busted as was, we\u2019d been doing the experiments in various corners of the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There were other competitors. Rdio was by far the most social platform, it was much better for communication through fanbases, but it\u2019s like Betamax vs VHS. It\u2019s not always the best platform that survives.<\/p>\n [Laughs<\/i>] Yeah, talk about timing! I\u2019d done 22 years in corporate life, so I drew a line under that chapter. It was an amazing ride and I loved my time at Universal, I met so many good people that taught me about the music industry and how it works alongside unique cultures, which is vital when you\u2019re looking to do business in places like Japan, Korea, China or India.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The new industry is way more global than when I first started. But I wanted to do other things. I stepped off that corporate carousel and moved into early-stage technology ventures \u2013and that was a decision I came to regret!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Yeah, it was definitely reputational harm. But if you go into these early-stage ventures, you don\u2019t have that comfort blanket of corporate life; it\u2019s a life experience. The company failed, people lost a lot of money and it was a tragedy.<\/p>\n \u201cEarly stage ventures don\u2019t have the comfort blanket of corporate life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n We tried really hard to make it work. But from an experience perspective, it was massively valuable for me. I learned more in that 18 months than I did in the prior five years. You don\u2019t learn lessons about investors, quality of investment and product and engineering resource in corporate life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n To have the first thing I do after corporate life fail so spectacularly and so publicly\u2026 I wore the grass out in my garden because I was walking around in a circle, talking to investors and potential acquirers for about three days. It was horrific.<\/p>\n I should have listened to my gut! I guess the question is, \u2018If you could go back and do it again, would you?\u2019 And I\u2019d say yes, I would. I\u2019d do some different things internally. The concept was strong but, from being involved with the Orfium business, [I know that] if you\u2019re in a fast-moving tech environment, product market fit is absolutely critical. And we missed that with Crowdmix, but it was a great concept. Some of the brands we spoke to were head-over-heels with the idea.<\/p>\n The two guys I\u2019m in business with [co-founders Drew Delis and Chris Mohoney], we share a common sensibility in terms of the value of the creative community \u2013 songwriters and artists. Everything we do is about empowering speed of revenue [payments], tracking royalties or matching data.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Our client base are rights owners, societies, broadcasters or production houses, but everything we do empowers those constituents to pay through more money, more transparently. That was the main draw. We\u2019ve shown that there is more value to come out of DSPs. It wasn\u2019t that long ago when YouTube was the enemy of the music industry. Now, you look at how established Content ID is and how well they pay the creative community; YouTube has become a titan and it\u2019s the poster child when you\u2019re looking at platforms like TikTok or Meta. Do what they\u2019re doing, pay how they\u2019re paying.<\/p>\n [Laughs<\/i>] It\u2019s a good question, but no! We are definitely not competing with collecting societies, they are well-established. And understand as well that, there are a bunch of markets on the planet that don\u2019t even have collecting societies, but music is still being used. There is a lot of value that can be added by putting a tech layer across a market like Africa or Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n I\u2019d change the attention span of consumers. What concerns me is, consumers have got fickle. There\u2019s always been massive competition between music, gaming, sport and everything else, but the attention span of the youth now doesn\u2019t lend itself to learning how to play instruments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n “What is being signed today that, in 15 years, will be the crown jewels of a major\u2019s catalogue?\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The industry has a fundamental grassroots problem. Ask any 13-year-old what they want to do when they grow up, they\u2019ll all say they want to be a YouTuber or a gamer, because it\u2019s immediate. There needs to be a programme built around getting musical instruments into the hands of kids.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n When I was growing up, I aspired to be the rock stars of the day, now it\u2019s all completely changed. And it\u2019s manifesting in how people consume music, especially the youth \u2013 it\u2019s mainly older catalogue that\u2019s sped up. How do you do artist development in a world where consumers are watching 15-second videos? What is being signed today that, in 15 years, will be the crown jewels of a major label catalogue?<\/p>\n Maybe, who knows? At the moment, I\u2019m happy staring at the surf that I can\u2019t actually paddle out in, and working 15-hour days! But never say never\u2026<\/p>\n MBUK is available via an annual subscription\u00a0through here.<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\nWere you ever frustrated by how slow the music industry was to embrace digital?<\/b><\/h6>\n
\nWhen did attitudes change?<\/b><\/h6>\n
\nAnd what did they do?<\/b><\/h6>\n
\nEven then though, the US business, in particular, was unconvinced\u2026<\/b><\/h6>\n
\nSo what made you believe in Spotify when so many people didn\u2019t?<\/b><\/h6>\n
\nWould the industry have recovered if Spotify hadn\u2019t made it?<\/b><\/h6>\n
\nSo why did you leave just as the problem was fixed?<\/b><\/h6>\n
\nCrowdmix must have been a bruising experience, especially as you were its best-known executive\u2026<\/b><\/h6>\n
\n
\nWhen you joined Crowdmix, your press statement said you\u2019d been \u2018initially sceptical\u2019 about the move\u2026<\/b><\/h6>\n
\nAfter that, most people would have run a mile from any new tech business. So what persuaded you to join Orfium?<\/b><\/h6>\n
\nYou\u2019re partners with collection societies, but some of this sounds like it might be competition for them as well\u2026<\/b><\/h6>\n
\nIf you could change one thing about today\u2019s music industry, what would it be?<\/b><\/h6>\n
\nWould you ever come back to the record industry?<\/b><\/h6>\n
\n![](\"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/files\/2023\/07\/MBUK-Q2-80x105.jpg)
<\/figure>This article originally appeared in the latest (Q2 2023) issue of MBW\u2019s premium quarterly publication, Music Business UK, which is out now.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n