Know Your Rights: Managing Your Music Licensing Portfolio

With streaming being the dominant way in which music is consumed globally, artists and their managers need to capture every micro-payment, every cent to aggregate the value of the intellectual property portfolios they create and manage. Every year tens of millions of dollars are left unclaimed in the U.S. by artists and songwriters. If you aren’t signed to SoundExchange, The MLC and a PRO, you are leaving money on the table. If you are signed, but your data isn't correct, they cannot connect your money to you. If making money whilst you sleep is the dream, is the nightmare of your music rights portfolio leaking revenue whilst you only have half an eye on it?

Hillel Frankel, CEO at Novo Management & Publicity/

Partner at Mandell Menkes, LLC

Hillel Frankel currently is a partner at Mandell Menkes, LLC and runs their Nashville office on Music Row, focusing on intellectual property and transactional music and entertainment legal matters. Prior to the move to Nashville, he spent more than 20 years in Chicago as an artist manager and musician.

Management clients in Chicago have included:

 The late Soul Legend Terry Callier,

 JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound,

 Poi Dog Pondering

 and indie rock darlings Oh My God

 In his not-so-former life as musician “Frankie Hill,” Hillel recorded and toured internationally on keyboards and saxophone for numerous bands including GRAMMY-nominated Liquid Soul, LA’s Bonedaddys, the UK General Public, and Chicago’s P-1 and Heavy Manners. 

Hillel frequently speaks on entertainment law issues and has presented at major festivals and conferences, including: The Americana Music Conference, Music Biz Conference, South by Southwest Music Conference, Winter Music Conference in Miami, and American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (“ASCAP”) Expo and many other regional conferences.

Featured Speakers:

Sean Glover, Director of Industry Engagement at Sound Exchange

As Director of Industry Engagement, Sean Glover is responsible for educating and supporting the music industry on SoundExchange’s creator-facing systems and services, making the business of music more simple, more efficient, and more fair. His work ensures that artists and rights owners are compensated when their work is streamed on digital radio. Sean leads DEI initiatives for SoundExchange in the Washington, D.C. area and is an honoree on the Billboard’s 2021 R&B/Hip-Hop Power Player List. SoundExchange collects and distributes digital performance royalties on behalf of nearly 260,000 recording artists and master rights owners accounts and administers direct agreements on behalf of rights owners and licensees. To date, SoundExchange has paid out nearly $9 billion in royalties.

Lindsey Major, Head of Customer Experience at The MLC

Lindsey Major is the Head of Customer Experience for The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC). In this role, Major is responsible for designing an effective customer experience strategy and leading a world-class customer experience team for The MLC. Previously, Major helped respected companies such as Fairygodboss, SmileDirectClub and Lyft develop and enhance their customer experience operations, creating effective staff training programs, designing and improving processes, and building innovative support tools to improve quality interactions.

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