We live in the midst of the Streaming Era. Since the late 2000s, streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music have disrupted the music industry – completely transforming the way music fans are listening to their favorite artists. Physical CD and digital MP3 sales are now giving away to internet-powered streams, and the metrics of success are undergoing immense change. Despite this evolution in music consumption, music copyright laws and rights management practices are still struggling to catch up to the times. Artists are paid at a fraction of what they used to and are in a continual race to grasp some semblance of profitability. Jamie Dominguez is a storied music industry professional who specializes in rights management, music publishing, music copyright, artist development, and so much more. As a self-described “Creative Sherpa”, Jamie’s passion is advocating for creatives and ensuring that they have the knowledge and tools available to them to ensure financial success as they pursue their passion. We recently sat down for a conversation with Jamie where we discussed the evolution of music royalties, her new role within the Music Licensing Collective, and why it’s mandatory for all artists to have an understanding of rights management.

What do you value the most about working at the intersection of music and business – specifically music rights management and music finance?

One of my fundamental driving forces is to really leave the industry better than how I found it. Having spent so much time throughout my career really guiding songwriters and their teams on the business front, I’ve been able to witness their everyday struggles and challenges firsthand. Fundamentally speaking, the music industry really hasn’t been established as a very artist friendly business. I’ve been trying to repair a lot of that and fix these problems. The key to doing this is education, and letting artists and their teams be aware of the options available to them.

I’ve used this term to describe myself – a creative sherpa. I feel like that’s really my purpose, to be a guide and to educate artists in rights management. In my career, having worked in the space of performance rights and royalties for creators, I’ve noticed that there’s a real lack of understanding surrounding rights in general. Throughout my career, rights management has been an underlying factor in every position that I’ve held. Every creator that I’ve come across or management team or whoever I’m dealing with, there seems to be a need to learn more about all these different revenue streams and how they affect career longevity. 

I don’t take it for granted how important my guidance and knowledge in this specific area is. I serve the community and help to build more sustainable careers for artists, but also a more sustainable and transparent music industry in general.

For nearly two decades you worked in Creative Services for SESAC – a global performance-rights and music licensing organization. What would you say are some of the biggest lessons that you’ve learned throughout your experience in SESAC?

In my role at SESAC I was really responsible for building our roster of songwriters and music publishers from the perspective of licensing and growth. Not only for the company, but also to represent the writers and ensure they were getting paid royalties. My time at SESAC was really my training ground. It was where I learned everything, built my network, and established a community for myself in my career. 

I think for my biggest three lessons, one was to be fully transparent with artists and to give them the best advice. I was in a unique position because I wasn’t signing artists to a deal where we were taking ownership of their rights. We were just responsible for paying out their performance rights – royalties. I was in a really good spot where I could develop trust with artists. They often came to me for objective advice on all sorts of things. I really learned how to build trust through honest communication and relaying information in a way that is fully transparent and educational. Even though I worked for SESAC, I would still advise artists to explore all of their options, and to talk to every single company to explore their best options. Being fully transparent was certainly a big lesson. Whether you’re dealing with an artist, creator, or someone on their management team, being fully transparent is something that is foundational to building a career, but also your trust and your network.

The second lesson would be having an understanding of what rights management is. The music industry is complex. It’s one of the few industries where there’s really no barrier to entry. You can come into the music business without having a formal education. You don’t need a degree and you don’t need a certification unless you’re an attorney or accountant. You can be someone’s manager, you can work at a label as an A&R, you can do all these things. Artists are often approached by people who want to be their manager, and this can create precarious circumstances where if you’re a new artist, you may not have a full understanding of your situation. Early in my career, I didn’t understand how valuable the knowledge of rights management was. Now, I think people are much more educated because they’ve seen the pitfalls of having a bad record deal. People have a better understanding now of the value of owning their rights as an artist.

It’s also important to have an understanding of the complexity of the industry. There are so many different facets to the music industry where artists can make money. There are more than 50 potential revenue streams for any given artist. There’s a lot to wrap your head around, and I’m not even pretending to understand half of them, but it’s important to have a broad understanding of everything. Though it can be overwhelming, it’s important to seek proper guidance if you can.

How has your tenure with Sound Royalties, an organization that primarily focuses on music funding, shaped your perspective on the financial side of being an artist?

In the last three and a half to four years, the industry completely flipped because of the pandemic. At Sound Royalties, the concept was to essentially help artists refinance their royalties. It was a really new business model, because we weren’t taking ownership of anything. It was essentially a private bank that was built for the music community. Prior to Sound Royalties, artists would have to go to traditional banks to get a loan or would have to sign a deal where they’d give up some of their rights in exchange for an advance.

My time at Sound Royalties taught me a lot about how important the finance world is in the music industry. I learned about the importance of having a handle on where all of one’s earnings were coming from, cleaning up all of your finances, auditing, and making sure your income is growing how it should be. It taught me how to look at royalty statements and guide artists through that process. I really got to look at all of the income streams, not just performance royalties, and it was really interesting for me to see how varied everybody is and how everybody is struggling to maintain liquidity in the music industry. It’s really tough.

What drives your passion as it pertains to protecting and ensuring the rights of creatives, especially as it pertains to the ownership of their work?

I’m passionate about it because it’s literally their livelihood. That’s how they create longevity and make a living out of making art. It’s how they build generational wealth if they do it right. To have a grasp on publishing and rights management is maintaining ownership to a certain degree. I’m not saying that it’s not valuable to have a record label or publisher, because of course it is. But you have to be educated on what’s best for you. I think it’s crucial, and rights management is one of the most important things for an artist to understand.

I’m not saying they have to do it all themselves, but you can’t just rely on your team either. Artists really need to have a personal understanding of how rights management affects their livelihood.

You recently announced that you’ll be stepping into a new role as the National Director of Industry Relations at The Mechanical Licensing Collective. What specifically about The Mechanical Licensing Collective drew you to this organization?

I’m really excited about this role because The Mechanical Licensing Collective came out of legislation that passed a few years ago called the Music Modernization Act. This was fundamental in the future of the music business in terms of streaming royalties and how they’re distributed to creators. A lot of copyright laws are outdated, and there was nothing in the law about how to distribute streaming royalties as all of these platforms are very recent. The Mechanical Licensing Collective was formed in 2019 out of this Music Modernization Act.

They were the non-profit that was designated by the copyright office to distribute this blanket license to the service provider, which in this case is the streaming provider, and to collect and distribute these mechanical streaming royalties to the creators. It’s an extremely important organization, and has made immense progress over the last several years. The MLC just passed the $2 billion mark in royalties distributed  since it became fully operational three years ago, in 2021 , which is pretty incredible.

What I love about the MLC is the work that the organization is doing because it’s what will establish the trajectory of how artists are paid and will make the streaming royalties system more efficient. As a non-profit, 100% of the royalties are paid to the artists. I’m thrilled to be here from the ground up while the organization is still growing.

The MLC is on a mission to “ensure songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers receive their mechanical royalties from streaming and download services in the U.S. accurately and on time”. If you had to explain the term “mechanical royalties” to a kid, how would you do so?

That’s a good question. Typically when I describe royalties in general to anyone, whether they’re a kid or adult, you have to approach it in a very rudimentary way because it’s so complicated. But basically, creators are paid for the reproduction of their songs.. Today, mechanical royalties are paid to the songwriter when the song is sold in physical format (like vinyl), downloaded, and streamed via "on-demand" streaming services.

What are you most looking forward to as you settle into your new role within The MLC?

I'm just really excited to see how everything progresses, and I think we're in a really exciting time in our industry. The MLC is just one example. We’re definitely at a turning point, and I feel we are slowly finding ways to remedy mistakes of the past. What I’m most excited for is being able to continue building community and contributing to a healthy, sustainable, and viable music ecosystem for both creators and the business. We can all play together in the sandbox and be profitable, but to be fair and equitable and make sure that everyone’s getting paid their share and that everything is transparent is a priority.

Over the next decade, how do you foresee the music royalties space evolving?

I think we’re getting glimpses of the future. We have so much technology, including blockchain, that’s available to us right now that would enable us to pay artists. It would be great to have a mechanism like blockchain or something similar where royalties would be paid directly to each party involved without having to be first sent to a publisher and then have payments be distributed as money in the bank. I’m not saying that it should replace any of these entities, but it could be a tool that they use to make the whole process more efficient. I’ve been in conversations with a lot of startups who are building protocols and platforms with this concept in mind, so I just think it’s a matter of time before people are adopting it.

What advice would you give to artists out there who are looking to ensure that they are actually getting paid for the music they are creating?

There’s two things I’d say. Number one is to have an understanding of the concept of rights and how that works, even if it’s from a very high level. Fundamentally, it’s easy to create music. But you really need to understand what you’re creating in terms of the copyright. The second thing is to know that everything is negotiable. There’s no real industry standard. Every deal is different and every agreement is different depending on the publisher, label, artist, etc. Everything is situational and everything is negotiable. The minute someone says to you that something is “industry standard”, just know that this doesn’t really exist. There’s nothing wrong with asking every question you want to ask and fighting for what you want. You’re entitled to that. Artists are entitled to that. It’s their body of work, and they own it. Before they give that up, they are completely entitled to negotiate on their governance.

For the last few years, you’ve served on the New York Chapter Board of Governors for The Recording Academy. How did you land this role, and what have been your biggest takeaways in your time working within The Recording Academy?

I got involved with the Recording Academy early on in my career. Throughout my career, I’ve always been loosely involved with them. I’ve always been big on building community, and so I’ve always been involved with their events. This opportunity came from me always being present in these situations and my desire to build a better music community. That’s how I got nominated to run for the Board of Governors.

My biggest takeaway in what is now my third term is how important it is to create change from within. We always hear people complain about The Grammys and how it’s not truly representative of the music community and certain genres are underrepresented. That’s something that you have to change from within. It’s a voting body of peers, so if you’re not a member of that body and can’t really advocate for your community in these spaces, then there’s no change being made. You have to play an active role if you want to see something happen. You have to do your part. I’ve really seen a lot of changes in the organization since my involvement as a governor. There was the formation of the Black Music Collective, which now is omnipresent in the organization. You see more of a focus on latin genres and AAPI and African communities. We’re seeing a constant evolution.

What’s one album that you’d take with you wherever you go?

One album is really tough. I’d say my album would have to be a Bob Marley album. Lately I’ve been listening to ‘Catch a Fire’ and ‘Kaya’. It would be one of those two.

What does the term “big ass kid” mean to you?

Big.Ass.Kid is your soul and your spirit. It has nothing to do with age or the number that’s assigned to you. Being a big ass kid is being very pure and less affected by your environment. You still have a fresh perspective on things. That’s what’s beautiful about kids. When you talk to them, they’re so unabashedly honest and genuine. So I think being a Big.Ass.Kid is being an authentic human, and having an energy that is pure.