Has anyone tried, or does anyone use, Waves' Curves AQ? Would you say it's worth the investment?

Wishing everyone in the PTN community a happy, productive, and prosperous New Year. Appreciate each of you for being here in whatever way you show up. Here is to growth, momentum, and building something meaningful in the year ahead. Wishing you and yours health, peace, and success. Gil

Would anyone in the community be interested in doing live music reviews?

📍 1. CONTEXT / INDUSTRY SHIFT Spotify and BMG have quietly rewritten the streaming playbook. They’ve signed a direct U.S. publishing license, cutting around the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) - the body that processes mechanical royalties for most publishers under the Copyright Royalty Board model. Why it matters: it marks the first time a major publisher has opted out of the collective system and gone direct. That’s not just a contract, it’s a declaration of independence. This shift means publishers can negotiate their own mechanical rates, reporting cadence, and payment pipelines. It also means streaming services could face a fragmented royalty landscape where deals are private and data transparency gets murkier. - 📂 2. CASE FOCUS / BREAKDOWN • BMG’s move: The company frames it as “faster, fairer, and more direct” payment to songwriters. • Spotify’s motive: Simplify reporting, reduce latency, and lock in favorable economics before more publishers demand renegotiations. • System crack: If Sony or Kobalt follows, the MLC could lose leverage and scale, effectively returning us to pre-2018 chaos when every service had separate licenses. • Creator angle: Speed of payment improves, but independent writers may lose the unified protection and audit power the MLC provided. - 📈 3. STRATEGY OR BUSINESS PRINCIPLE This is a “split shift” moment - the era of uniform streaming splits may be fading.BMG’s strategy is vertical control: own the data, the negotiation, and the payout line. Spotify’s strategy is horizontal leverage: play direct with the biggest catalog owners to stabilize margins. The underlying principle: whoever controls the interface between data and payout controls the future of creator economics. - ✅ 4. TAKEAWAYS / ACTION STEPS 1. Understand your royalty chain Know whether your publisher is part of the MLC, a direct license, or both. The difference can affect not only your income but how long it takes to reach you.

Hey everyone, a quick heads-up! We’re having our first Virtual Coffee hangout this Wednesday on Zoom. Nothing formal. Just a chill meet-and-greet to finally put some faces to names and make this space feel like what it’s meant to be, real people, real connection. The Zoom link is available IN the Calendar Section (or HERE ) Even if it ends up being one or two of us, that’s already a win. See you this Wednesday, October 15th - 7:30 PM CST(8 :30PM EST · 5:30 PM PST) Looking forward to it. Gil