Warner Music’s General Counsel on AI, artist-first culture

From January Paul Robinson Has worked in the legal department of the company for 30 years. During this time he has seen “three different owners, seven CEOs, and we have gone private and public two different times,” he says. “There have also been all these macropics in the music industry” – which is something of an understatement. What has not changed much, he says, is the company’s culture: “It has always been an artist -friendly, songwriting -friendly culture, and we have always had a good relationship between recorded music and release.”

Robinson was intended to receive the award for Entertainment Law Initiative Service award 2025 on January 31 at the organization’s annual Luncheon from Grammy Week at Beverly Wilshire Hotel. But when the event was canceled in the wake of the Los Angeles fire, he will receive the honor at next year’s collection.

Robinson started at WMG in 1995 after working on Mayer Katz Baker Leibowitz, who at that time did a significant amount of the label group’s legal work. Robinson got the top job in 2006 and helped manage the company through the worst years of the music industry, to his acquisition of Parlophone Label Group from 2013 from the Universal Music Group and into the streaming-led recovery and a successful original public offer from 2020.

Like the rest of the industry, WMG is now at a point where streaming growth in developed markets is slower and the challenges of artificial intelligence (AI) tissue – and in a way that will especially test it as the smallest of the three majors. That’s why Robinson says: “From my point of view it is important to be perceived as and to be the most artist-friendly, songwriter-friendly company” -An announcement that WMG sent by being the first major to adopt artist-really policies on “Digital Breakage ”in 2009 and about sharing gains from the sale of equivalent, such as with Spotify in 2016.” Jac Holzman, when he started Elektra, used to have this love-and-accomplishment clause in his contracts that said label will treat artists with love And love, and the artist will treat the label with a modicum of respect, ”Robinson remembers. “And it’s amazing because it brings the imbalance to the mind: Artists will not always love their labels, but we always have to love them and we hope they at least respect us.”

Your father is Irwin Robinson, the prominent publishing director who operates Chappell/Intersong and then EMI Music Publishing. Did you determine to follow him into the same business?

That’s how it ended up, but they say there are no accidents. In some ways, I was afraid of going into the music industry. There were huge shoes for me to step in. I thought I would be a doctor and then I worked in a hospital one summer and I decided, “maybe I won’t be a doctor.” I was a huge music fan as well as singer, and I thought, “I just go to legal school and see what’s happening.” Maybe I avoided it.

Billboard Can reveal that you were the singer in a new wave band.

I was one of the singers. We were called the doctors. The musicians in the band had all the scrub and we were hit at William’s College Campus for a year. In fact, they asked the doctors to play at my college gene association and we do.

You are one of the few people who has been in the same department in the same company since the Napster era. Any lessons from then of how the industry should handle AI?

Probably to lean into change. Maybe there were people in 1999 in the Warner Music Group who saw peer-to-peer coming, but I feel like we were caught up a lot and I don’t think that’s been the case with AI. With peer-to-peer, there wasn’t much about it before iTunes in 2003, so we’re in a better place that way too. There are services we can strike appointments with now.

What are the best and worst cases for industry for generative AI?

[That’s] Probably less of a question of general adviser than [one for] Business Development, but I think the worst case is that it is somehow determined that you do not need permission to train an AI model and the market is flooded with a large number of content that Thinning legitimate music, in the same way services are now flooded with music that very few people listen to – but in turbo. The best case is that AI becomes an incredible tool for artists and songwriters and lets them up their games and release content in languages ​​they don’t speak.

The streaming model seems to be developing. This is “Streaming 2.0.” What terms are you looking for now in streaming appointments?

Trying to lock minimum per Subskiber and reduce discounts for family plans and so on. This is where we are focused.

When you started in the music industry, there were six large labels. Now there are three. Does that change the nature of the competition?

Although there are only three majors, it feels like it has never been more competitive. All you have to do is look at the change in artist agreements over time.

I assume you think offers now favors artists? Is it harder to invest in them under these circumstances?

No. Each year, our A&R consumption increases. When I started, we got eight album offers, but we signed artists where their subsequent was no internet and they probably had their hometown and they needed a huge amount of development. Today, we almost never sign an artist who does not have a significant presence on social media, and these artists do not need as much development.

Now you are also competing with distribution agreements.

From an artist’s point of view, there is a trade -off. In a distribution agreement you get a larger piece of the cake, but you get less development and it is a shorter term relationship, so there is probably not so much investment. If you sign a frontline line agreement, you commit to multiple albums and you get a smaller piece of the cake, but you get a whole team of people behind you to develop your career. The big thing is that artists have more choices than ever.

How do you make sure that artist contracts feel like win-win offers?

Offers will be renegotiated all the time if they are out of sync. If there is an artist with a small record deal that has a huge success, the economy of their next albums will look different. We are in personal service and we are in the relationship. We want to maintain the best relationships with artists and songwriters.

Is there an appointment you did that you are especially proud of?

When we bought Parlophon label group, it was a huge regulatory match and I would say it was a win-win. Umg had to sell parlofon, we were the best buyer and they were looking for a good price that today looks like a really low price. We paid about $ 800 million, probably about a seven and a half times multiple, which at that time was huge. We were much more weighted in our revenue and we bought a lot of European assets. So it rebalanced us in terms of geography and we acquired a good repertoire and some good artists.

What have been some of the most memorable litigation you have monitored? The case in which Led Zeppelin was sued for the copyright infringement by an administrator of the Exitment of Spirit frontman Randy Wolfe comes to mind.

The exciting thing about the Zeppelin case was not only winning after getting a lot of battles – we won in the trial and we were turned – but changed the field to lawsuits on copyright infringement. It was a beat-back of what was, I think the bad law in the case “blurred lines”.

This story will appear in the 25th of January 2025 — edition of Billboard.