From Songwriter Advocate to Music Streamer Champion: What DiMA’s New Chief Plans for His First Year

When it comes to songwriters’ income, streaming services are regarded as both heroes and villains: They saved the music industry from unbridled piracy, but, some say, pay a pittance to most creators. In his first interview as the new president/CEO of the Digital Media Association (DiMA), Graham Davies says he’s focused on convincing the industry they’re the good guys.

Davies assumed the top role at the U.S. organization — which represents the interests of Amazon, Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube and feed.fm — in January, succeeding the organization’s longtime leader, Garrett Levin.

Before taking the job, he worked on the other side of the negotiating table as head of the Ivors Academy, the United Kingdom’s foremost songwriter advocacy organization. It’s a career change equivalent to a district attorney becoming a defense lawyer, but Davies says his extensive knowledge of song creators’ needs will help him make a real impact at DiMA.

A classically trained pianist, Davies began his career in the mid-1990s at British collection society PRS for Music, where he assisted with the more than 100-year-old organization’s transition from physical to digital in a time of great uncertainty and record low collections. He also worked alongside the Swedish and German performing rights organizations (PROs) to form the International Corporate Enterprise, a licensing and processing hub that serves over 250,000 rights holders and multi-territory digital music companies that combined and modernized the societies’ back offices.

In 2018, Davies became CEO of what was then the British Academy of Songwriters Composers and Authors and determined the organization needed a better fundraising initiative, greater outreach to other industry partners and, he says, a “stronger voice” among songwriters. As one of the first orders of business, he rebranded BASCA as the Ivors Academy to align with the most well-known and successful part of the organization, the Ivor Novello Awards, named after the Welsh singer, composer, actor and dramatist who was one of the most revered British performers of the first half of the 20th century.

Davies also formed partnerships with other musicians’ unions and groups for greater advocacy reach, including the Musicians Union, the Music Producers Guild and the Featured Artist Coalition. He worked with songwriter Tom Gray to push the #BrokenRecord grassroots campaign, which called for improved rights and remuneration for U.K. music creators and, Davies says, made “radical progress on the diversity of membership and the board.”

To accomplish all of this, Davies says the academy needed money, and that’s where his relationship with streaming services and DiMA began. He connected with Apple Music, Amazon Music and Levin for funding and support.

Davies now intends to similarly rebrand DiMA as a global organization to, as he puts it, “educate about the value that streaming services bring to the music business” and to advocate in favor of its members regarding legislation and other global issues.

In the wake of the contentious five-year-long Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) Phonorecords III proceedings, which marred DiMA’s relationship with music publishers, Davies says he intends to use his background in publisher and songwriter advocacy to find areas of “common ground” so the two sides can navigate the age of artificial intelligence (AI) together.

Why do you think you’re the right fit for DiMA?

I think of this as the new start of DiMA. It’s [the progression] of things that started happening during Garrett Levin’s tenure. Now DiMA is evolving to be a more global voice for music streaming. That’s the core of our vision and strategy. My non-U.S.-ness makes sense for this vision. Music streaming is a global industry, and lots of the issues are the same across jurisdictions. We will definitely continue to have a very sharp focus in the U.S. on activities here, though.

What is on the docket for your first year?

First is ensuring that DiMA is visible. It’s important that people see that DiMA is building on Garrett’s legacy. I’m also still in the listening phase to hear everyone’s perspectives and combine that with what I know from my time in the United Kingdom.

What message do you want to send to the industry?

[There is still] pressure on services to pay more into the industry. People want to know where the money goes. How much are the streaming services paying into the industry through both royalty payments and also investing? There are hugely notable investments that our members are making — not just [regarding] consumers’ wants and needs in the evolving streaming market. They are funding a lot of initiatives in different territories to bring forward a healthy pipeline of music. For example, there is a Rising Star program at the Ivors Academy that was funded by Apple and is now funded by Amazon. I’m not sure there’s enough awareness, and I’m ready to push that education.

What do you say to songwriters who criticize your move to the other side of the bargaining table?

I think [my desire to] listen and understand where everyone is coming from and find common solutions is seen to be really positive. To have someone who has worked from a PRO perspective, a songwriter advocate perspective and now [represents] streaming services is good. There will be some points of difference. You know, a CRB negotiation is a CRB negotiation. But so far, the vast majority of the voices have all been positive.

For Phonorecords IV, DiMA’s members joined with the National Music Publishers’ Association [NMPA] and the Nashville Songwriters Association International to reach a settlement. This was viewed as a major improvement from Phono III, which took five years to determine a rate and was quite contentious. Do you foresee similar collaborative CRB negotiations in the future?

There is absolutely a need for a close connection between the rights holders and the streaming services because if the streaming market doesn’t thrive, almost no one thrives. Our successful settlement with Phono IV was a great indicator of our ability to coordinate. I have big shoes to fill, but I hope to build on that. I think everyone is looking for as much collaboration as possible.

How will AI affect DiMA’s members?

The thing that we are looking at most intensively right now is the personhood legislation that’s being discussed in the United States. We believe that there should be appropriate safeguards to protect an individual’s personhood — name, image, likeness and voice — but the law has to be appropriately bound for all parties.

We are favoring a federal approach as opposed to the patchwork of state laws. It’s got to balance the individual’s ability to control this and the foundational protections that streaming is built on. Secondary liability has really provided our members with certainty. The focus has to be on those that are directly active in producing content that is problematic without shifting that liability to the streaming services. There’s lots to be discussed within this.

Does that mean you’re in favor of creating a process for taking down works that violate an artist’s right of publicity, similar to how the Digital Millennium Copyright Act works for copyright infringements?

That’s right. There has been clarity on the issue of liability to date, and this has provided certainty [for the streaming services.]

What else will you focus on in your first year?

The organization of licensing and operations. You would expect this coming from my background. I’m used to collecting societies and back-office entities focused on transparency, efficiency and neutrality.

The Music Modernization Act is a really great example of the industry coming together to solve problems with efficient and effective solutions. I think we feel that the Mechanical Licensing Collective re-designation process is a really important [example] where the MMA was successful. The re-designation process is an important process to speak to all the people involved, figure out what’s working, what isn’t working and where we can improve. We definitely see areas to be looked at [at the MLC].

Can you elaborate on the MLC re-designation process?

There is an opportunity for more insight into the metrics and how the MLC is operating. It is still quite early in its setup, and DiMA members have been absolutely supportive of that journey. But you would expect any back-office operation to have efficiency in its next phase. And we’ll be keenly wanting to see how the MLC improves that. Garrett set some of this out in the field hearing earlier last year [which discussed the successes and failures of the MMA five years after it was passed]. We feel neutrality is an area that needs particular attention. In terms of decision-making on these kinds of policy issues, it’s a good idea to have these five-year reviews.

When you say neutrality is an area that needs attention, are you referring to the MLC and the NMPA having the same outside counsel, as Garrett noted at the MMA field hearing, or something else?

Exactly. The services as well as other songwriters are concerned about just how neutral the MLC is operating. Our understanding is that the MLC was established in the interest of all stakeholders and to operate in a neutral way.

This story appears in the Feb. 10, 2024, issue of Billboard.