Chris Cooke has spent decades helping the music industry better understand itself. As the founder of CMU, he sits at the intersection of journalism, education and consultancy, breaking down complex topics like copyright, revenue streams and industry structure into practical insight.
Alongside his wider work supporting emerging talent and strengthening links between education and the business, Chris continues to champion clarity in an often complicated landscape. In this interview, he shares his perspective on what drives him, what’s shaping the industry today, and why understanding rights and data is more important than ever.
"If you are writing, composing, recording, releasing or performing music, you need to understand your rights and data, otherwise you will lose money."
Who are you and what do you do?
I’m founder and Managing Director of CMU. We help people to navigate and understand the music business through journalism, training, consultancy and events.
I also co-lead the Pathways Into Music Foundation, which builds connections between music industry and music education; and publish ThisWeek Culture, which covers theatre, comedy and culture in London all year round and at the Edinburgh Festival each August.
What drew you to your role and what keeps you interested in this work?
We set up CMU in 1998 with the aim of helping anyone involved in music professionally to properly understand how the business works. We always try to ensure our journalism doesn’t just report on what’s going on but also explains what’s happening and how it impacts on the ways people create, release, perform, market and monetise music. After setting up CMU, I went back to university part-time to study law, because a lot of what we report on has a legal element. That legal training helps me explain complex legal developments and ask the right questions about legal disputes within the industry. Obviously today we help people navigate and understand the music industry in many other ways beyond our journalism, with our training courses, consultancy work, educational programmes, speed briefings and guest lectures. That ongoing mission to help people working in music – both music creators and industry professionals – to truly understand the business keeps me very interested indeed.
Who or what inspires you right now?
I’m interested in how entrepreneurial creative people go about building a business around their creativity, so I’m always inspired by creators talking about how they are doing just that, what’s working and what’s not working. With the FAC Artist Day I co-host, we look at how artists go about monetising the rights in their songs and recordings, their live performances, and their fan relationship, and the importance of rights, data, collaboration and fanbase building in making that happen. I explain the basics about copyright, gigging and finding an audience, and then we have a team of artists who delve into their own artist businesses, providing honest insights and practical tips. Hearing about and learning from their experiences never fails to inspire me.
If you could give our readers one piece of advice, what would it be?
If you are involved in making music – understand copyright and metadata. It’s unlikely I’ll ever persuade the average music creator to be as fascinated about copyright and metadata as I am, but I keep trying! If you are writing, composing, recording releasing and/or performing music – you need to understand your rights and data, otherwise you will lose money. There are lots of great resources to help you with this. For copyright basics, we produced the Music Copyright Explained guide for the UK Intellectual Property Office. For key metadata info check the Get Paid Guide. The CLIP website has lots of great content. And the industry’s trade organisations and companies like Rightsbridge also offer lots of support.
How can our readers keep up to date with what you have happening?
When it comes to all things CMU, head on over to completemusicupdate.com and sign up to our CMU Daily bulletin. My personal website is mynameischriscooke.com – there you’ll find links to all my various projects and other media, plus my social media profiles.
