A BLOG OF SORTS FROM CHRIS COOKE
December 2025 Updates
Clouds of the year
Lots of fun this year travelling to places far and wide to talk copyright, streaming, AI and other music business things. I’m not very good at taking photos of the places I visit, but for some reason I do take lots of photos of the clouds I fly over getting there. Here are some of them!
Back to London
Heading back to London and, thanks to some engineering work around Milton Keynes, that involves a bit of an adventure through the Midlands on this stopping train to Northampton, calling at all sorts of places I’ve never heard of. Wish me luck!
Old business cards
Found these in a box in my parent’s garage. I think the first thing we did after deciding to set up ThreeWeeks in 1996 was get business cards printed. Not sure why! Even less sure why I needed Chris Cooke cards too. Given how many are left in the box, I didn’t give many out. That mobile number is long defunct and I don’t know if EUSA still has a fax machine.
Happy Christmas
I have rung some bells! The bells in this very bell tower, in fact. Which usually means it’s Christmas. So Happy Christmas everybody!
Backstage round-up
It’s my final TW:Backstage round-up of 2025: Equity members support industrial action to secure AI protections; BBC responds to complaints over Robin Ince’s forced ‘Monkey Cage’ departure; is the revamped CIC too skewed to corporates? Read those reports on TW:Backstage here.
Euston dash
Not sure why people heading to the North Pole don’t have to do the famous last-minute-platform-info Euston dash. Those of us travelling to Crewe don’t get that kind of special treatment. Anyway, I’m Cheshire bound…
AI Conversations
Interesting conversations with students at ICMP yesterday, and NTU last week, on some of the talking points around music and AI beyond the litigation and licensing deals – including: What is the difference between AI-assisted and AI-generated? Do we need a new identifier for artist voice? What is the impact of AI on music creators, even if the music industry wins all the copyright arguments? Much food for thought.
Final CMU Daily of 2025
So that’s the final CMU Daily of 2025 published. Though we’ll also be publishing a series of end-of-year review articles over the festive break and there’ll be email updates on those as they go live. I’ll also be posting about them here too, I’m sure. Tomorrow, final CMU lectures of the year!
Blackfriars to Brighton
Final trip to Brighton of 2025, so final Blackfriars platform view of the year. Tasks for the day: finalise Pathways Into Music plan for 2026, chip shop lunch, check sea still exists.
Educator Pathways
We’ve just announced details about four more Educator Pathway Weekends that we will be presenting next year – in Kent, Berkshire, Leicestershire, and Norfolk + Suffolk. Please do spread the word to music educators and talent development organisations in all those regions – more info here.
Bob Vylan v RTE
This has been a year where I’ve written quite a few articles about defamation, but not been accused of it myself. Though, there’s still three weeks for the legal letters to arrive I guess. Here’s my latest defamation report, a particularly contentious case, and the latest chapter in the long-running saga relating to Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury set.
Panto season
This week on CMU has been all about AI debates, copyright litigation and ticketing developments, with a bit of Kanye and Kneecap thrown in too – all very interesting, but admittedly, not very festive. Meanwhile, over on ThisWeek Culture, it’s panto season! Here’s Caro chatting to London pantomime legend Susie McKenna.
CMM Christmas Party
As you may know, one of my music industry roles is as an advisor to the Council Of Music Makers, which brings together the MU, FAC, MPG, Ivors and MMF. CMM mainly works behind the scenes, but pops up each December for the CMM Christmas Party, which was on Tuesday. Here I am pontificating at the party, presumably about AI and streaming. Thanks to everyone who joined us!
To the park
Quick visit to the Olympic Park earlier to give a guest lecture at Loughborough University’s London campus. The topic was ‘Producers In The Music Industry’. But what do we mean by ‘producer’ exactly, you ask? Well, that’s more or less what the lecture was about.