MBW’s World Leaders is a regular series in which we turn the spotlight toward some of the most influential industry figures overseeing key international markets. In this feature, we speak to Chris Meehan, CEO of Publishing at Believe. World Leaders is supported by SoundExchange.
Chris Meehan has spent nearly two decades in the publishing business. He started out by solving a problem he says the traditional industry wasn’t addressing.
In 2006, while still a student at Liverpool’s Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA), Meehan founded Sentric Music with a simple but radical premise: independent songwriters were leaving money on the table, and nobody was helping them collect it.
“The first thing you do is write a song, and then you play it live,” Meehan explains. “So the first piece of revenue you’re going to generate from your music career is going to be publishing. But there was just nothing there [to help independent artists collect it].”
Sentric’s answer was then a rolling 28-day, non-exclusive contract offering an 80/20 royalty split while allowing writers to retain 100% of their copyrights.
The company grew from a university project into a global operation representing over four million songs and 400,000 songwriters across 200 territories.
After a brief stint under Utopia Music’s ownership following a 2022 acquisition, Sentric was sold to Believe in March 2023 in a deal valued at €47 million ($51 million).
That acquisition has now culminated in a significant milestone. In October 2025, Believe officially launched Believe Music Publishing, with Meehan at the helm as CEO of Publishing.
The division operates with 160 publishing experts across multiple markets, building on Sentric’s technology and collection infrastructure while leveraging Believe’s global footprint spanning 47 countries.
“We’ve put teams into France, Germany, India and Southeast Asia,” says Meehan. “The reputation that Believe has in their markets just allows us to utilize the success of Believe’s journey to accelerate our position.”
Here, Meehan discusses Sentric’s origins, Believe’s publishing ambitions, the technology powering their collection infrastructure, and what he’d change about the global music business…
WHEN YOU FOUNDED SENTRIC IN 2006, THE DIY DISTRIBUTION MODEL WAS JUST EMERGING WITH COMPANIES LIKE TUNECORE. WHAT GAP DID YOU SEE IN THE MARKET FOR PUBLISHING?
At the time, TuneCore and the like had just launched, so you could get your music onto iTunes. It was very much the DIY ethos – “I’m gonna do it myself, I’m gonna run my own label.”
But there was just nothing there for publishing. The more we looked, the more we saw that the biggest problem was access to the infrastructure to collect. There were lots of great A&R people and lots of great companies, but they can only work with the same amount of people they can work with. Everyone else is kind of left to fend for themselves.
So we looked at creating a model whereby we could help people collect the money they were already making that they probably didn’t know they were already making.
WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE IN CONVINCING INDEPENDENT ARTISTS THEY NEEDED PUBLISHING REPRESENTATION?
It was convincing them that publishing existed. You had to educate people on what publishing was before you could then tell them how you could help them. I don’t think that’s any different today, really – it’s got more complicated than it was.
Back in 2006, most of your income as an independent artist was coming from live performances. Now, live is still a piece, but it’s a piece of a much bigger puzzle.
The biggest issue was telling people they were leaving money on the table. We used to say: the first thing you do is write a song, then you play it live to get validation. So the first piece of revenue you’re going to generate from your music career is going to be publishing.
“PUBLISHING FELT LIKE A DARK ART. THERE’S A LOT MORE EDUCATION NOW THAN THERE WAS 20 YEARS AGO.”
If you play enough shows – the Just Introducing stages, the live circuit – maybe that allows you to collect the money to fund the next recording, the next part of your career. It was very much education into how things work. It felt like a dark art. There’s a lot more education now than there was 20 years ago.
SENTRIC PIONEERED THE NON-EXCLUSIVE APPROACH TO MUSIC PUBLISHING. WHY WAS THAT SO IMPORTANT?
We looked at all the reasons why a songwriter wouldn’t engage with the ecosystem that’s going to pay them money, and we tried to get rid of all the barriers.
One of the barriers – very much spoken about at the time – was copyright ownership and control. We didn’t want to put that as a barrier. We didn’t want long-term contracts. We didn’t want to put punitive terms on the table.
We looked at: how can we help people in the most effective way? And it was getting rid of all of the reasons why they wouldn’t engage.
The way we looked at it was that if we do what we say we’re going to do, then we provide an alternative to a traditional publishing deal. We’ve still got some of the very first writers that we worked with today. If you do a good job and you do what you say you’re going to do, why would someone leave? What does exclusivity and long-term really matter if you’re doing the right thing?
BELIEVE ACQUIRED SENTRIC IN 2023. WHAT MADE THEM THE RIGHT PARTNER FOR SENTRIC’S NEXT CHAPTER?
We were at a point where we’d been going for 17 years. One of the things we knew we were really good at was our ability to collect royalties on a global basis and position ourselves to provide value to clients.
One of the things we struggled with was how to roll that out internationally. We had an international revenue base, we had an international client base, but we weren’t really an international company.
Believe has grown tremendously over the same time period. It made sense for us to look at how we could be in markets that we probably didn’t know about. With Believe’s digital focus and digital leadership, and digital royalties collections growing, they were very uniquely positioned with their relationships with the DSPs and their global market share.
“IN TWO AND A HALF YEARS, WE’VE ACCELERATED OUR STAFF AND TEAMS ACROSS THE WORLD IN MARKETS WE JUST WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ABLE TO LOOK AT.”
In two and a half years, we’ve accelerated our staff and teams across the world in markets we just would never have been able to look at. The thing we started with in 2006 – access to collection – we’re now able to bring that to markets where we can make a real difference, especially now that everything is a lot more digital and global.
WHICH MARKETS IN PARTICULAR WERE YOU TRYING TO EXPAND INTO THAT YOU’RE NOW REACHING VIA BELIEVE?
We’ve put teams into France, Germany, India, and Southeast Asia – directly where Believe have got big footprints. The reputation that Believe has in their markets just allows us to utilize the success of Believe’s journey to accelerate our position.
We’ve already seen success in signings such as Ben Zucker in Germany, French rapper R2, leading Punjabi singer-songwriter Garry Sandhu and many more.
Our commercial relationship with Believe began via TuneCore in 2018. When Sentric started working with them in 2018, we applied our technology and collection capability to the TuneCore publishing catalogue, and we saw rapid growth from there.
There are a couple of key clients we signed together, like Viva Records in the Philippines. It’s really about making sure that we can collect the money from the pockets of consumption that happen around the world that might be very unsighted.
TELL US ABOUT THE PROPRIETARY TECHNOLOGY THAT UNDERPINS BELIEVE MUSIC PUBLISHING.
We are very unique as a publishing company – very tech-focused and tech-enabled. It’s always been at the forefront.
Back in 2006, we built technology which suited the business model we had at the time, rather than suited the capability or the ambition for what publishing might become. Around 2014-2015, we restarted building. We brought our developers in-house and started thinking about what publishing looks like in 15-20 years. What are the things we’re going to have to face? What are the opportunities? What are the weaknesses?
The technology infrastructure we’ve got now runs rules for clients in any way they might need – whether that’s simple song registrations, augmented ISRC matching, rights accounting. We use it to power our relationship with CMOs. We also use it to make sure we’re enriching data on the client side.
“WE’VE PROBABLY DEALT WITH MORE DATA IN THE FIRST HALF OF THIS YEAR THAN WE DID IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.”
Where we’re looking now is becoming a data powerhouse in terms of being able to match [consumption data to works]. One of the biggest things we see as an issue is the volume of data that needs to be matched and what our role is in the chain of control on that data.
We need to source and control as much data as possible and rely on third parties as little as possible. We’ve probably dealt with more data in the first half of this year than we did in the previous two years. The direction of travel is going one way, and we need to be five to seven years ahead.
HOW DOES BELIEVE MUSIC PUBLISHING DIFFERENTIATE ITSELF FROM MAJOR PUBLISHERS AND OTHER INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING COMPANIES?
The technology we have, the way we engage with data, the way we present that back to clients – that’s definitely one big differentiator.
We want to make sure we’re translating data into a consumable way. Just because we’ve got lots of it doesn’t mean we should pass lots of it on. Translating that into what people want to see – which is probably a health check – is important. Is my song registered? Has it been acknowledged? Is the royalty flowing? Am I getting paid for Spotify in every market, or is there a gap? We see our CMO relationships less as membership and more as partnership, because we’re in there to innovate and make sure we’re being a good partner from a data and registration perspective.
“WE’VE GOT 160 PUBLISHING EXPERTS NOW IN THE BUSINESS ACROSS ALL THE MARKETS WE’RE IN.”
And we’ve got 160 publishing experts now in the business across all the markets we’re in – a very direct piece of making sure we’re there for the writers in the territories we’re signing them. We provide opportunities outside of data enrichment that might be through sync, or creative. Believe operates in over 50 markets, and there’s recordings happening in every single one of those, and every recording needs a song. The creative opportunity we can bring to the table for writers is very unique.
WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST PAIN POINTS IN MUSIC PUBLISHING TODAY, AND HOW IS BELIEVE POSITIONED TO ADDRESS THEM?
There are lots of data challenges, lots of scale challenges that we all need to overcome. We’ve seen real positive steps from a lot of the CMOs to move to quicker payment cycles, which again comes with the need to handle data quicker.
Being ahead of the curve with DSPs is important, and that’s where Believe is uniquely positioned – we have those global relationships on the sound recording and the publishing side. Making sure we’re looking at value opportunities as well as ensuring we’re being remunerated properly.
One of the biggest issues is licensing deals. We’re still not fully always licensed for absolutely everything that pops off, and that reactivity time is probably a little bit too long. We’re having those conversations on both the sound recording and publishing side so we can get ahead of the curve and ahead of the trend.
HOW DO YOU THINK ABOUT AI AND ITS IMPACT ON SONGWRITERS AND THE PUBLISHING BUSINESS?
The biggest concern for songwriters probably stands back to the beginning of the century, which is the unknown. Anything that’s an unknown is something we’re naturally worried about.
Denis [Ladegaillerie] mentioned it recently – there’s marginal revenue opportunity and marginal threat from the data he’s looked at. Something like 34% of tracks uploaded to Deezer are fully AI-generated and accounting for 0.5% of streams on the platform. So I don’t really think we should be focusing on AI getting rid of songwriters.
The way we’re looking at it at Believe is around value protection and value creation. On the protection side, we’ve got consent, control, compensation, and transparency as our four guiding principles.
“WITH BMI AND ASCAP ACCEPTING GENERATIVE AI REGISTRATIONS, WE’RE MOVING INTO A WORLD WHERE THERE’S A BIT MORE CONTEXT AROUND THE COMPLEXITY OF AI.”
Match that with value creation – the Spotify initiative we just became a part of, looking at ways to reach audiences using AI. With many CMOs accepting generative AI registrations, we’re moving into a world where there’s a bit more context around the complexity of what AI looks like. That should reassure writers that while there is an inherent threat, there’s also opportunity. We’re there to help protect the value and create more value.
From a business efficiency point of view, things are moving daily. We’ve repositioned some of our development team into innovation squads to look at the art of the possible. Some of the things we’ve been able to do in terms of querying and interrogating data – we just wouldn’t be able to do with conventional tech. There’s a huge opportunity for business efficiency and processing.
WHAT ARE YOUR LONG-TERM PREDICTIONS FOR THE GLOBAL MUSIC PUBLISHING BUSINESS?
Having been around for 20 years and started when we did, we’ve seen many different waves come and go. Consolidation will continue to happen, and consolidation creates opportunity for companies invested in growing their service business.
From a publishing market perspective, we’re as buoyant as ever about the opportunity for independent publishers. We’re going to continue to have data gaps, issues around matching and transparency. Becoming closer to the DSPs is really going to help with transparency around payments.
“IF YOU LOOK BACK FIVE YEARS, THEN FIVE YEARS BEFORE THAT, THE THINGS WE’RE TALKING ABOUT NOW WEREN’T EVEN ON THE RADAR.”
If you’ve been doing this for 20 years, the long-term probably isn’t any longer than five years. If you look back five years, then five years before that, the things we’re talking about now weren’t even on the radar.
We need to be much more data-focused, tech-focused, global-thinking in the way we collect. We’re in a unique position at Believe – very strong tech focus, and we can deploy that with very strong music executives. That puts us in a position where we can adapt to changes we might not foresee and capitalize on the ones we can.
WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE FOR YOU?
Happy songwriters and publishers.
Going back to the philosophy at the beginning of Sentric – when you’ve got someone on a rolling 28-day deal and they can leave at any time, it really focuses you on serving people in the way you’d expect to be served yourself.
Making sure we’ve got that ethos throughout the business. And catalyzing on the creative opportunity within Believe. What’s been great coming into Believe from being an outside partner is that it feels like one company, not dozens of offices around the world. We’re all aligned from the exec team all the way down to local teams. That’s what’s going to produce more opportunity for the recording and publishing business than we’ve seen before.
IF THERE WAS ONE THING YOU COULD CHANGE ABOUT THE GLOBAL MUSIC BUSINESS, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Global alignment from CMOs and publishers. That’s it, really.
When we look at opportunities, they become threats because we don’t think globally. We think locally, we think regionally. The recorded and publishing sides don’t often have the same view.
We’d be a lot better at capitalizing on opportunities if there was alignment on every side of the rights in every market in the world. That would lead us to have much easier lives.
“WE DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT IN THE US THAN WE DO IN EUROPE, THAN WE DO IN SOUTH AMERICA. IT CREATES FRICTION AND DELAY.”
We’re starting to think about multi-territory licensing, but it’s not global. You do something different in the US than you do in Europe, than you do in South America. It creates friction, and it creates delay.
If we had that global alignment and really thought globally about how we engage with DSPs – who are global – we’d be able to pass down the benefit of that locally, as well as facilitate global careers and global songs.
SoundExchange was independently formed in 2003 to build a fairer, simpler, and more efficient music industry through technology, data, and advocacy. The only organization designated by the U.S. government to administer the Section 114 sound recording license, SoundExchange collects and distributes digital performance royalties on behalf of 700,000 music creators and growing.Music Business Worldwide
