2025 stock A lot has changed in the way musicians, record labels and publishing houses perceive themselves since record company revenues began their steady decline. On the one hand we are pleased to see a new kind of musician – not really all that new – who bypasses several links in the so-called value chain by selling himself on the Internet. On the other hand we bemoan the fate of many record labels, distribution companies and shops that have had to shut down. These music-obsessed specialists, with their taste and expertise, have all but disappeared from the public eye, signifying the loss of the filter role that these institutions used to play. With every bankruptcy filed by a label, record shop, distribution company or music magazine comes a yet another loss of direction.
Music publishers play a special role in the ever-changing music landscape. A lot of the activities that used to be part of the core competences of record companies and artist management agencies have now been taken over by publishers. Music publishers do not sell recorded music, nor do they organize concerts. Instead they handle music rights. This puts them at the center of the discussion about copyrights and intellectual property rights in an era of digitization and the Internet. Ironically, this often goes unnoticed by the general public which, along with the artists, is ¬¬directly affected by the policies of so-called collection societies such as GEMA. In an era of dwindling revenues from music sales, the money earned by music publishers has become the main source of income for many music authors.
The music publisher Autopilot, founded by Willy Schwenken and Guido Möbius in 1997 and run mainly by Möbius since 2000, will come of age this year. Originally a home base for songwriters from all over the world, the profile of the publisher has constantly evolved over the years. Möbius does not know much about the mainstream and considers the chart-worthiness of his publishing repertoire irrelevant. What is important to him is the expressiveness of the music and the personal relationship with the artist. Working in publishing leads people to think in terms of figures, track lengths and Excel tables. On the other hand, Autopilot was conceived from the beginning more as a record label – a label with a broad yet unconventional repertoire and a boss who knows his program and manages it well. The current compilation is not meant to represent the entire range of the Autopilot publishing program. It does not claim to be anything other than a good mixtape, an atmospheric collection of very different kinds of music – timeless releases together with tracks that were previously unreleased or exclusively produced for this compilation. Raise the curtain for Autopilot.
