About Jeremy Silver
Jeremy Silver has worked for the last twelve years in digital media businesses as they have become increasingly online, wireless and mobile. He was director of media affairs for Virgin Records, UK where he worked with artists such as Massive Attack, Brian Eno, Genesis and Bryan Ferry.
In 1994, he created Virgin Records’ first web site the-raft.com – named after the famous raft in Neal Stephenson’s novel Snowcrash. The website launched on Sun Microsystems sponsored servers with a dark fibre connection to the UK academic internet backbone called Superjanet. The following year he was appointed vice president, interactive media for EMI International. He then promptly had the streets of London dug up to lay a high speed network between the various Virgin EMI locations around the city. Later he took on the newly created role of vice president, new media for EMI Recorded Music, Worldwide, based in Los Angeles, California where he was responsible for negotiating many of the new media deals that EMI became known for.
In May 2000, Silver left to form his own company, Uplister Inc., based in San Francisco. Uplister was the pioneer of playlist sharing, offering the first ever playlist-based music subscription service. In September 2001, he returned to Europe to set up Mediaclarity Digital Strategies which included several media and investment companies amongst its clients, including Shazam Entertainment, Streamwaves, and the24.com. In May 2002, he took on the role of Chief Executive Officer of Sibelius Software Ltd and in July 2006, managed the sale of Sibelius to Avid Technology Inc. In November 2008, Silver left Avid/Sibelius and is now working on new projects across the digital media space under the Mediaclarity banner again.
Silver is also Deputy Chairman of Futurelab – the educational innovation think-tank chaired by Lord Puttnam.
tthomas said
I am interested in using your clip of the Chernobyl Power Plant in a I-Movie for a high school project.
Please send me an e-mail if you have a problem with this.
I will assume there is no issue if I do not hear from you.
Ieuan Franklin said
Hello – are you the same Jeremy Silver who wrote an essay on ‘The Preservation and Development of Aural Culture’? If so, please get in touch, I’m very interested in what you wrote. If not, please excuse me, you seem to have had a more exciting career than most academic types!
maths said
Hi Jeremy,
I read this interesting article in Wired about mp3.com and your comments about it http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,33634,00.html
I am interested in the case and would appreciate if you could email me. thx
JeremyS said
Hi Maths,
Thanks for your note. Looking back on my remarks, I think I captured the ambivalence of those of us that “get it” who were working at the time inside the constraints of a very singular view of copyright as it relates to the commercial opportunities of the music industry.
JS
maths said
Hi Jeremy,
I think “ambivalence” is the perfect word to describe it, and it certainly was a singular view of copyright that was the ethos leading the music industry then. Even though slow and painful progress has been made in the 7 years since, the ambivalence is best exemplified and brought to stark focus by You Tube and it’s seemingly scant disregard to copyright and yet ironically we also see “do no evil” Google having its fingers in that pie too.
laura said
hello jerem! is that you? laura (simmons as was}
Robin Kirby said
Jeremy… is that you sweety? we met a long time ago and I still have your card…lol are you still doing great things with EMI? shoot me a note and let me kknow what you have been up to
Robin
matt said
hey jeremy…i just caught your speech about the impending ex/imploding of what we now understand is the music industry on IT Conversations…it was amazingly insightful! Thanks
JeremyS said
Hi Matt,
Glad to hear it made sense to you! It keeps on changing under our noses, but there are some very cool things happening…. watch this space…
JS
matt said
Future of Media on IT conversations, again, totally rocked (i’m actually only 15 minutes into it). I haven’t navigated through this site too terribly, but I’ve never seen anything mentioning IT Conversations that you’re a part of. Hopefully a very cool thing coming is a master list of web links to your lectures…?
JeremyS said
You are right, Matt, I need to put a link in to the I T Conversations thing – it is a great series – I’ve learned loads from listening to the talks.
Keeping on watching this space – more updates coming soon.
matt said
any thoughts on the pirate bay trial?
JeremyS said
Hi Matt,
Now the Pirate Bay Trial really is worth a bit of thought. I’d like to talk about it, but I have to say I have a real sense of conflict about it. The problem is that one of the key investor guys behind Pirate Bay – allegedly – is an extreme right-wing type with some pretty objectionable views – allegedly. Check out Andrew Orlovsky’s note on him in the Register here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/26/pirate_bay_neo_nazi/
So many others have commented from a simply anti-IP perspective, but as always the truth is stickier and unfortunately in this case somewhat nastier that we might like.
Having said that, let’s see what the verdict is and then give its implications some thought…
JS