Jeremy Silver is an investor, author and digital entrepreneur. He specialises in digital media, music and immersive technologies. Currently Jeremy is a member of the British Library Board and chairs its Digital Portfolio Committee. He is also Chair of FeedForward.AI, an artificial intelligence startup focussed on developing Large Audio Models. He is also a member of the Creative Industries Council. He is the author of two books, the latest of which is Towards a Digital Renaissance.
Previously, he was CEO of Digital Catapult from 2016 – 2024. He was on the boards of Hammerhead VR and Imaginarium Studios, the artist led performance capture studio founded by Andy Serkis. Jeremy was Executive Chairman of Semetric Ltd (previously MusicMetric, a company providing social media big data and real-time analytics for the entertainment industry, sold to Apple) and was the founder CEO of the Featured Artists Coalition (a music industry membership and lobbying organisation). He was CEO of Sibelius Software (a music notation software company) which sold to Avid Technology in 2006. He was worldwide Vice President of New Media for EMI Music Group in London and in Los Angeles. Silver co-founded the pioneering service Uplister, (a Spotify-like playlist- sharing music subscription service), based in San Francisco which was venture backed by August Capital. He was also an early advisor to Shazam Entertainment, sold recently to Apple.
In the early 90s, Silver was Director of Media Affairs at Virgin Records where he worked closely with many artists including Genesis, Meat Loaf, Brian Eno, Massive Attack and the Future Sound of London.
In 1994 he launched the Raft – inspired by Neal Stephenson’s seminal novel Snowcrash. A few pages of Virgin Records first website – are preserved here.
Silver has given talks and chaired panels on music and digital media at many conferences and seminars around the world including at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, Midem, Thinking Digital, In The City and TEDx. Check out his TEDx Talk called Credit where Credit is Due on the evolution of the song that became known as Bitter Sweet Symphony. Silver studied for his PhD at Bedford College, University of London and published his thesis on Language Power and Identity in the Drama of Ben Jonson.
M E D I A C L A R I T Y 
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.
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!
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
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
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.
hello jerem! is that you? laura (simmons as was}
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
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
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
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…?
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.
any thoughts on the pirate bay trial?
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
Hello Chris,
Can you send me a mail please. We need to speak re kids things. Thanks JC
Hi,
I am putting together a music tech startup conference planned for the 25th of February, in London named Music 4.5 – 4.5 times ROI for artists and entrepreneurs.
Your name has come up in a number of conversations, both as part of FAC and as an independent industry-player, in particular with Tim Clarke of IEMusic, and Feargal Sharkey of UK Music. Katie Allen at The Guardian gave me your number – hence the voicemail left yesterday.
It would be great to discuss with you how you and the FAC could be involved, and to hear your thoughts on the event, the topics and the suggested speakers/panellists. If we can take this over email, I am happy to send you the latest version of the event synopsis, agenda outline, background etc., in order to give a some background to Music 4.5.
It would be great if you would have time to talk or meet in the next couple of weeks to discuss this further and have your feedback on the Music 4.5, both on the format and the content.
What do you think? Could we get you to be involved?
Looking forward to hearing from you.
All the best,
/Rassami
Jeremy,
You probably dont remember me, but I ran the promo campaign for the national Discography many years ago. What happened to it? I cant find anything about it anywhere?
best
Peter
Hi Peter,
Great to hear from you. What a fun launch that was – definitely in another era now… National Discography is as far as I know still part of the National Sound Archive catalogue but I don’t think it’s ever quite materialised with the commercial basis that was originally envisaged. Lots of the folk involved in that original project have retired now, but there are still a few around. Godfrey Rust popped up on my radar recently if you remember him.
with best regards,
Jeremy
Ah ha. A reply.Thought it might come by email.
Shame about that – it not reaching its full commercial potential. Such is life.
Thats all for now, folks!
Hello Jeremy
I trust you’re well. I believe I saw you at Master Shortie’s album launch, but the music was too deafening for me to come over and say hello
Anyway, I’m organising a Copyright & Music Biz conference entitled Copyright + Music Industry + Music Industry Education – 2010, Where Are We At? with IP minister David Lammy at the House Of Commons on March 23. I wish to invite you and put you in the loop, so please reply, so that I can have your email
Regards
Kwaku
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Dear Jeremy,
Although we never met we were often on the phone during the CDWorld Coprporation Kiosk debacle. I am presently writing a book on this and would love to make contact with you to get a foreword or quote.
Best Regards
Anthony
please drop me an email for a phone contact.
thank you
HI Paul,
my name is Costanza and I am a student of Music and Media Management. I saw your debate at the O2 which I found extremely intersting (poor Peter from The Pirate Bay!) they destroyed him!
I write You regrading my dissertation about the relationship between record companies and live music. I want to find out why there is a boom in live music and whether its boom in revenue is sustainable.
I would love to ask You a couple of questions on this topic and I woul really appreciate your help, as your point of view could really boost my dissertation. Can I send You the questionnaire (its not long!) I created for You? Maye I will send it to your email?
I really hope to hear from You soon
Thank You for Your time anyway
Best Regards
Costanza Tobino
Im sorry about the “Paul” mistake. I meant Jeremy! Sorry
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Trying to track you down.i worked for you as a nanny years ago,cant find my work references.not that im a nanny anymore! No direct email for you,its tracy by the way,best bosses you and your. Wife.
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Holed up in Leeds and idly thought. I’d get in contact… Maiden name Morris. Helen Elias says that you are now in the u.s…is this so? Family and self live outside Liverpool, husband having retired from horrors of local government senior directorship. I am a student again – art and design ceramics this time and starting my PhD at Manchester school of art in January. Amazing what you do when you grow you isn’t it?
Still in contact/visit Helen and Paul Sutton in the west country.
Be great to hear from you.
Hello Helen!
How wonderful to hear from you. How did you track me down?! I guess it’s not that hard any more. I did live in California for a while but now I’m back here in Kilburn, in London. I still see Jaci Stephen from time to time. She flits between Cardiff Paris London and LA and is a single writer. Still drinks but quite the celebrity. I’m working in music still but mostly on technology and with start up companies. All quite fun, let me know if you ever come to London!
All the best,
Jeremy
Jeremy Silver
On 28 May 2013, at 14:07, M E D I A C L A R I T Y
Hi Jeremy, completely unrelated to your blog: We’re organising a reunion for our year group in May. We’ve been trying to contact you on Facebook. We’d love to see you. Btw, I’m mega impressed with your career up to date. Just amazing. Lorraine x
Dear Jeremy,
I am involved in coordinating the programme for Limmud Conference 2015 (www.Limmud.org). We would be delighted if you would be able to attend the conference and speak about social media. Please do get in touch if you are interested.
Many thanks,
Shoshi
Hi Shoshi, I’d be happy to discuss speaking at your event. Please send me an email address or other contact details. Thanks. JS
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Hello, Jeremy!
I’d like to connect with you about the new Waves Platform. It’s an open blockchain platform that enables custom token creation with the aim of linking distributed ledger technology with the traditional financial sector.
Here you can read, what our platform can offer to the music industry
https://blog.wavesplatform.com/what-waves-custom-blockchain-tokens-platform-offers-the-music-industry-f73a363846c9#.6dvxovs44
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