PANEL - Know Your Rights
This panel brings together leaders from The MLC, Music Services, and MMF-US/IMMF to break down what every artist and manager needs to know about royalties, rights management, and navigating today’s evolving music ecosystem. From mechanical royalties and collection processes to industry best practices, panelists will offer practical insights to help ensure creators are properly registered, paid, and protected.
Featured Speakers:
Lindsey Major, Chief Member Experience Officer, The MLC
Lindsey Major serves as Chief Member Experience Officer for the Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC), where she is responsible for designing, implementing, and delivering world class experiences to The MLC's diverse and growing Membership base. Her multifaceted leadership ensures that The MLC remains at the forefront of innovation and excellence in serving its 70,000+ Members.
Before joining The MLC, Major held key roles at companies such as Fairygodboss, SmileDirectClub, and Lyft, where she developed and enhanced their customer experience operations, creating effective staff training programs, designing and improving processes, and building innovative support tools to improve quality interactions. Major earned a B.A. from the University of Iowa, an MBA from Belmont University, and a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt from the Six Sigma Global Institute.
Recognized for her leadership and contributions, Major was honored with the 2023 Nashville Emerging Leader Award for Arts, Entertainment, and Music Business. Additionally, she was named a finalist for Music Business Association’s NEXTGEN_NOW One to Watch award in 2023 and a finalist for CX Leader of the Year for CMSWire’s IMPACT Awards in 2025. In addition to her internal contributions, Major often represents The MLC at industry events, educating stakeholders about The MLC’s mission and the processes for registering and claiming songs. Her efforts have supported The MLC’s consistent track record of timely royalty distributions each month, with over $3 billion in total royalties distributed.
Outside of her professional work, she is an active volunteer with animal rescues in the Nashville area, including the Nashville Humane Association, and is passionate about supporting environmental conservation, ocean protection, gender equality, and diversity and inclusion initiatives through volunteer work and philanthropy.
Lynn Lowe, President of Music Services (a division of SESAC Music Group)
Lynn Lowe, a 25-year music industry veteran, serves as President of Music Services Inc., where for the last 18 years she has run publisher services and administration for over 60 record labels and more than 1,000 publishers in all music genres at Music Services, a division of SESAC Music Group. In this role, she manages direct relationships with key record label partners and leads negotiations with television, film, and advertising reps. With cutting-edge technology, Lynn and her team deliver a full suite of royalty collection and licensing services to a global base of labels and publishers, actively collecting in over 140 territories. She serves on the National Music Publishers’ Association’s (NMPA) Independent Publishers Advisory Council (IPAC) committee and is a member of SOURCE Nashville, a nonprofit, invitation-only organization for women executives in the music industry.
Neeta Ragoowansi, President of MMF-US & IMMF
Neeta Ragoowansi is a seasoned music business executive and entertainment attorney with over 30 years of experience. She has served as a strategic advisor, business development resource, and legal counsel to clients across the entertainment and tech industries. Neeta is President of Music Managers Forum – US (MMF-US), President of the International Music Managers Forum (IMMF), Co-Founder of NPREX (National Performing Rights Exchange), and Global Co-Chair of Women in Music. She also serves on the advisory boards of Gritty in Pink and the All About Music Conference (India).
Her past roles include Executive Director of Folk Alliance International; Senior Counsel, Legal & Business Affairs for Global Citizen; founding head of artist-label relations and legal counsel for SoundExchange; Vice President of Business Development & Legal Affairs at Tunesat; and Assistant General Counsel for The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Symphony Orchestra Association. Neeta has also served as a board governor of The Recording Academy (New York and DC Chapters) for over a decade, and as Chair of the Diversity & Inclusion Task Force and Sponsorship Chair of the American Bar Association’s Forum on the Entertainment & Sports Industries.
A sought-after speaker, Neeta has presented at more than 400 music industry conferences on topics including the global music business, artist management, licensing models, legal and copyright issues, as well as diversity, women’s leadership and empowerment.
Moderator
Janine Small, Founder, Janine Small PLLC
Janine Small is an entertainment and music industry attorney with over 30 years of experience, licensed in New York and California. She is the founder of the New York-based boutique music and entertainment transactional law firm, Janine Small, PLLC, and serves as Of Counsel to Counsel LLP, a San Francisco firm.
Over the past three decades, including her long tenure as a partner at a leading entertainment firm, she has represented a wide range of world-renowned and developing performers, songwriters, score composers, managers, record producers, labels, entertainment agencies and executives. Her practice focuses on rights-driven transactions, with a particular expertise representing producers and promoters of live events, serving as lead counsel for some of the largest U.S. festivals and live-based interactive experiences.
She has been active with the American Bar Association Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries throughout her career, including a two-year term as Chairperson,
and is a frequent panelist and speaker. She also taught a semester-long seminar on music industry contracts as an adjunct professor at Cardozo School of Law.
Ms. Small currently serves as Co-Legal Community Lead for She is the Music, a non-profit dedicated to advancing women in the music industry, and is a member of Women In Music, Music Managers Forum, IAMP, and AmericanaFest, as well as an advisory board member of FestForums.
She resides in Manhattan and is a mandolin hobbyist with a longstanding connection to the live music community.
