When content becomes advertising

Julia Rottes is a Cologne-based copyright manager specializing in music publishing at INSTNCT GmbH, a German publishing company dedicated to music rights management, synchronization, and revenue optimization for artists.

In addition, she serves as an Account Manager at TRO GmbH, a renowned music agency with offices in Düsseldorf and Berlin, where she regularly collaborates with leading brands such as Vodafone, C&A, and Eurowings.

Since INSTNCT spun off from TRO GmbH in 2021, Julia has been able to focus more deeply on the publishing and licensing aspects of the music industry while continuing her work on brand-related music projects — combining creative and commercial perspectives in equal measure.

Julia has licensed multiple globally successful hits, including classics such as “Push It” (Salt-N-Pepa), “Take On Me” (a-ha), and “All I Wanna Do” (Sheryl Crow) — songs with millions to billions of streams and enduring cultural impact — for campaigns by brands like Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Bonprix, BMW, and many others. In recent years, she has also been actively involved in addressing copyright infringements on social media platforms, collaborating with international law firms to protect the rights of
composers and artists worldwide.

Julia holds a degree in Music Management from Macromedia University in Cologne, where she also spent six months studying abroad in Bangkok. She began her professional journey as an intern at TRO in 2016 and has remained an integral part of the team ever since.

Marcel A. Wiebenga is a Rotterdam-based entrepreneur at the intersection of music, technology, and law. After a decade touring internationally as a drummer with Oil and Das Oath, he spent ten years at Sizzer Amsterdam as partner and strategy director, overseeing 1,000+ sync campaigns for brands including Mercedes, Dior, and Heineken. In 2021, he co-founded Ringo, a sync licensing platform whose core technology produces context-specific valuations of music IP — replacing gut feel with a defensible, data-driven number. That technology now underpins Sync Valuations, where Marcel serves as an expert witness in sync licensing litigation, and TrackShield, a rights enforcement platform. He writes a bi-weekly newsletter read by 3,500 music and tech professionals.

Julius Grimm is a dual-qualified lawyer specialising in media & entertainment law, with a focus on the music industry, and intellectual property law. He is the founder and director of the music licensing company YourVid. The company represents the rights to over 200,000 musical works and sound recordings, and it provides scalable solutions for managing metadata and collecting royalties. YourVid excels at collecting online royalties across numerous international territories. Through YourVid, Julius has extensive experience licensing and enforcing sync rights.

He is also the co-founder of anti-piracy and brand safety software provider leakshield, which develops solutions for detecting and removing copyright and trademark infringements from search engines, websites, and social media platforms. leakshield serves clients across the creative industries and regulated sectors. The company collaborates with the most relevant search engines and social media platforms to expedite the resolution of reported cases at scale.

Julius studied intellectual property law and data law in Dresden (TU Dresden) and London (Queen Mary University of London). He is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer on IP law, music licensing, and entrepreneurship, including at University College London (UCL) and Dresden University of Technology (TUD).

Joel Rothman is an intellectual property litigator who focuses on copyright, synchronization rights, and personalityrights disputes in the music and entertainment industries. He has represented rights holders in cases involving the unauthorized use of music and audiovisual works on television, streaming platforms, and social media. He frequently advises labels, publishers, and producers on how to structure and police sync licenses in an environment where content is repurposed at scale.

Joel’s practice sits at the intersection of music copyright and the right of publicity, and he often handles matters where a single use implicates copyright in sound recordings and compositions alongside name and likeness issues for featured artists. He served as counsel to Thelonious S. Monk Jr., on behalf of the Estate of Thelonious Monk, in Monk Jr. v. North Coast Brewing Co., a right of publicity and trademark suit over the unauthorized commercial exploitation of the jazz icon’s name, image, and likeness on beer labels, merchandise, and promotional materials.

A former prosecutor and seasoned trial lawyer, Joel represented Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. before the United States Supreme Court in Fourth Estate v. WallStreet.com, a landmark case. Joel is comfortable moving between trial courts and appellate panels, and between negotiations with studios and platforms and litigation when those negotiations fail.

Joel is the managing partner and founder of SRIPLAW, a fullservice intellectual property law firm with offices in the US and Colombia. The firm handles patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret matters, as well as unfair competition, defamation, and commercial disputes. Joel is Board Certified in Intellectual Property Law by The Florida Bar, “AV” rated by MartindaleHubbell, and rated 10.0 (Superb) by Avvo, and he is admitted to practice in Florida, Georgia, Washington State, and New York, as well as numerous federal courts around the country. He can be reached directly at +1 561.404.4335 or by email at joel.rothman@sriplaw.com