Stewart launches new bank at the Reeperbahn festival

Dave Stewart used his keynote speech 'Where is the Money' at the Reeperbahn festival and conference in Hamburg to launch plans for a new bank, to be called First Artist Bank, which will offer services designed to ensure fellow musicians "don't sign stupid deals".  Stewart said the inspiration for the bank, of which he will be co-chairman, is Farmers Bank in the US. His project partner and co-chairman of First Artist Bank is Michael Philipp, the former chairman and CEO of Credit Suisse Europe, Middle East and Africa and a former senior executive at Deutsche Bank and the new bank will "supply funding and management of digital assets and intellectual property, as well as advice". Stewart said The bank will empower artists in music, film, television and theatre adding "It's a global creative community bank."Elsewhere Field Fisher Waterhouse lawyer Dr Philipp Plog looked at the future of music on the internet in a session called "When The Levies Break" - asking of copyright levies needed to be reformed in the age of streaming with an excellent  panel with Markus Scheufele from the German telecoms industry, (Referent Urheberrecht, BITKOM) Belgian collection society representative Cees van Rij (Media&Online Manager, SABAM) and from the German independent record labels, Reinher Karl (Justiziar, VUT, DE). Former MTV VJ and now author Steve Blame hosted an impressive panel for his 'Blame n Fame' closing session with Justin Sullivan (Artist, New Model Army), Kevin Godley (Artist / Producer) and Rembert Stiewe (Managing Director, Glitterhouse Records), a panel of Jörg Jelden (Initiator “Agenturen der Zukunft”, BathenJelden), Jeremy Tai Abbett (Creative Evangelist, Google,) and Nina Rieke (Executive Strategy Director, DDB Tribal) joined host Svenja Teichmann (CEO, Crowdmedia) to look at the future of  the agency world is changing and the communications and a very impressive panel of festival bosses with Folkert Koopmans (Managing Director, FKP Scorpio), Eric van Eerdenburg (Managing Director, Lowlands Festival), Baris Basaran (Booker, Pozitif Live), Christof Huber (General Secretary, Yourope and Open Air St Gallen) and Michal Kascak (Managing Director, Pohoda Festival) joined moderator Greg Parmley to look back at the 2013 festival season with particular interest in Basaran's comments that although riots and civil disorder had meant many shows and festivals had to be cancelled in Turkey this summer, a number of artists and agents had paid back 100% of their fees to local promoters.Musical highlights included new British singer/songwriter Lewis Watson, Birth of Joy and Death Letters from the Netherlands,  Californian quintet Cayucas , a Polish showcase featuring OCN, Rebeka, Uniqplan and Iza Lach, a Latvian/Lithuanian showcase with Colours of Bubbles, Alise Joste, GJan and Instrumenti, showcases from 65daysofstatic (UK) The Staves (UK), James Vincent McMorrow (Eire), Funeral Suits (Eire), Black Lizard (Finland) and a private show from platinum album seller James Blunt.