Dominic Young is an internationally recognised strategist working at the intersection of technology, policy and commercial reality. His experience spanning both hard-core commercialism and industry-wide policy making and action gives him a unique blend of skills.

He founded Axate to help solve a key challenge for media: how to generate meaningful non-advertising revenues from the entire audience.

Previously, as CEO of The Copyright Hub, Dominic Young has led the charge to turn a vision of how the internet can work better with rights - not just copyright - into action and reality. Looking at the current fight between AI companies and the media over copyright and use of content, the challenges of the future are often echoes of the recent past.

In the process of turning a compelling vision for the future into reality, he made hundreds of speeches to audiences all over the world, generating hundreds of requests for implementations from creators right across the creative, geographical and economic spectrum. Having committed to this non-profit project for 18 months, he stepped down after 30, in May 2016.

Earlier, as Managing Director, International for the News Corporation Digital Media Group, he created and developed a radical and industry changing new approach to the digital marketplace. Based in London and reporting to News Corp in New York this role encompassed working at the very highest levels of the global media and technology industries. Much of the story of this project, which remains confidential, must stay untold. But it's a fantastic story...

As Director of Strategy and Product Development for News International he was instrumental in radically re-thinking the digital business model and setting much of the direction for their digital products.

Prior to that his work encompassed a broad spectrum of functions, responsible for both cost and revenue lines running to millions of pounds, large and small teams, big re-structuring projects, IT systems things and getting things going from scratch. His early career centered on rights - acquisition, syndication, management and his experience extended from copyright into trademarks and domain names including all legal as well as operational aspects.

As a negotiator, Dominic has led complex negotiations, high profile and sometimes contentious negotiations at an industry level as well as all kinds of conventional business negotiations on both sides of the table - with a considerable track record of success. He still sometimes conducts negotiations for industry groups on a freelance basis.

He has created and led a number of industry level bodies and projects in the UK, Europe and globally.

He served as a director of the Newspaper Licensing Agency for over ten years and was chairman for three, during a time of dramatic change and growth for the NLA. The NLA has developed into a hugely successful and progressive business which has led its sector in the development of digital services and licensing models.

Dominic devised and served on the steering group of the Automated Content Access Protocol, an extraordinary cross-industry initiative to improve machine-to-machine licensing online. He drafted the proposal for ACAP on his way back from a meeting set up to try to gather support for litigation; ACAP was the alternative which gathered immense support from media and governments worldwide. ACAP is now overseen by the IPTC and is implemented on thousands of major websites.

His work on sports rights led to the formation of the News Media Coalition, now a global organisation negotiating with sporting bodies and and lobbying governments on behalf of the news media and news agencies all over the world.

He has participated in numerous lobbying efforts in Europe and the USA, usually on aspects of intellectual property and the internet, and has been highly influential in the development of a number of policy initiatives dating back to the European copyright directive.

He has spoken extensively on copyright and IP, as well as digital issues and continues to do so. As an expert on copyright and IP he also contributes articles to a number of publications and runs blogs related to copyright at www.copyrightblog.co.uk. He has also lectured students and lawyers on aspects of IP law and provides an unusual and thought-provoking perspective for those who take an academic interest in IP and copyright in particular.

He set up Ytrium to provide consulting and negotiation services to clients in the media, startup and investment industries. Currently Ytrium provides strategic and operational advice for a number of media companies, media and technology startups and others in the creative economy, and participates in various consultative and regulatory forums.

 

By the way, that picture at the top is not of Dominic. But he took it. As a former photographer he still likes taking pictures. But really anyone with a smartphone can match him these days...