Sitting Down with Entertainment Lawyer and Cornell Law Alumnus Bart Weiss ’84

Written by Alex Weiss | March 26, 2026

Barton Weiss graduated from Cornell Law in 1984 and now works as a transactional music business attorney, who “negotiate(s) and draft(s) contracts between music companies, which are record labels or music publishers, and talent” (B. Weiss, personal communication, March 11, 2026). His experience in executive positions with Sony and EMI, and now running his own practice, shapes how he sees the industry—past, present, and future.

Experience at Cornell

Before his career as a lawyer, Weiss attended Cornell Law School, three years that set him up for professional success. Both the education and experiences in Ithaca built Weiss’ skills and knowledge needed to break into the industry. “I loved being in Ithaca,” he says, “I loved Cornell. I made great friends, many of whom I'm still friends with today. And I look back on my law school days, very, very fondly, which is an amazing thing” (B. Weiss, personal communication, March 11, 2026). Law school taught Weiss how to “think like a lawyer,” but the “nuts and bolts,” he said, he “learned by doing” (B. Weiss, personal communication, March 11, 2026). 

In essence, it is not so much about learning hard skills in law school, but getting as many new experiences as possible during the three years of law school. Weiss emphasizes that “you don't have to decide on day one what kind of lawyer you want to be,” (B. Weiss, personal communication, March 11, 2026), and that trying new areas of law is ultimately the best way to decide which path to go down. Weiss knew that entertainment law was his calling early on, finding passion in a profession at the crossroads of two disciplines. “One of the things I like about my job is that it's a real mix of both business and legal issues,” Weiss shared. “I'm negotiating money, how it's going to be paid, what the rights being granted are, and all sorts of things that are more business oriented than legal oriented” (B. Weiss, personal communication, March 11, 2026).

Artificial Intelligence in the Music Industry

Artificial intelligence has not just disrupted the flow of the music industry, it has reshaped the ways lawyers, artists, producers, and executives alike go about their jobs. “It's being used in the business in all sorts of ways, and right now, it's literally the Wild West,” Weiss describes. “There are lawsuits flying all over the place. Some labels are suing AI companies, others are trying to enter into license deals with them. Others are doing both. Others are unsure what they want to do, and no one really knows what the rules are right now” (B. Weiss, personal communication, March 11, 2026). It is clear that AI is not only creating profound issues in the industry, but issues unlike any seen before.

What does this look like in practice? Succinctly, as Weiss put it, “There are hit songs that were literally created by a computer. No humans were involved with instruments, vocals, or any other element, and these songs have landed on the charts” (B. Weiss, personal communication, March 11, 2026). Vocal and instrumental tracks, if not entire songs, are being written, recorded, and produced by AI, a phenomenon unlike anything the industry has seen before. It hasn't been a one-off issue, either. According to Billboard’s Xander Zellner, “at least six AI or AI-assisted artists have debuted on various Billboard rankings” (2025). As AI-generated music increases in both prominence and quality, the number of songs on the charts created without human input will only increase. 

This does not just have implications for listeners, though. The law lags behind technology, leaving key industry roleplayers with more questions than answers. “And because AI is evolving so quickly and is being used in so many different ways,” Weiss explains, “literally no one knows where it's going, what the ultimate effect's going to be, or what the rules are going to be.” Specifically, he continues, “there are all sorts of unresolved issues concerning copyright, name and likeness rights, compensation, intellectual property rights and fundamental fairness” (B. Weiss, personal communication, March 11, 2026). Clearly, AI in the music industry is impacting every facet of music; production processes, licensing deals, and the listener’s experience are all rapidly evolving. Lawyers, like Weiss, have also been forced to adapt. Although he specifically is not using AI in his day-to-day, colleagues of Weiss’ are now using AI to complete daily tasks such as letter writing or drafting legal briefs. Artists’ representatives are gearing up for a war in the courtroom for their clients’ likenesses, while the humans ultimately behind the AI-generated tracks and songs continue to profit off of real peoples’ work.

Other Major Industry Changes

Aside from the ongoing adoption of AI, perhaps the biggest change to the industry Weiss has seen is the massive shift from physical music—mainly CDs and vinyl—to an industry dominated by streaming. This posed and continues to pose a massive issue for both artists and labels: there is very little money in digital music, especially in comparison to the “late 1990s, which was the peak of profitability for the music business. (The transition from physical to digital) turned the whole business on its head” (B. Weiss, personal communication, March 11, 2026). 

Weiss breaks this phenomenon down in a concrete way. “If you went out and bought an album for $16, $17, $18, even if you only liked one song on the album, you still bought the album. And that $17 album was a major, major profit maker for the record label and for the artist.” Now, as he describes, “that's completely gone” (B. Weiss, personal communication, March 11, 2026). The transformation to the digital age brought its own share of challenges to the industry, completely changing the roles that revenue sources play. “Successful artists made most of their money (in the 1990s and early 2000s) from record sales, and touring was considered a promotional device to boost record sales,” Weiss  explains. “Now that's been completely flipped over. Successful artists by far make most of their money from touring. And record sales, meaning streaming, is seen almost as a promotional tool to push the tour today” (B. Weiss, personal communication, March 11, 2026). In this sense, the way entertainment lawyers structure deals, value clients, and make career defining decisions has also completely changed to focus on tour-driven revenue with streaming as a supplement, a stark contrast of what the practice looked like a mere 20 years ago. Now, as AI takes center stage, the industry will have to continue to change and adapt.

References

Zellner, X. (2025, November 4). How many AI artists have debuted on Billboard’s charts? Billboard. https://www.billboard.com/lists/ai-artists-on-billboard-charts/