Welcome コンフェッションズ音楽出版

When I first started Confessions Music Publishing, the mission was simple: help songwriters get paid fairly, wherever they are from and wherever their music travels. Today, that mission takes on a new chapter - one that focuses on a country I’ve loved for more than two decades: Japan.

So... Why Japan?

It’s the world’s second-largest music market yet, as I wrote in Breaking Borders: What J-Pop Can Learn from K-Pop’s Global Playbook, its artists have had only limited visibility outside the country. Despite producing extraordinary artists and world-class repertoire, much of it remains locked inside a domestic ecosystem that thrives locally but is underpowered globally.

Almost half of Japanese artists’ Spotify royalties now come from listeners outside Japan - the problem is whether those revenues ever make it back to the writers who earned them. Too often, money gets trapped in outdated systems, delayed by opaque processes, or simply goes uncollected.

That paradox has fascinated me for over two decades - ever since my first trip to Tokyo in 2001, when I was overwhelmed by the energy of a market that seemed to live and breathe music on every corner, from the billboards in Shibuya to the fans collecting every version of every release. That passion hasn’t left me, and neither has the belief that Japan’s music deserves to be heard far more widely.

This isn’t just about numbers. As I explored in The Untapped Power of Scripted TV, cultural exports succeed when creativity meets infrastructure. Japan has already proven this through anime, gaming, and television. Music deserves the same treatment.

Confessions Japan is about building those bridges, connecting the brilliance of Japanese music culture with the infrastructure that ensures revenues flow back accurately and quickly to the people who created it.

If you’re a Japanese songwriter, composer, or publisher, let’s connect. I want to hear your story, your challenges, your ambitions. I’d love to see what we can create together!