This month we are talking with Michael P. Aust who is a producer, director and the co-founder of the Soundtrack Cologne Festival. We discuss how he entered the film industry and how he navigated the changes and trends over the past 30 years as a producer. Having a diverse portfolio is crucial to surviving the challenges of an ever changing industry.We discuss the effect the AI explosion has had on the composing community and what challenges it has created for artists. We address the difference between AI and generative AI and explore the positive and negative aspects they bring to composing. Can AI be trained ethically ensuring proper reimbursement for copyright holders? What do composers, publishers, collecting societies and AI companies have to do to create a fair environment that respects copyright and intellectual property by creating transparent rules for training AI data sets? What are the legal risks of using generative AI in one's own composition?In the past years Soundtrack Cologne has created an AI Focus stream at the conference that provides insights, legal advice and room to discuss how AI affects music composition. Additionally back in 2024 they did a survey that analysed how AI is being used in the industry by composers and how it affects their motivation to create and work. https://soundtrackcologne.de/ai-focus... We go beyond the misconceptions about AI and discuss what tools composers are using to enhance their workflow and creativity. What tools are popular among the community and what are the benefits of using them. Michael P. Aust suggests that composers could train their own decentralised AI based on their own material and later monetise on that by selling it to a composer after retiring who will continue their legacy.Soundtrack Cologne was a catalyst for a lot of copyright initiatives and composers associations being funded and created a collaborative ecosystem where composers learned to share experience and work together as a community and do lobbying. We discuss the importance of festivals where people meet and the effect it has both on the industry and also the opportunity they provide for composers and artist to build up their skill set beyond composing. Additionally the festival has provided politicians insight and a frame to understand the industry and its challenges better.We discuss the challenges of keeping a festival alive and how financing by the state, city and sponsors has to be stable and predictable to make it sustainable. Festivals provide the framework for the industry to grow and provide composers the opportunity for life long training and expanding their skillset. There is no substitute for this type of work in the industry.Read more about Soundtrack Cologne at https://soundtrackcologne.de/