I had the chance a couple weeks ago to sit down with the leadership team at DOWNTOWN MUSIC's SONGTRUST platform, which administers publishing and collects royalties for 100,000-plus songwriters (as well as publishers and labels). The platform is great technology and aggressive administration applied to an ingeniously simple idea: There are scores and scores of potential royalty streams around the world for any given song, which means there are scores and scores of chances for any given songwriter (or publisher or label) to miss out on them. What if it they could all be hunted down, centralized, digitized and put within easy reach of anyone—without asking for a piece of the song in return? That meeting was on my mind as I read DENIS SIMMS' 3,0000-word essay for MUSIC BUSINESS WORLDWIDE on the fundamental economic changes wrought by streaming, mostly regarding the abilities and opportunities for artists and songwriters to get paid. It's worth your time, both for Simms' wide view and for his unusually optimistic tone. We could use more of that. But where Simms focuses on newish income-stream opportunities like royalty investment markets and new business models like customizable label services, I'm fascinated by the simple idea of making sure songwriters are paid what they're already owed. From the numerous platforms already using their compositions to the numerous countries where they're being played. No need to mint new money yet. Just find the money that's already been minted in your name. Simms gives love to KOBALT, whose menu of services includes royalty collections. And BILLBOARD's NICK WILLIAMS spotlights CREATE MUSIC GROUP, which started with the narrow goal of helping musicians squeeze money out of YOUTUBE and has grown into a $30-million-a-year company with the goal of mining "overlooked opportunities" throughout the business. The music copyright business, I've always thought, can seem tangled and complicated, and it's easy to understand how a random company that uses music could overlook some payment obligations without companies like these knocking on their doors. Not really, Songtrust co-founder JUSTIN KALIFOWITZ countered when I said that out loud in his office. He says copyright and royalties are a lot more straightforward than they might seem. You've just got to put in the work. And then, maybe, some optimism won't seem so strange and unusual after all... Over the weekend, J. COLE's KOD, an addictive album about addiction, broke SPOTIFY's and APPLE MUSIC's records for most-streamed album in a single day. But were you obsessively listening to it because you love it, you hate it or—this is J. Cole after all—both? Yes, according to reviewers. VERY SMART BROTHAS: "If You Love J. Cole, 'KOD' Is Dope. If You Don’t Love J. Cole, 'KOD' Is Trash." The RINGER: "Fogey MC or a figure of purpose?" WASHINGTON POST: "Where is rap-Switzerland?" NOISEY: You're all wrong. (That last one's a glowing review, btw)... Killer live sessions: Tuareg singer-guitarist BOMBINO on shaky hand-held video for the LINE OF BEST FIT. Jazz saxophonist LOGAN RICHARDSON and band behind NPR MUSIC's TINY DESK... One resounding yes and one big fat no to SUMMER: THE DONNA SUMMER MUSICAL, which opened Monday on Broadway... Also premiering Monday, with some A-list rock star assistance: the music doc HORSES: PATTI SMITH AND HER BAND... An interactive map of all the crimes committed in PALM SPRINGS during COACHELLA... RIP STUART COLMAN.