Latest / The Price of Music / SXSW finances analysed, the music economy of Gloucestershire

Transcript

SXSW finances analysed, the music economy of Gloucestershire · The Price of Music

0:00
When you think about super successful businesses that are
0:02
selling through the roof like Heinz or Mattel, you think about
0:05
a great product, a cool brand and brilliant marketing.
0:08
But there's a secret. The business behind the business
0:11
making selling simple for them and buying simple for their
0:14
customers. For millions of businesses, that
0:16
business is Shopify. Upgrade your business and get
0:20
the same check out as Heinz and Mattel.
0:23
Sign up for your $1.00 per month trial period at
0:25
shopify.com/promo. All lowercase.
0:28
Go to Shopify dot dot com slash promo to upgrade your selling
0:32
today. shopify.com/promo. Yeah, sure thing.
0:39
Hey, you sold that car yet? Yeah, sold it to Carvana.
0:43
Oh, I thought you were selling to that guy, the guy who wanted
0:46
to pay me in foreign currency, no interest over 36 months.
0:50
Yeah. No.
0:52
Carvana gave me an offer in minutes, picked it up and paid
0:55
me on the spot. It was so convenient.
0:57
Just like that. Yeah no hassle, none.
1:00
That is super convenient. Sell your car to Carvana and
1:04
swap hassle for convenience pick up.
1:06
These may apply. Hello and welcome to The Price
1:15
of Music, the show that looks at the money behind the music
1:18
industry with me, Steve Lamaca, Music Allies Head of Insight.
1:21
Stuart Dredge. You might have to do most of the
1:24
heavy lifting, I think this week, Stuart.
1:26
As you might be able to tell, I only arrived back from Austin
1:29
yesterday afternoon on our slightly delayed flight, so I'm
1:33
a wee bit tired. That's to be serious.
1:36
You're looking for fresher than I thought actually, so this has
1:38
a new consolation. Thank you, very thank you very
1:41
much. It was, I mean, I've got to say,
1:42
I mean South by is, I mean there's always interesting
1:45
facets to it. So I've been at South by
1:47
Southwest, which is still, I mean, it's a massive showcase
1:51
festival. It's also where the music
1:53
industry from all over the world go to discuss the things that
1:57
are bothering them or their exciting new ideas.
2:00
I'm not sure if anything really gets sorted out in terms of
2:05
global policy or where it, you know, where it takes the music
2:11
industry. But there, there there are so
2:14
many panels that at least I think that some of them throw up
2:18
some interesting ideas. And it's also a place where you
2:21
can gauge what the music industry is thinking.
2:24
You can certainly work out what the what the hot topics are.
2:27
And they're most of the things which we've talked about on this
2:31
podcast over particularly over the last few months.
2:34
So there were numerous panels discussing, of course, the
2:37
different facets of AI and the implications of what AI means
2:42
for, for music and culture and just the rest of the social
2:46
landscape in a way. There was one, there was one
2:48
panel which was called AIA utopian dream or a dystopian
2:53
nightmare. And then there was one called
2:56
Hi, I'm your future, cultivating long term well-being with AI,
3:01
which I must admit didn't go to that one.
3:04
I always say, actually, I also miss and I, I wish I'd gone to
3:07
this, but I imagine this, this would be, this would be your
3:11
dream panel. This Stuart was called from data
3:14
deluge to data strategy, which essentially was a lesson in
3:19
helping artists to extract interesting data from DSPS and
3:24
social media. So there's some helpful panels
3:29
there and obviously all, all sorts of workshops you could
3:31
have. You could book mentoring
3:33
sessions with people who work for major labels and publishers.
3:38
There was one. And again, going back to topics
3:40
we've discussed, there was there was one whole panel which was
3:44
dedicated to the mechanics of how you capture the, the Super
3:51
fan market, which, as you've said, is something which the
3:54
music industry has spent a lot of time that they see a lot of
3:58
money there, like billions of pounds potentially of money to
4:03
be made from, from fans who will go the extra extra yard or the
4:08
extra dollar in their case. So it was all that sort of
4:11
stuff. And then, you know, there's as
4:13
well as all that which was going on at the conference centre,
4:16
there's all the music. I mean, I think the official
4:18
figure was somewhere in the region of 1000 artists playing
4:22
across five days, 1000 artists. That's.
4:25
How many did you see? How?
4:26
Many that's, I was going to say that's a lot of gigs.
4:29
That's too many gigs even for me.
4:31
How how many did we say? Oh, we saw, I don't know, 40 +
4:35
50 plus artists from Tuesday nights to Friday nights when
4:41
we're finished. But yeah, and it's a main
4:44
stress. I mean a really a very healthy
4:46
UK presence. Once again, I was, I was
4:49
slightly worried that because of the cost that's this year, maybe
4:55
more artists would decide that maybe the investment wasn't
4:59
worth it. But no, both in terms of the
5:02
number of British artists out there and the quality actually
5:05
had was really good. The diversity of the sort of
5:09
music we were taking to America I think was really impressive.
5:12
And I was stopped a few times in the street by people saying that
5:15
they'd been to see some of the UK showcases and we're we're
5:19
pretty impressed. But it was in some of the venue
5:22
moved again. So what but basically happens is
5:25
a group of organisations, including obviously Department
5:28
of Business and Trade at the centre of it, set up camp in a
5:32
venue, this year's venue, and it was right back in the centre of
5:37
Austin. So right in the middle of the
5:41
festival on 6th St. there's a club called Palm Door and that's
5:45
what became known this year as the British Music Embassy.
5:49
And it was, as I say, it was a week, nearly a week of artist
5:53
showcase geeks, which drew some really big crowds as well.
5:58
So it's two stages, one in, one outs, 7 artists on each shift.
6:03
So there was gig in the afternoon and another one in the
6:06
evening. There were also gigs for the
6:10
nations, pretty much had their own showcases as well.
6:13
There was a very strong Irish contingent this year.
6:16
In fact, I bumped into a bump into the manager of, of a bank
6:19
called Gurias who we saw the first night we arrived and they
6:23
were, I mean they were, they were, I mean, they were supposed
6:28
to play last year, didn't play last year.
6:30
So in a way they've been building up to this for two
6:33
years. But they were on fire this week.
6:37
But I saw their manager so haven't got off the red eye
6:40
flights. I bumped into Gurias manager who
6:43
was saying that they'd they'd pretty much just gone out there
6:46
to find an American live agent because at their stage of their
6:49
career, that's what they thought would be really helpful for them
6:51
next. And they had plenty of interest
6:55
from agents out there after after their shows this week,
6:58
plus some record label interests, which they weren't
7:01
really expecting. So I mean, there were quite a
7:03
few examples of the trip, you know, being a success for groups
7:07
because this is it's a financial gamble in a way, because it's
7:12
not cheap getting there. You have to pay, you've got to
7:16
pay for your flights, your accommodation, the visas, of
7:20
course, because the, I mean, the visa cost has shot up in recent
7:23
years to what is it now? It's somewhere in the region of
7:26
one and a half, 1000 lbs per musician, I think.
7:30
And so it's, I mean, that's a big ask for for anyone really.
7:34
So you've got to, you're gambling this investment on
7:38
getting something out of it. And I think what I'd say to any
7:42
artist who's thinking of going is the timing of your trip.
7:47
It should coincide with having already built some momentum.
7:51
You've got and you've got something, you've got a reason
7:55
for going. Like Gurias, we want to find an
7:58
American agent or we need an American Co manager.
8:02
And then when you get out there, you've really got to make the
8:04
most of it. I mean, I bumped into there was
8:07
a band called Himalaya is not the best known of the UK artists
8:11
out there, but they were stopping and talking to people
8:14
and handing out promos for the new album and just getting
8:19
amongst things really. So as well as playing gigs, I
8:22
think they really tried to, you know, make the most of their
8:25
time out there. And you know, if, if, if you've
8:29
got a reason for going, I mean, you can still go out and have a
8:32
good time, don't get me wrong. And I think some of us is, even
8:35
if they've arrived and it's not worked out quite as well as
8:38
they'd hoped, you will, of course, it's an amazing
8:42
experience for for a musician, but go with some go with a
8:46
reason for for going. I think because it is a it's a
8:50
huge cash investment, which again is, you know, why I think
8:54
the majority of artists went there or were able to go there
8:59
because they'd managed to get one of the grants which are
9:02
available, which we sometimes talk about the Meg's grant or
9:05
obviously there's people like the PRS Foundation and Arts
9:08
Council and various local music group grants which you can get
9:12
to, to part funds your trip. And but that's, you know, it's
9:16
still, you are still going to have to save up some money to
9:20
get out there and make the most of it.
9:21
But as I say, it's an experience, however well you do.
9:24
I bumped into one of the so there's a young lad called
9:28
Reggie who performs under the name Black Fondue and not only
9:32
was it his first time at South, but it was his first trip ever
9:34
to to America and he was absolutely loving it.
9:38
He gets to play, you know, 3 or 4 shows and meet some people and
9:43
it was, it was a great experience, cheaper for him
9:46
because there's essentially just the just him won't be.
9:50
Saying wasn't it water wall singer songwriters because of
9:52
the economics of being a band nowadays?
9:54
Yeah, that's, I mean, I'd say 30% upwards of of every of the
9:59
1000 artists were solo were solo artists.
10:02
But yeah, it was a pretty good South by and I got to see big
10:06
special play in a car park next to Interstate 35.
10:11
So there's a car park, a small gazebo and, and I took, I took
10:18
some film of this with in the background, just these huge
10:23
American trucks going by them. And it was really, oh, you are
10:26
definitely in the States now, boy, huge motor up and down the,
10:32
the highway next to them. But I'll tell you the other
10:35
thing about that, because it wasn't, it wasn't an official
10:39
gig because there's loads of, as soon as you get out of the
10:42
centre, there's loads of unofficial showcases.
10:45
So it was great. So it's some sort of, so it's a
10:47
punk rock gig in a car park. I mean, it wasn't the, the best
10:51
attended gig I've seen. They were amazing though.
10:53
They were brilliant. But out of the, the scant
10:56
audience who were there, who was that?
11:00
James, our friend James the Joyner, James, who is one of our
11:04
Patreon subscribers who lives in Austin, who you might remember
11:08
took part in our Christmas Patreon pop quiz.
11:11
So I met James. It was lovely to Thanks James.
11:13
Nice to bump into you again. So that was good.
11:16
So I mean, it's the other the other thing for us is just being
11:19
able to, you know, go and meet some people or bumping into, you
11:22
know, old friends or, you know, making new ones, you know, to
11:25
come random strangers in the street who who stop you and say
11:29
you should you should be another half a mile down the road.
11:32
In occasion, you know, some sort of Mexican food shack has got a
11:36
punk rock gig going on today or so.
11:39
And so from New Zealand is is playing.
11:42
But it was, yeah. And it was also because it
11:45
wasn't, it usually coincides with spring break, which brings
11:49
in awful lot of people because all of a sudden, you know,
11:53
spring break, what we're going to do, we've got a massive music
11:55
festival on our doorstep. That's where we're all going to
11:57
go. But it wasn't spring break week.
11:59
So it meant it was a bit easier walking around and getting to
12:03
places. But it's.
12:04
Yeah, it's still a massive thing.
12:06
A massive for Austin as well. I think last year's they
12:09
reckoned South by Southwest benefited the Austrian economy
12:13
to the tune of £370 million or something.
12:17
So it's, it's, it's big still. And if you if, if you can go, if
12:23
you can afford to go, it's a great experience.
12:26
Anyway, I'm back and slightly coarse, but it's nice to be
12:30
home. What have I missed?
12:31
Because a complete, I mean, apart from all the, the stuff I
12:34
saw out there, what have I missed at home?
12:37
Can you talk us through some of the stories which have happened
12:39
in the last few days? Because I'm slightly, as they
12:42
say, out of the loop. I know you mentioned something
12:46
about Spotify sharing some new figures on its royalty payouts
12:51
for for artists and songwriters. What's this about?
12:55
Yeah, there's been a lot of Spotify news this week, as there
12:58
always is actually, that shows more than usual.
13:01
But yeah, this is its website called Loud and Clear, which I
13:03
don't think about last year. I think it might have been when
13:05
you were at South by Southwest last year.
13:07
I interviewed Spotify about this report.
13:09
So it's like an annual, it's a website that come and every year
13:12
they update it and it's got figures on their payouts from
13:16
artist music. And it's kind of you can think
13:19
of it as like Spotify's We're not the Bad Guys initiative.
13:22
And it's them saying, look, more ethic, more artists are making
13:26
more money, and here's how the money gets paid out.
13:28
And it's just trying to be transparent about some of the
13:31
figures that often get speculated around.
13:34
So one way to look of it is kind of with a big, big sort of pinch
13:39
of salt and say, well, of course they'd say this.
13:40
It all shows they're brilliant. This is kind of propaganda.
13:43
And a lot of people do say that on the Internet when this This
13:45
site is updated every year. But the other thing is actually
13:48
in terms of being transparent and giving out payout stuff
13:52
figures. But if I kind of it's on its
13:55
own, like its rivals don't really do this.
13:57
So you can sort of learn a lot from the numbers it puts out,
14:00
even if you have that pinch of sort handy to understand that
14:02
there is a narrative here where everything being great and, you
14:05
know, you have to sort of see between those lines.
14:09
So I picked out a couple of findings that I thought were
14:11
interesting. I mean, the first one was, and
14:13
this is something people know anecdotally, but it's good to
14:15
have numbers for it. This explosion in how many
14:18
people are uploading music to Spotify.
14:21
So last year they gave this stat out saying 10 million people had
14:25
uploaded music to Spotify ever. That's how many people would
14:28
ever upload at least one track. And that's going to 12 million
14:31
in the last year. So there's like 2,000,000 more
14:34
people, 20% more uploading songs, which is kind of it's, it
14:40
could be hobbyists, people just doing casually, it could be
14:43
brand new artists, obviously it could be people using AIS, which
14:46
is something else we've been talking about.
14:49
But this explosion in the uploaders.
14:51
But there's also a separate stat, which is Spotify
14:53
calculates how many artists are actually trying to make a living
14:56
from their music. And this is based on a
14:59
combination of how many tracks like it released, it released
15:03
more than 10 tracks. They've got a certain level of
15:05
streams. And also they've got, they've
15:07
played at least one ticketed concert.
15:10
So that's kind of thing. And it reckons those people,
15:12
there's 225,000 of them, which is the same as last year.
15:18
So basically what you've had is 2,000,000 more people uploading
15:22
music, Spotify, but actually a number who are really trying to
15:24
make a living for music hasn't grown at all, right?
15:27
So I thought that was quite interesting.
15:28
You know, it's like this, there's this booming stuff that
15:31
really isn't being listened too much but is on there.
15:36
So that was kind of interesting. What do you what do you think
15:38
Spotify will take away from that then?
15:40
Do you think this is, do you think that backs up there their
15:44
reasoning for demonetising, you know, in some ways for not
15:48
paying out on what is it if you're, if you if you get less
15:52
than 1000 plays, you're you don't get paid for it.
15:55
That's it, Yeah. That's 1000 in last year.
15:57
Is, is this, does that go hand in hand with these figures that
16:01
they're, they're presuming from the amount of people who are
16:05
trying to do it professionally that where they got all this
16:10
music being put up by, as you say, people who aren't engaging
16:15
in the same in the same way or might not have the same
16:18
ambition. I think it does.
16:20
I think it sharpens their focus in that the important figure
16:24
there is not the 12 million uploaders, it's the 225,000
16:27
people who were. And so Spotify's argument when
16:29
it makes changes is we're, yeah, we're trying to funnel more
16:33
money towards those people who are trying to make it for music.
16:37
Last year's one they had, they had this idea, this this example
16:40
they used of football. And they said, well, you know,
16:43
millions and millions of people play football.
16:45
Only a very few make money from playing football and who are
16:49
professionals. And you don't think that
16:51
everyone should get paid for playing Sunday league down the
16:53
park? And.
16:56
And they were saying that's that's so this is the way things
16:59
are shifting a little bit, which is.
17:01
Yeah, I think the but the thing if you if you continue with that
17:04
mess for though that that doesn't doesn't mean that it's
17:09
how it's where where does professional ends and amateur
17:14
begin? And even if you're an
17:15
enthusiastic amateur, you are probably worth, you know, even
17:20
if you're playing in non league football, you might be getting
17:22
£50 or £100 a week. And so how far does how far down
17:27
before you basically say we're not going to pay you because
17:31
you're you're a hobbyist? I think that's the thing which
17:34
worries worries artists particularly is OK, if I'm just
17:39
chucking some tracks up there, I don't really expect I'm going to
17:42
make much money out of it. But there will be people who,
17:46
you know, are popular locally or, you know, have a small
17:49
following of the that's to say that the non leagues, you know,
17:53
go down the non league in football, there's, you know,
17:57
some, some games in the quite lower divisions.
18:00
You know, they get 200 people go to a game.
18:03
So they're they're still doing something which is of value to
18:05
an audience. And therefore think, yeah, pay
18:08
US, pay US £20. Got to pay for a new pair of
18:11
boots. That's true.
18:13
And I think that's the other thing that comes out these
18:14
figures. It's like, if so, the other
18:16
thing Spock has is this this page on this website with
18:18
bubbles of like here's how many artists that generated more than
18:21
10 grand of royalties last year. Here's how many donate more than
18:25
50 grand up to like 10 million, I think it is.
18:28
And you can see how many and so, and bear in mind this is how
18:31
much royalties they generated and they would have been paid to
18:33
labels and publishers. And you don't know how much of
18:36
that the artist sees. That's always the kind of
18:38
caveat. But so of everyone on Spotify,
18:41
71,200 generated more than $10,000 on Spotify last year,
18:48
which if you and Spotify reckons it's, it's 1/4 of the overall
18:51
thing. So they reckon those people
18:53
would have generated 40 grand overall from all the streaming
18:55
services and all the sales of music.
18:58
So if there's like 225,000 people trying to make a living
19:02
for music, only 71,000 of them have have made $40,000 from
19:08
streaming services last year, which is not an income,
19:11
especially if you're a band, especially if you're on So.
19:14
So in a way, these figures do show that like you may say, this
19:17
is how people are trying to make a living, but a lot of them
19:19
still aren't making a living. Even if you start throwing in
19:22
live revenues much, you know, there are other ways to make
19:24
money. So it's kind of interesting.
19:26
And this is not like a gotcha for Spotify.
19:27
I think it's quite good that they're putting this out because
19:29
it lets us do those sums and say, well, here's how streaming
19:32
is paying off for these people, but not those people.
19:34
And you know, it sometimes feels the criticism of them as well as
19:37
people who support them. So in a way, it's quite a good
19:40
thing to doing this. Your data is like gold to
19:46
hackers. They're selling your passwords,
19:48
bank details and private messages.
19:50
McAfee help stop them. Secure VPN keeps your online
19:53
activity private. AI powered text scam detector
19:56
spots phishing attempts instantly.
19:58
And with. Award-winning antivirus.
20:00
You get top tier hacker protection.
20:02
Plus you'll get up to $2,000,000 in identity theft coverage, all
20:05
for just $39.99 for your first year.
20:08
Visit mcafee.com Cancel any time terms apply.
20:13
Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real, and so is the relief.
20:19
From Ebglis after an initial dosing phase of 16 weeks, about
20:23
four in 10 people taking Ebglis achieved itch relief and clear
20:26
or almost clear skin. And most of those people
20:28
maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly
20:31
dosing. Ebglis Libre Kizumab LBKZA, 250
20:34
milligram for two milliliter injection is a prescription
20:37
medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and
20:39
older who weigh at least 88 lbs or 40 kilograms with moderate to
20:42
severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis, that is not
20:45
well controlled with prescription therapies used on
20:47
the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapy.
20:49
Ebglis can be used with or without topical corticosteroids.
20:52
Don't use if you're allergic to Ebglis.
20:54
Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe.
20:56
Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new
20:58
or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live
21:00
vaccine when treated with Ebglis.
21:02
Before starting Ebglis, tell your doctor if you have a
21:04
parasitic infection. Searching for real relief?
21:06
Ask your doctor about Ebglis and visit ebglis.lily.com or call
21:09
1800 Lily RX or 1-800-545-5979. So that's Spotify trying to,
21:17
that's Spotify trying to, as you say, be transparent and be the
21:21
good guys in a week where I don't know if that's if that's
21:26
played out particularly well in in all the stories around
21:30
Spotify this week. Well, so something this is the
21:33
wider trend I think of Spotify is currently having a little bit
21:37
of a moment of are we the bad guys in, in popular perception?
21:41
And this this goes down to things like there's been a lot
21:43
more stories in recent months about how much money its
21:46
executives are making from selling their shares.
21:49
So I think before Christmas, MBW had a story about Daniel Eck,
21:51
the CEO selling, I think it was like, was it 666 million of
21:57
shares or something like that, some kind of devilish figure.
22:00
So it's been that kind of so they have much more coverage of
22:02
how much money the executives are making then contrasting that
22:04
with some of the criticism. But yeah, last last week was
22:07
particularly difficult because there were a huge Hoo ha erupted
22:11
around Spotify in the UK around. So you know, do you, how am I
22:16
aware of you, of Andrew Tate's like how, how much is he
22:19
impinged on your consciousness? Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm aware of his
22:23
appearances on the on the news. OK, so he's a world's top pants
22:28
selfie and misogynist influencer.
22:30
It's how I describe like a an unpleasant guy.
22:35
I, you know, I'm honest like he, he's he's put a lot of that
22:39
teaching young men how they should deal with women, how they
22:41
should go about their lives. A lot of it is quite grim, sexy
22:45
stuff and even worse. Anyway, he's had a he's got a
22:49
bunch of podcasts and they're called courses like as if
22:52
they're educational courses. One was called the Pimpin hose
22:56
degree. So pH PhD, teaching men how to
23:01
attract with women, how to sleep with some quite nasty, coercive,
23:04
manipulative stuff in it. Like I was, I had to, I had to
23:07
read through the transcript to cover the news story.
23:09
Anyway, this was on Spotify. And I'm going to call that woman
23:12
here Renee Chopping. Her name is, I hope I've can
23:14
pronounce it right. She's an activist and a
23:17
programme director who works with survivors of sex
23:20
trafficking. And she started an online
23:21
petition saying, take this stuff down, Spotify, it's dangerous.
23:26
And you know how a lot of online petitions, you launch it and
23:28
tell everyone about it and it gets 3000 signatures, No one
23:31
cares. This one has 146,000 signatures.
23:34
It's been nothing like 10 to 20,000 a day over the last week,
23:38
generating a lot of news. And the result was Spotify took
23:42
some of this guy's shows down, including the pimp and hose
23:45
degree, which was the one that got most coverage.
23:48
So that petition is having an effect.
23:50
And now she's saying, right, we're pushing on and getting all
23:52
it taken down. But it's also, yeah.
23:55
So last week, it's been the first time I've seen this was in
23:57
the press. I saw a few music industry
23:59
friends posting on places like LinkedIn saying I'm cancelling
24:02
my subscription, This is the last straw for me, which I
24:05
haven't seen before. And that's a hugely small self
24:07
selecting group of my music industry nerd friends.
24:09
But I've not seen them do this before, not seen anyone get so
24:11
crossed that they cancelled. So it has been a difficult week
24:15
in that regard because loud and clear was about saying, look,
24:17
we're not bad for artists. Everything is improving and
24:19
here's why. But at the same time, there's a
24:23
lot of stuff in the press about people saying we're not sure
24:25
about the culture of this service, we're not sure about
24:27
their policies. We don't like the fact that
24:29
Andrew Tate is trying to make money on there and they're not
24:31
taking him down. So it's a a tricky time.
24:34
I think for them that whenever there is a good news story, a
24:38
lot of the comments are yes, but look at this over here or that
24:41
or look at somewhere to still being crossed.
24:42
And it's difficult to get ahead of this sometimes for them.
24:46
OK, I did see in two of the venues, in the urinals of two of
24:52
the venues in Austin, there were stickers for a new, basically a
24:59
new streaming platform that I'm always, I can't remember at the
25:03
top of my head at the moment, but the slogan at the top of the
25:07
sticker just said delete Spotify, you coward.
25:12
Wow, it's in a way that's quite a good campaign because you saw
25:16
it, but it's not a great campaign because you they no
25:18
ones remembering the name of the company, just remembering the
25:20
slow. It was in a bad font.
25:23
Yeah. Apart from anything else,
25:25
talking of royalties and royalty rates, here's another story.
25:30
Apparently, independent labels are unhappy about the changes to
25:34
the way Amazon Music pays royalties, with some saying that
25:40
what is it? As much as they think as much as
25:43
70% of their music has been demonetised overnight now, this
25:48
sounds like a worrying child. What's happened?
25:51
What's happened here? Yeah, it does.
25:53
So this story starts at the end of December actually, when
25:55
Amazon Music, one of the big streaming services, signed a
25:58
license deal with Universal Music.
26:00
And as part of that there were lots of talk about the
26:03
advancement of artist centric principles, which is Universal
26:06
Music sort of thing about how we should change streaming play
26:08
outs to make sure artists get more money and it all goes well.
26:12
But then a week before last, just before you went away,
26:15
Impala, the independent industry organization, they put out this
26:18
statement criticising UMG about buying up independent music
26:22
firms. This is a separate argument, but
26:24
in that criticism, they threw in this claim by Amazon Music.
26:27
And yeah, they said that basically, and I'll quote them,
26:30
independents are being asked to sign terms with Amazon based on
26:33
thresholds that have a disproportionate impact on their
26:36
artists and revenue. And like you said, with some of
26:38
them reporting around 70% of their repertoire, so 70% of the
26:41
tracks on the catalogue being demonetised.
26:44
So we've talked about just now, threshold is the idea of when a
26:47
streaming service is right. If you haven't got this many
26:49
listeners or this many streams, you're going to earn a lower
26:52
royalty rate or no royalties at all.
26:54
So Spotify has done this, Deezer has done this.
26:57
It seems to be part of this shift that's going on.
27:01
And I followed up with Amazon Music, obviously, because you're
27:04
like, hey, someone said this about you, what's happening?
27:07
And they, they did give a statement saying that this
27:09
royalty model update aims to ensure that artists have an
27:11
opportunity to benefit from streaming, including independent
27:14
artists and labels, many of whom will see a positive boost in
27:17
royalty payouts as a result of the move to the model.
27:20
So Amazon is saying we have changed the way we pay out.
27:22
They haven't said how, they haven't given the exact
27:25
calculation, but they're saying actually a lot of independent
27:28
artists will see more royalties. So it's kind of a, they said,
27:32
they said situation at the moment where we're not sure
27:35
which labels have had 70% of their tracks demonetised.
27:38
We're not sure which artists are benefiting according to Amazon.
27:41
But it kind of is a, it is like a reminder this stuff is going
27:46
on behind the scenes, the changes to the way everything is
27:49
calculated. And it's only when someone
27:51
complaints about it or when someone says here's how we're
27:53
doing it, that we know. I mean, it's it, it makes you
27:56
feel incredibly powerless, I imagine if you're an artist or a
27:59
or a label, because the, because the goal posts can move at any
28:03
point. I mean, that's one of the
28:05
things, yeah. It would be great to know who
28:09
you know, who the artists are, how and what.
28:12
It would be great to know what the threshold is, where they've
28:15
stopped paying artists, how much money that makes them by not
28:22
paying that money out to, you know, a certain level of
28:25
artists. How much do they get from that?
28:27
And then how are they redistributing it to the more
28:32
essentially the more popular artists?
28:34
Is that right? And one of the things in the
28:36
Spotify announcement last week was that half of their payouts
28:39
go to independent music. And that has stayed the same
28:43
since last year. So Spotify has demonetising
28:46
tracks, but Indies share has held up, which is actually quite
28:50
a positive sign. But that makes you think
28:52
actually, it's not just. And when Spotify says that, what
28:55
it's saying is we're really good for independent music.
28:58
You know, it's really good. We're really good for it.
29:00
But you could flip that round and say it shows that
29:02
independent music is really important for Spotify and for
29:05
streaming. So if it's half your payouts,
29:07
it's really important to you. And so I think when, when you,
29:10
when you decide to change, things change about how you
29:12
calculate payouts, which seemingly is, is largely driven
29:17
by Universal Music saying we think this should change.
29:20
So it's the biggest major label sort of almost driving these
29:23
changes. Shouldn't you be going out and
29:25
explaining them to independent labels really properly?
29:27
Shouldn't you be getting their opinions before you do it?
29:30
Shouldn't you be treating them like, as important as they seem
29:33
to be from the payout stats, rather than them having to
29:36
complain that, oh, these changes we've made and now we're losing
29:38
out and we didn't really get like, it feels like there's an
29:40
imbalance between who's driving these changes and actually who
29:44
it's affecting and whether they should have a say so.
29:46
Yeah, yeah. OK.
29:48
Next, Sony Music says it's taken down more than 75,000 AI deep
29:53
fakes, which were based on artists like Harry Styles, Queen
29:57
and Beyoncé. Yeah.
29:59
So this is kind of, this is, this is really fun because,
30:02
well, not fun. This is really interesting
30:03
because there's this government consultation that we've talked
30:06
about going on about how AI training should work and
30:10
everyone is giving it their views.
30:11
And Sony Music kind of it it it submitted its views and it
30:14
briefed a couple of journalists on what it had said.
30:16
And it threw in this these figures on deepfakes, which
30:19
isn't really what the consultation is mainly about.
30:22
But yeah, saying that 75,000 it could be, it could be music
30:26
tracks, it could be videos, it could be, you know, I'm not sure
30:28
exactly what it is, but it's stuff that is pretending to be
30:31
Harry Styles, Queen, Beyoncé, other artists.
30:35
And this is kind of in the very early days of this technology
30:38
rolling out and being available. So, you know, the implication is
30:41
75,000 is probably small change compared to in a year's time, 2
30:45
years time. And it is, I mean, do you
30:49
remember when we talked about I was using AI music services and
30:52
try and do stuff. And one of the things you can't
30:53
do is you can't say create me a song based on Queen because it
30:56
will say, sorry, I can't do all about those things.
30:58
So you end up having to say, do me a song based on operatic Hard
31:03
Rock from the 1970s with a singer with a moustache.
31:07
And you know, you have to kind of find ways around to do it.
31:10
But there are other ways where you can get, you can sort of go
31:12
onto Internet forums and you can say, right, I want to buy this
31:16
clone of Harry Styles voice and record a song with it as a whole
31:19
flourishing economy of people helping you do that thing.
31:22
So So yeah, it's possible this is the first time we've had a
31:25
label say this is how much we're having to go and take it down,
31:28
right? And I think that this is part of
31:32
their argument that combating dodgy use of AI shouldn't be a
31:38
case of you having to go and squash every single one like
31:41
you're playing whack a mole. And they talked about, they used
31:45
quite a fun metaphor actually, in in this this submission, they
31:47
said, right, this idea of in the music industry, you're going to
31:50
have to say, we talked about opting out, haven't we?
31:53
You're going to have to opt out of letting your music be used to
31:55
train their eyes and be used. And Sony is against that.
31:58
And it said, well, would the government require home owners
32:01
to tag all their possessions to be protected against burglary?
32:04
So, you know, unless you say my TV can't be nicked, it's fair
32:08
game for burglars and nothing can be done.
32:10
You know, so this is pole part of the argument with the the
32:13
industry having and I've got a bit of gossip actually.
32:16
I mean, we talked a couple of weeks ago, I think about how the
32:19
industry had launched this huge campaign, hadn't it, to say the
32:21
government do AU turn, don't do the plans you were going to do.
32:25
And at a time there was a report day after, I think, saying the
32:28
government was considering, you know, listening to them and
32:30
doing something. But in the last week I've heard,
32:32
we've heard of a couple of people who should know, who are
32:35
kind of close to the lobbying side of our industry saying
32:39
they're not feeling very confident, they're quite
32:41
downbeat. They don't think the
32:42
government's going to listen. They sort of think that AI
32:46
growth at all costs argument will trump the don't destroy our
32:49
creative industries argument. So in a way that people optimism
32:54
has been just sort of streaming away a little bit in the
32:56
industry. So which may be why Sony Music
33:00
went so kind of public saying that here's the submission,
33:02
here's this big, terrible stat. I think the industry is fighting
33:05
back. But yeah, there's a little bit
33:06
of a change of confidence over whether the government's
33:08
listening. So we have to keep an eye on
33:10
that. OK, a new app has launched and
33:15
it's been launched by RAC, not the car breakdowns people it
33:20
says here, which is disappointing really because an
33:23
app launched by RACA music app launched by the RAC would have
33:28
been a good story, but it's not. It's the electronic music
33:32
artists who is encouraging fans to review albums to help them be
33:37
discovered. Tell us more about this.
33:39
Well, so stop me when you've asked how innovative is this?
33:41
Like imagine if people could write about whether albums are
33:44
good or not. People could read that and
33:46
decide accordingly. Why?
33:47
Has anyone tried this before in any media more?
33:52
But like this is kind of, I quite like this.
33:54
So this is something that's missing from streaming, isn't
33:56
it? Like there's no, there are album
33:57
reviews in streaming. You can't go on Spotify and read
34:00
someone saying this is great. This is not great.
34:03
And music media has had like a famously tough time, whether
34:06
it's magazines closing or websites struggling to earn
34:08
money, you know, and music journalists going into other
34:11
jobs because there's no money. And, you know, it's, it's been a
34:13
tough time. And so this guy RAC, he's
34:16
actually an interesting guy. He's an electric music artist.
34:18
He's independent, he's got control.
34:20
He's always had this record of trying out technologies and
34:24
working with startups and launching his own things.
34:26
And, you know, so this is an app called Factory FM, which you may
34:31
hear is Tony Wilson spinning in his grave around now.
34:33
Nothing to do with him, the Manchester Factory.
34:36
And yet you can go on there. You can rate and review albums.
34:39
You can browse other reviews. They've got some artists on
34:41
there doing it too. And he's asked people he wants,
34:43
he doesn't want people to kind of just come and list everything
34:45
they've ever listened to. It's not like a sort of a
34:47
collecting collection thing. He wants people to kind of write
34:50
meaningful stuff about albums they love or the memories
34:53
associated with them. He wants it to be kind of
34:54
somewhere you share interesting, thoughtful stories about albums.
34:59
And yeah, I mean, they've got more than two and a half
35:01
thousand people been using it, and it's sort of beta test.
35:04
I don't know how it makes money like this.
35:06
This stuff is notoriously hard to make money from.
35:10
But I quite like the idea that that there's all this
35:14
conversation around music that is just not present on the
35:17
streaming surfaces at all. Like you can see a playlist on
35:20
Spotify, Apple Music, but you can't really read what people
35:23
think about something or you can't.
35:25
You mean there was a time, oh God, it's like 10 or more years
35:28
ago where Spotify did these deals with music publishers and
35:30
said, OK, the enemy. And people could actually have
35:32
their reviews appear in Spotify when you're listening to stuff
35:35
or to help. And that that probably the
35:37
wayside later on. But yeah, so it's kind of a it's
35:40
just another attempt to reinvent the idea of people are talking
35:44
about music. How can you use that as a place
35:46
to find stuff? But yeah, what be nice we'll be
35:49
doing on the streaming service, I think, rather than a
35:51
standalone app. Yeah, finally, this week a group
35:54
of university students who just also happened to be fans of this
35:58
show, have published a new report on the music economy of
36:03
Gloucestershire. This sounds great.
36:06
So what? What is it?
36:07
What does it entail? Who are they?
36:10
Do we know all their names do? You know, I was looking at the,
36:14
the, there's, there's a few too many of them to list 1 by 1.
36:16
But yeah, it's a group of students at the University of
36:18
Gloucestershire and they're working with this, there's this
36:21
team called Out the Box Productions who are kind of a
36:23
team of music business academics.
36:25
So they're looking at the music business through lens of
36:27
academia. And yeah, they they did a survey
36:30
of 102 people in Gloucestershire about everything from like how
36:33
musicians make money to the impact of COVID and Brexit.
36:36
It looked at dynamic pricing. So your mate John Collins from
36:39
Live is interviewed in this report.
36:41
Oh, great. Yeah.
36:42
The local gigs and festivals circuit and it's, it's really
36:45
like a lot of the things we've talked about on a global scale.
36:49
It's trying to drill that down and say, what does it mean for
36:51
people in this county in this part of the world?
36:54
And it's interesting. And like, like this, it makes
36:56
some conclusions that, like, there's this really exciting
36:59
generation of artists who are ambitious and ready, but just
37:02
the support for them is still hard to find.
37:05
And they talk about the idea of you need to strengthen the local
37:07
infrastructure everywhere, not just in the big cities because
37:10
there are artists there. And it talks about also breaking
37:13
down the perception and trust between the industry and the
37:15
audience. And it's sort of as, you know,
37:17
more transparency, like fans being more aware of how artists
37:20
make their money and the challenges they face.
37:22
And it's just like it's, it's really hyperlocal.
37:25
It's focused on this particular part of the UK.
37:27
But I think a lot of its findings, you could just like
37:30
apply them to a lot of different parts of the UK too.
37:32
Like this idea of looking super local can give you these these
37:34
thoughts that apply much more widely.
37:37
So even if you're not in Gloucestershire, there's
37:39
something interesting there. But I do.
37:41
But I think, do you know what I think this is?
37:42
I mean, this is, this could be really valuable and it's
37:45
certainly, I mean, be a real lesson for, you know, some,
37:49
yeah, other parts of the country.
37:51
I mean, here's the first thing. There's probably anything which
37:56
changes our, our thought processes about music in this
38:01
country is, is good. So I'm talking to actual music
38:03
fans. That's good, isn't it?
38:06
Or talking to people about how they relate with music is good.
38:09
But so much of, I think obviously with the music
38:11
industry, so much of it based in London, then you know, people,
38:17
whether it's industry figures or tastemakers, base quite a lot of
38:21
judgement on what's happening in London.
38:23
Anything to tell you more about what's because the other thing
38:26
is that every part of the UK has its own different music scene
38:30
and its own different audiences and they all, you know, they all
38:34
interact in slightly different ways.
38:36
I mean, everyone goes to gigs, but you know, why?
38:40
What sort of gigs? What kind of what experience do
38:44
they have? All this knowledge would be
38:48
great to have. So the, the idea that, yeah,
38:51
doing it in Gloucestershire, well, well done.
38:53
Because, you know, it'd be great to have something like this
38:56
from, from Yorkshire or from around Merseyside.
39:00
And you can see, you know, the slight, maybe the slight
39:03
differences, but but also anything that Rams home the fact
39:07
that, you know, there is a music as say, a music industry out
39:11
there and brings us more information about how people re
39:16
interact with music and what they want from music and how
39:20
they feel the music industry is doing.
39:22
That's that's terrific, I think. Yeah, and I think it's, it's, I
39:26
mean, it's not a brand new thing, but this discipline of
39:28
like examining music's impact on the places.
39:32
It is like, like there's there's a whole string of research on
39:34
music cities, which is like how should town planning be adapted
39:37
for, for, for music? There's people looking at, yeah,
39:40
local scenes. Like I feel like it's a it's
39:42
it's an open door. And so.
39:43
Yeah. So I think you can find this
39:45
report. I think if you Google the music
39:47
economy of Gloucestershire, like there's not much SEO competition
39:50
on Google for it because that hasn't been done before.
39:53
You know, This is why it's so interesting and you can find
39:55
where to report. And yeah, I think like you say,
39:56
maybe someone in Yorkshire will see this report and go, we could
39:59
do that here, let's do that here.
40:01
And it becomes a ripple effect and you you end up learning a
40:04
lot more about what's needed. To help these these kind of
40:07
these local scenes. Also, anything that makes
40:09
anything, excuse me, anything that makes pop music slightly
40:13
more higher brow, I'm definitely in favour of.
40:17
Yeah, right. That will have to do it for this
40:20
week. Thank you as always for
40:22
listening. Thank you very much everyone.
40:24
If you have enjoyed the show, please do tell your friends and
40:29
well subscribe in your in your podcast app that helps the
40:32
figures. Give us a review if you can, but
40:35
tell a few mates about what we're doing here.
40:38
You can also support the program through our aforementioned
40:42
Patreon page where you can become a Price of Music fan or
40:45
super fan for as little as £2.00 a month.
40:48
You'll find itsapatreon.com/the Price of Music and any questions
40:53
you have for us, any financial facts you'd like us to to try
40:57
and track down, or insights into any areas of the music industry
41:00
which you'd like to understand more.
41:03
Drop us a line with your enquiries.
41:04
We'll do some more of those in futureweeksthepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com
41:10
is the address. Till next time, look after
41:13
yourselves, Tora. None.