Latest / The Price of Music / Spotify will launch an AI-music service... but what might it be – and will artists get paid? MTV shuts its music video channels; The Irish basic income for musicians; and Stu sings Baby Shark (again)

Transcript

Spotify will launch an AI-music service... but what might it be – and will artists get paid? MTV shuts its music video channels; The Irish basic income for musicians; and Stu sings Baby Shark (again) · The Price of Music

• 0:02
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by
• 0:05
  Music Ally, the show that's fascinated by all the fun and
• 0:08
  games and finances of the music world as explained each week by
• 0:12
  me, Steve Lamac and him, Stuart Dredge.
• 0:14
  If you want an easy guide to what's going on in the music biz
• 0:16
  and how it all works and how the figures stack up, then here we
• 0:21
  are every week starting with a with a big stats.
• 0:24
  I don't know if it's going to be a big stats.
• 0:26
  It's a, it's a stat from a reasonably big event, but just
• 0:30
  how big was the Mercury's this year?
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  What's the stat you've got for us, Stuart from the Mercury's?
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  I mean, it's a percentage stat, so you know it's all relative,
• 0:41
  but the stat is 74%. 74%, which is, I'm guessing how much
• 0:48
  someone's sales have increased since being part of the Mercury
• 0:52
  Prize night. This is true.
• 0:54
  It's the winner himself, Sam Fender.
• 0:56
  So this is the amount his Spotify streams grew by in the
• 0:59
  hours after he won the prize compared to the week before.
• 1:02
  So a bunch of people went on, saw him win and went, right, I'm
• 1:05
  going to go and stream it. Listen to him for a bit of
• 1:08
  context. He's got nearly 8.1 million
• 1:10
  listeners on Spotify. So that's quite.
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  So 74% spike in streams is kind of meaningful.
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  Yeah. I mean, I was looking at last
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  year. Do you remember last year an
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  English teacher won the Mercury Prize, Yes.
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  And there was this press release came out saying they saw a chart
• 1:24
  sales increase of 1073% in the following week.
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  And then a few lines below said it got to #40 in the chart.
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  Yeah. Which, yeah, it was starting.
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  It was. It was starting from a very low
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  figure probably, wasn't it? Because, I mean, and obviously
• 1:39
  so because the album had been out for a while, so it wouldn't
• 1:42
  have been, it wasn't as if it was at its peak.
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  So it would have been selling scant copies until, yeah, until
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  the spotlight was shone on it. But 73% not, not to be sniffed
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  out. We'll come back to the Mercury
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  Prize and some thoughts on that in the lock in a bit later for
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  our Patreon subscribers. But we will bring you our big
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  stories first. Three big stories.
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  As always, we try and sift through all the news from the
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  past week and bring you the three stories you can tell.
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  I've got a cold. Bring me, bring you the three
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  stories that have been big industry talking points.
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  Certainly this one has. I saw a lot of people firing off
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  emails after this announcement that Spotify is going to be,
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  well, it's going to make artist first AI music products.
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  In inverted commas, all three major labels and some
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  independents have already signed up to this.
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  The question obviously to start with is what is an artist first
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  AI music product? Well, we're going to have to
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  wait a while to find out because it's very, very purposefully
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  vague, this announcement. But yeah, responsible AI
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  products that empower the artists and songwriters they
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  represent and connect them with the fans who support them.
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  So it's very broad brush. We're going to do stuff, we're
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  going to do it with the labels and the artists, and it's all
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  going to be friendly. Was basically the gist of this
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  announcement, right? And look, can we read anything
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  into this? I mean, let's we should make the
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  point. This is not, this is not labels
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  signing licensing deals on the subjects on the topic of AIS,
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  it's not an AI licensing deal arrangement.
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  This is something else. Yeah, it's kind of the pre
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  licensing deal in a way. It's saying we're going to build
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  stuff. We're not sure yet what we're
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  going to work with them to do it.
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  And when we do it, we're going to license first.
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  So in a way, it's, it's Spotify sort of saying this is how we're
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  going to approach doing AI stuff.
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  We're going to do it by the book.
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  And as much as we, we, we sometimes criticize Spotify and
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  people do, this is exactly what the music industry has been
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  calling for. They want AI companies doing AI
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  stuff to come first and say partner first, figure out what
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  you're going to do with us, and then license music properly.
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  Yeah. And pay us, pay us appropriately
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  for for the rights to use use our material.
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  So I can speculate a bit. I mean, so one interesting line
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  in the announcement was that artists and rights holders will
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  choose if and how to participate.
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  So the implication there is whatever Spotify does end up
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  building not just labels, but artists can say, I don't want to
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  be part of this. There will be music used.
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  So that's, again, that's a good thing.
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  So could be a tricky area if label, if a label says we're
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  going to be part of it and then an artist says, well, I don't
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  want to be make sure my mute's kept out of it.
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  Yeah, and in terms of speculation like that phrase
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  about it's about empowering artists and connecting them with
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  fans. You can read some stuff into
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  that. What this certainly won't be.
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  It's not going to be a service where you or me can hit a button
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  and make an AI track and release it on Spotify.
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  Like they're not going to do that.
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  Labels would hate that. That's I would say it's off the
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  table from now. So I think it's more about, it
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  might be, for example, it could be about using AI in some way to
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  create your own version of a song by an artist.
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  You know, they could say, right, I'm allowing my new single to be
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  remixed using AI into different kind of styles and genres.
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  That's something that people have done before.
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  It could be even outside music. So you know, Spotify sells
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  T-shirts and much they could they could do something where
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  you get to remix a band's artwork or logo into your own
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  T-shirt design using Gen. AI.
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  I mean, that's not the music itself, but that they could do
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  that. So I think what it is and that's
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  we're going to do stuff, we're going to experiment, we're going
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  to we're going to announce this partnership.
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  Then we're going to talk to everyone about our ideas and
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  their ideas. And then when the time comes,
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  we'll license and we'll let people opt out if they want to.
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  So I mean, I don't know if you saw there was, there's been
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  chatter online. I think artists who don't like
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  Spotify already, who don't trust them, you know, reacted as you
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  would expect. They said, well, we don't trust
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  them in this either. How do we, how can we believe
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  their promises? This is going to be artists 1st
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  and so on. There's been a lot of that
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  chatter. But in an industry level, this
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  is very much what this is how labels want every AI company to
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  do it. They want them to come first,
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  figure out a deal and then you know, to it properly.
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  So in that sense, it's it's setting a little bar I think for
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  other AI companies to follow perhaps.
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  Yeah, I mean what it will come down to how much money is
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  involved in the licensing deals once it because I guess you
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  know, for people who will criticise Spotify, they'll be
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  saying Spotify don't give us enough money for use of our
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  music when it comes to paying royalties.
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  So I so they will probably say so.
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  I suspect they they won't pay us enough money to license our
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  music for their AI assisted music products.
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  Yeah, and again, the transparency of the ad is going
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  to be important if a label doesn't deal with Spotify to
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  tell us artists how much and how.
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  I mean, the other thing, it was interesting line in the
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  announcement saying it's it's kind of a warning in a way.
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  It said some voices in the tech industry believe copyright
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  should be abolished. We don't musicians rights matter
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  and copyright is essential, which is all good stuff.
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  If the music industry doesn't lead in this moment, AI powered
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  innovation will happen elsewhere without rights, consent or
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  compensation. It's kind of spot by saying this
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  stuff is going to happen and if you don't want just the bad guys
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  doing it, we're going to do it with you.
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  So. So does this, I mean this, does
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  this put us right back where we were when the music industry was
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  scared of online bootlegging? You know, the big piracy wars,
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  Does it take us back to the days of Napster where the music
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  industry is flapping around going, we've got to do something
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  about this? And Apple came along and said,
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  well, we can do this. I mean, and negotiated a very
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  good deal for Apple because there was panic in the music
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  industry. They knew, knew they had to do
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  something. So they sold themselves slightly
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  cheaply, I think at the time. So are we back there again?
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  I've heard the word naps do it more often than the last two
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  weeks than I have in the previous few months.
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  So there's that parallels. Don't join me.
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  I think. I think it's definitely like
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  there's a really firm sense in the industry of we want to do
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  deals that we had a conference last week from Music LA and
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  there was a big thing we want to do deals.
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  And that's two reasons. One is we want to be making
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  stuff ourselves and like that be on the inside of it.
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  And the other is if you're going to sue people for doing bad
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  things, you need to prove that you are also licensing people to
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  do good things. So in a way, the music industry
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  does need to be have some partners.
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  So yeah, I think it, I think it's a really relevant example,
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  Napster. And I think maybe that's, that's
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  what the music industry has also got in mind.
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  So they'll be thinking back to, well, how was the Apple deal
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  good for us? How do we maybe not so good for
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  us? And we're going to try and avoid
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  that again. So I think maybe, I think maybe
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  it will act as a lesson and hopefully not just a repetition
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  of any of the things people were unhappy with before.
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  Okay, from one one name from days of yore, from Napster to
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  another name from the past. Our second story this week, it's
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  it's the end of an era, as we learned that MTV is shutting
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  down its last remaining music channels, once seen as, well, an
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  essential part of the music landscape, a network, obviously,
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  that could break bands and make global hits.
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  But the game is up for MTV, which I guess, I suppose isn't
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  surprising, giving all the alternative channels now open to
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  artists. But I'm sure there'll be one or
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  two people shedding A nostalgic tear this week.
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  I think it is one of those things, isn't it, where a lot of
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  people are going. I didn't even realise they still
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  have music channels. But feeling sad because when you
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  were young, like when I was, when I was, when I was a
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  teenager revising for my A levels, MTV was my my companion.
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  So you know, but yeah, I mean, I, I hadn't thought about Mt VS
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  music channels for a long, long time.
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  But yeah, MTV music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s club, MTV and MTV live,
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  they're all they're all ending on 31st December.
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  But, and I know you're going to be worried about this, what
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  about the MTV channel that shows Geordie Shore and naked dating
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  UK? Is that what MTV does these
• 9:54
  days? Well, yeah, yeah.
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  Do you remember the era when the Osbournes came and the reality
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  shows and Geordie Shore Jersey? Shore.
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  Yeah, so there's there's still a channel does that and that's
• 10:05
  carrying on. So people who want their naked
• 10:07
  dating UK fixed don't have to worry.
• 10:09
  It's just the music videos. I mean, it does make you it does
• 10:14
  make you think though, doesn't it?
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  Of all the music based media and online companies that have been
• 10:19
  so integral at a certain point in history and then were left
• 10:23
  behind. MTVI mean we've talked recently
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  about the music weekly, the Inkies, you know, the weekly
• 10:30
  music papers. Myspace, I mean, you know, I'm
• 10:34
  sure I'm probably missing some out of this list.
• 10:36
  Myspace, you know, like MTV, help break bands for a while
• 10:40
  there, and as quickly as it arrived, that was gone.
• 10:44
  Well, it makes you wonder, doesn't it, in five years time,
• 10:46
  will we be talking about TikTok going and things?
• 10:48
  Because because I think this is the other thing I've seen.
• 10:50
  You've probably seen this this week as well.
• 10:52
  Like there's a lot of talk about, is this the is this the
• 10:55
  the nail in the coffin of the long form music video?
• 10:58
  Is there any? And we talked about Lizzo
• 11:00
  recently, didn't we, saying no point in doing music videos now
• 11:03
  just make TikTok clips. And it's weird because like if
• 11:07
  you say the music video like the four minute or you know, if
• 11:11
  you're Guns and Roses, the 12 minute, if you're Michael
• 11:13
  Jackson, the 27 minute long form video like that, that is but but
• 11:18
  music video as a generic thing is everywhere.
• 11:20
  It's on TikTok, it's Instagram, like the clips of video with
• 11:23
  music accompanying it is bigger than ever.
• 11:25
  But it's not happening on TV's now because people are just
• 11:29
  people are just sitting on their phone scrolling.
• 11:31
  And that's the change in behaviour really.
• 11:33
  So so that's what Mt VS. I guess the challenge I'm doing
• 11:37
  was not just that music videos maybe had been had evolved into
• 11:40
  different things, but people watching linear TV has changed.
• 11:45
  And if you want to watch the new video from your band you love,
• 11:47
  you go to YouTube or you go somewhere else.
• 11:48
  You don't need to wait. For it, yeah, I mean none of
• 11:50
  this helped of course by the fact that there there aren't the
• 11:53
  budgets for music videos. If it's one of those things,
• 11:56
  it's related, isn't it? If music videos seem to not have
• 12:00
  less impacts in terms of a marketing campaign, then let's
• 12:04
  spend less money on them. And if you spend less money on
• 12:07
  them, obviously they're not the big firework moments in the
• 12:09
  video world. And then slowly the whole thing
• 12:12
  goes into a slight decline. I mean, there are still
• 12:15
  obviously, particularly every week you'll see a young band
• 12:19
  whose mates has made a video for them for probably peanuts, which
• 12:24
  is really brilliant. But further you go up the scale
• 12:27
  and I'm sure ambitious video makers probably reach a point
• 12:30
  where the major label gets in touch and says we would like an
• 12:34
  amazing video for our new signings.
• 12:36
  And then when they say what's the budget, it's still going to
• 12:38
  be 5050 P. That's that's a problem.
• 12:41
  That's a problem where when it comes to music videos at the
• 12:44
  moment, just no, just no budget for anyone.
• 12:47
  Yeah, and that's the thing so you can work with brands like,
• 12:50
  you know, that band OK go the the the band who they've made a
• 12:53
  habit of getting brands to pay loads of money for them to call
• 12:55
  stuff in videos. I was watching.
• 12:58
  I was watching later this week with yours Holland and it was
• 13:03
  Jenny Best was on it. Absolutely.
• 13:05
  I mean, a performance that, you know, makes your hair stand and
• 13:08
  end and that is going to be on YouTube, I think because later
• 13:11
  puts a lot of videos on YouTube. And so I don't think she needs a
• 13:14
  music video for that song. She could have that live
• 13:16
  performance. And I think there's there's a
• 13:18
  whole bunch of companies that exist to kind of film
• 13:20
  performances and put them online.
• 13:22
  So if you're a band, I think nowadays, again, why spend money
• 13:25
  on a video unless you've really got a concept you want to make
• 13:29
  when you can probably find someone to film you performing
• 13:31
  it really well. And that's the thing that will
• 13:33
  spread. So like there's alternative ways
• 13:35
  to like music video is a much wider thing now.
• 13:39
  But yeah. And I mean, with MTV, again, I
• 13:42
  don't know. I'm trying to think the last
• 13:43
  time I watched it. I mean, maybe one New Year's Eve
• 13:45
  when I was trying to find some music to put in the background
• 13:48
  while we were playing games with the kids or something, you know?
• 13:50
  But I mean what it was, it was so key to me when I was 1516.
• 13:55
  OK, final big story. The Australian music industry is
• 14:00
  increasingly worried about local artists and they're falling
• 14:04
  share of streams on the big music services.
• 14:08
  And it's not, I mean it's not the only English speaking
• 14:10
  country who have these worries at the moment that the their own
• 14:15
  music scenes aren't competing on the on the streaming platforms.
• 14:21
  Yeah, this is a bigger story, I think, and I think it's going to
• 14:23
  one that's going to grow. But yeah, this is a report from
• 14:26
  a company called APRA Amcos, like the Collecting Society for
• 14:28
  Australia, New Zealand. And this report was like, we
• 14:31
  collected and paid out a record amount of royalties last year.
• 14:34
  And you think, oh, great. But then said, yeah, that that
• 14:37
  the share of of works by local songwriters and composers
• 14:40
  steadily declined on streaming and also on short video services
• 14:44
  like TikTok. So I think on streaming
• 14:46
  services, what was it 4 years ago, Australian music was 13.6%
• 14:51
  of streams in Australia and now it's 9.5%.
• 14:54
  So down by nearly 1/3. And yeah, when I was writing
• 14:58
  about this, it did strike me that this is something that's
• 15:01
  happening in the UK where there's been these worries about
• 15:03
  local artists not being in chart in Canada.
• 15:06
  Canada had built this fund that he wants streaming services to
• 15:08
  pay into, to support local artists.
• 15:10
  And, and part of that is worry about.
• 15:12
  And so these are like the three biggest outside the US English
• 15:17
  speaking markets. And yet if you talk to people in
• 15:20
  France or in Germany, their charts are like full of local
• 15:24
  artists singing in French and German.
• 15:25
  And they're really excited about that.
• 15:27
  Mexico and Brazil, Poland. So there's this thing happening
• 15:30
  in streaming, which is that there's kind of worrying
• 15:33
  happening in the Anglo markets that aren't the US because in
• 15:35
  the US it can still, you know, Taylor Swift, Sabrina carpet to
• 15:41
  big stars in the US, still travel worldwide.
• 15:44
  But yeah, maybe something is happening here where the English
• 15:47
  speaking countries used to be bigger and maybe now are facing
• 15:51
  all this competition from K pop, athbeats, reggaeton, but also
• 15:54
  local scenes in local countries. So I think and Australia is
• 16:00
  quite interesting because I think saying there's a problem
• 16:03
  here or we're worried is Part 1, but then Part 2 is what you do
• 16:05
  about this to support your local scene.
• 16:08
  So what Canada's try to do is try to get money off the big
• 16:11
  streaming services to support local artists.
• 16:12
  In Australia there were these suggestions that maybe should we
• 16:15
  make streaming services recommend and playlist local
• 16:18
  artists more in the same way that you get radio quotas in
• 16:20
  some countries, you know, and Spotify didn't like that.
• 16:24
  They kind of pushed back against that and said, no, we do a lot
• 16:26
  for Australian artists. Look, here's all the things we
• 16:28
  do. But I think in markets where
• 16:31
  people are worried about local scenes, you may start to see
• 16:34
  this. Well, hang on a minute.
• 16:35
  How many artists are you recommending?
• 16:38
  You know, why your playlists full of the big American stars
• 16:40
  and not more local acts? I think we're going to see more
• 16:42
  of that discussion. And maybe, I mean, I've not seen
• 16:45
  it happen in the UK. Interestingly, no one's really
• 16:47
  been pressuring the streaming services to put more British
• 16:50
  artists in their playlists. But this is the kind of
• 16:53
  conversation you end up having, perhaps.
• 16:55
  Yeah. OK.
• 16:57
  Any other baseline? Oh, I'll tell you about what we
• 16:59
  should come back to now. We've had some time to digest
• 17:02
  some of the the topics that were raised, which just very quickly
• 17:05
  go back to last week's interview with a IFCEO John Rostrum, which
• 17:10
  I thought was really good. I mean a really good summary of,
• 17:13
  you know, where we are in terms of the independent festival
• 17:17
  circuits in 2025. I do have a listen if you missed
• 17:21
  it by the way, because I mean you'll you'll find out that
• 17:24
  amongst other things, how much portaloos cost.
• 17:27
  But what what I found especially interesting.
• 17:29
  I don't know about whether whether you thought the same
• 17:32
  Stewart, but was the importance and the popularity of early bird
• 17:36
  tickets. How the how the the concept of
• 17:39
  the early bird ticket is now. You know, it's now, I mean,
• 17:42
  central, isn't it to to the part of to the festival?
• 17:46
  So the year in the life of a festival is, and also the knock
• 17:50
  on from that of, you know, in some cases, people wanting to
• 17:53
  announce bands early so that you can have a first wave early.
• 17:58
  But we go early bird, then first wave of announcement.
• 18:01
  But getting ticket sales done possibly before Christmas is
• 18:06
  really important. That was one of the things I
• 18:08
  took. Wife.
• 18:08
  Yeah. Which always, I mean, I, I
• 18:10
  always think, God, that the last thing I want to do when
• 18:12
  finishing a three days at a festival is, is pay to spend
• 18:15
  more days in a tent next year. But like he was saying, that's
• 18:18
  crucial, isn't it? And I mean, it's because it
• 18:20
  makes it makes more sense to me now as someone who's not really
• 18:23
  like in that world deep as deeply as you are.
• 18:25
  For example, like I sometimes when the festival is kind of
• 18:29
  announced and then a few weeks later is cancelled quickly.
• 18:32
  It always seemed very strange to me.
• 18:34
  It's happened recently one near me.
• 18:36
  But that makes sense now because if the early bird tickets flop,
• 18:39
  then like he said, they kind of know this is going to be a
• 18:42
  challenging. Yeah, yeah.
• 18:44
  And so setting themselves targets of we need to sell this
• 18:48
  amount will I mean, you know, so yeah, there's various things,
• 18:51
  isn't it? It's one, there's confidence in
• 18:53
  the festival if the tickets go well or no confidence if if
• 18:57
  obviously, as you say, the ticket sales flop initially,
• 19:00
  you're never going to recover from that.
• 19:01
  I don't think over the course of the year in the run up to the
• 19:04
  festival itself. So you just take the decision
• 19:07
  very early doors. Let's let's let's bend this off.
• 19:10
  Maybe it wasn't a good idea, but which brings us to something
• 19:13
  else, which was, I mean, makes absolute sense, but I hadn't
• 19:17
  really thought about is the difference between festivals
• 19:19
  which know it's, which have an audience, have a community
• 19:23
  around it. They're more likely to succeed
• 19:26
  than if you start a new festival and it's just got a handful of
• 19:28
  bands on because each year the bands are going to be different
• 19:31
  and you can't, you'll just have a transient audience who won't
• 19:34
  necessarily come every year. You need the people who buy the
• 19:37
  early bird ticket when they leave having had a good time and
• 19:40
  you know they're coming back next year because they want to
• 19:42
  feel part of the same sense of community.
• 19:45
  Yeah, and I've noticed I went to I went to a thing called
• 19:47
  Mistress Mary last year, which is The Secret Garden Party
• 19:50
  people. And it's like AI think it's one
• 19:52
  of those festivals, like he said, started as a party and
• 19:54
  expanded and it's kind of friends of friends of friends.
• 19:56
  And when you go into somewhere that's got that strong
• 19:59
  community, got people who've come back every year as a
• 20:02
  newcomer, it it feels even better as well.
• 20:04
  I think like it isn't just a bunch of people in a field and
• 20:06
  the band is coming in sometime. So I think it did make me think,
• 20:09
  yeah, that that maybe that is the defining thing.
• 20:11
  And then you don't need to know who's playing, do you?
• 20:13
  Before you buy a ticket. You just know you want to come
• 20:15
  back with these people next to you and you trust them on the
• 20:17
  lineup. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:19
  As I say, I mean, even just for the revealing cost of some of
• 20:23
  the utilities like portaloos and diesel and making sure you've
• 20:27
  got enough water, all the practicalities of putting a
• 20:30
  festival on. All very well done.
• 20:32
  All explained brilliantly, I thought, by John from AIF.
• 20:37
  A very informative 40 minutes, which as I say, if you missed it
• 20:41
  is available to you now. I should also mention actually
• 20:45
  on the subject of guests, we are hoping to have another guest
• 20:48
  joining us in the next fortnight, Lord Kevin Brennan,
• 20:52
  the music for the, the music loving former MP.
• 20:55
  I'm just thinking we've never had a Lord on this programme
• 20:57
  before. Baron Brennan's coming on.
• 21:00
  We hope Kevin Brennan, some of you may know because he is, I
• 21:03
  mean, he's a, he's a massive music fan and it's as does in
• 21:08
  fact have a band or had a band in parliament.
• 21:11
  We'll have to ask whether he's still got the the band together,
• 21:13
  which also features a former member of Runrig who's now an
• 21:16
  MP. But anyway, Kevin Brennan will
• 21:19
  be coming on to talk about the long overdue fan LED review of
• 21:24
  music, which hopes to put music fans opinions in front of
• 21:29
  governments. We'll explain more about that
• 21:30
  next week, hopefully. Anything else?
• 21:33
  Oh, do you want to mention Drake's?
• 21:36
  Which bad day in court? Oh yeah, Well, he didn't get to
• 21:39
  court, actually. He got thrown out.
• 21:40
  So yeah, Drake was suing Universal Music with We've been
• 21:43
  talking about this, haven't we, regularly.
• 21:45
  And the judge dismissed it and said so should I recap that?
• 21:49
  This is, yeah, You should remind us of why he was bringing this,
• 21:52
  because he was bringing a lawsuit against Universal.
• 21:55
  But yeah, why was he doing that? What was the back story?
• 21:58
  Yeah, so he lost his rap battle with Kendrick Lamar.
• 22:00
  I think that's a fair. That's a bit objective thing to
• 22:02
  say. And then he sued Universal
• 22:04
  Music, not Kendrick, for defamation because of this line
• 22:09
  accusing him of being a paedophile.
• 22:12
  And Drake said this, people were going to think I'm a paedophile
• 22:15
  because you said it in the song. And the judge dismissed the case
• 22:18
  and said, and here's a quote. The broader context of a heated
• 22:22
  rap battle with incendiary language and offensive
• 22:24
  accusations held by both participants would not incline
• 22:27
  the reasonable listener to believe that not like us.
• 22:30
  The Kendrick song imparts verifiable facts about
• 22:33
  plaintiff. Essentially, it's a rap battle.
• 22:35
  You're insulting each other. Grow up.
• 22:37
  The paraphrase. So Universal said, which we're
• 22:41
  going to get on with promoting Drake's music and investing in
• 22:43
  his career. And then Drake's team said,
• 22:46
  Nope, we're going to appeal. So it's still carrying on.
• 22:50
  But there's an interesting angle to this that I hadn't really
• 22:53
  realised before. There's quite a few people in
• 22:56
  the rap world in the US are quite are quite happy with this
• 22:58
  decision. And it's not because they don't
• 23:00
  like Drake or they're on Kendrick Lamar's side.
• 23:02
  There's this big campaign in the US at the moment, a campaign to
• 23:06
  stop rap lyrics being used in criminal trials.
• 23:09
  So if someone who's a rapper is on trial and they say, well
• 23:14
  basically you rap this and that in your songs, so this is
• 23:16
  evidence that you committed this crime, there's a big campaign to
• 23:19
  stop that happening. And so this is not fair.
• 23:22
  It's artistic expression. It's not them talking about
• 23:24
  what's happened. And so this Drake lawsuit was
• 23:27
  kind of possibly undermining that by saying what he wrapped
• 23:31
  should be in court and judged on.
• 23:34
  So I know a lot of people worried this might undermine
• 23:36
  these efforts to stop rap lyrics being used in criminal cases.
• 23:38
  So that's the angle to this that isn't funny.
• 23:40
  It's like this could have been maybe harmful to to that
• 23:43
  campaign. Yeah, I see how I mean this.
• 23:48
  I mean for Drake though, this must be costing a fortune.
• 23:53
  If you think so, yeah. And it's kind of, I don't know.
• 23:55
  I mean, I understand why you want to pursue it because if
• 23:58
  you're feeling, you know, hurt, but at some point you have to
• 24:01
  sort of walk away and say, OK, I mean, this is getting this gets
• 24:04
  more humiliating if you carry it on.
• 24:06
  I mean, I'd still be really shocked if both sides don't find
• 24:09
  a way to resolve this. Like, even the whole saying
• 24:12
  we're going to appeal maybe feels to me like a gambit to try
• 24:15
  to, you know, just settle this between them.
• 24:20
  And then what happens? Universal saying we're looking
• 24:23
  forward to continuing to besting his career.
• 24:24
  It's hard to see him getting back together after this.
• 24:26
  But that's the other thing. What happens then if if he walks
• 24:29
  away from Universal Music Group, suddenly every way of the label
• 24:32
  is going, wow, we could sign Drake now perhaps?
• 24:34
  Yeah, whose first track? Surely, surely what Drake should
• 24:37
  be doing is writing a song about the court case.
• 24:40
  Or about how how that's just how he feels about Universal Music
• 24:47
  Group in general. I mean, that mean surely that
• 24:50
  that's what you do. I mean, Drake is.
• 24:52
  Moaning enough already. I don't think I want to hear him
• 24:54
  moaning about his court case. Moaning, moaning, Drake.
• 24:57
  There he goes. He's always moaning, that fella,
• 25:00
  Drake. Moan, moan, moan.
• 25:04
  Oh, this might be worth mentioning, which is something
• 25:07
  which actually might have gone under the radar this, but
• 25:09
  Ireland is going to make its basic income scheme for artists
• 25:14
  permanent. What's what, what is it?
• 25:17
  Just to to explain what it is and why it's now important of
• 25:20
  obviously why it's important that it's now going to be
• 25:24
  ongoing this scheme. Yeah.
• 25:26
  So this idea of basic, I think we're going to be hearing a lot
• 25:29
  more of this phrase all of us in the future, not just musicians,
• 25:31
  but it, it was started in COVID and it was like a pilot.
• 25:34
  So just a very careful test of 2000 people from who are artists
• 25:38
  and then people in the creative arts industry were chosen and
• 25:43
  they were getting €325 a week as their basic income.
• 25:46
  So to help them support themselves.
• 25:48
  And it started in COVID, it was extended and it's due to end
• 25:52
  next year. But the culture and it says no,
• 25:53
  I think this is a really good thing.
• 25:54
  We're going to make a permanent scheme to follow it.
• 25:57
  And the idea is there are some people who just we like what
• 26:02
  they do, the work they do or the work they help come out deserves
• 26:06
  to be supported. And if we lose some, we lose
• 26:08
  something in society. And you know, for musicians,
• 26:12
  streaming is part of this, musicians who are making good
• 26:15
  music that's struggling and streaming.
• 26:17
  But AI is the thing that's really sparking talk about basic
• 26:20
  income schemes. I mean, if you have, if you
• 26:22
  followed the thing about universal basic income schemes,
• 26:26
  that's where everyone would get some money.
• 26:28
  Everyone would get a basic income to help us live and then
• 26:33
  we can make use of our time, you know, whatever way.
• 26:35
  And this is an idea, it's been talked about and it sounds
• 26:36
  really weird and niche, but as we grapple with this idea of
• 26:39
  like AI might be taking a lot of our jobs in the future.
• 26:43
  So. So yeah.
• 26:44
  So basically it's a it's a good thing.
• 26:46
  And I think Ireland were the one of the first countries to test
• 26:49
  this. OK.
• 26:50
  And the thing, that weird thing about it or not really the
• 26:52
  question about it is how do you decide who qualifies?
• 26:54
  Like this was going to be my first question because who, who,
• 26:58
  who gets, who gets the money and who doesn't get the money?
• 27:01
  That's that's the. So who decides and what's the
• 27:05
  criteria? Yeah.
• 27:07
  So in Ireland, you had to apply 2001 chosen at random because it
• 27:11
  was a test and you had to be over 18 and you had to be in the
• 27:14
  quote was in a position to evidence your creative practice
• 27:17
  or career in the arts. So you had to be able to show
• 27:19
  that you're not just someone saying I'm an artist and put a
• 27:22
  song out. You have to have evidence.
• 27:24
  And then certain professions weren't that.
• 27:25
  So sorry, artist managers, you weren't allowed in it, promoting
• 27:28
  agents weren't marketing PRP. It had to be kind of artists,
• 27:30
  creatives. But yeah, if you were going to
• 27:33
  do this, the permanent thing, it's going to be interesting to
• 27:36
  see how do you judge? Because, well, it's not like, I
• 27:39
  mean, it's not like anyone can say objectively this artist is
• 27:43
  good and that artist is not equally, if this is to support
• 27:47
  people who need the support, you can't just say, well, who's got
• 27:50
  more streams and who, because it's not about supporting people
• 27:53
  who've got more streams than someone else.
• 27:55
  So it's, it advised me, you know, my, my, my stepdad used to
• 27:59
  do bus skiing on the underground and he went to do the interview
• 28:02
  for that and it was basically three people who work for London
• 28:04
  Transport judging whether his music was good enough to get
• 28:08
  busky. And he said, it's a bit strange
• 28:10
  because I didn't know their, but you know, what their
• 28:12
  qualifications were for like in music.
• 28:14
  So that's to be, to be firm. But I think we're going to be
• 28:18
  hearing a lot more about this kind of thing about the study
• 28:20
  of, OK, there are various pressures for musicians and,
• 28:24
  and, and artists and all kinds of creatives, but we need that,
• 28:29
  the stuff they make. And so how, how do we support
• 28:34
  them? How do we decide who gets the
• 28:35
  support? And I think we're, yeah, Ireland
• 28:38
  is ahead of the grim in this, I think.
• 28:39
  I think other countries are going to watch what happens and
• 28:41
  how it does this new scheme to figure out well, what can we do
• 28:44
  for our musicians as well. Yeah.
• 28:46
  OK. And finally this week, I'm There
• 28:50
  we go again. This is in Stuart's ongoing
• 28:54
  attempts to get Baby Shark mentioned on this program on an
• 28:58
  almost weekly basis. I'll bring you this.
• 29:01
  And finally, the news that no parent of an under 5 wanted to
• 29:06
  hear Peppa Pig and Baby Shark are duessing for a Boxing Day
• 29:10
  music release. I think you've that's outrageous
• 29:14
  accusation of me trying to get there.
• 29:16
  I've got no, I'm not here to promote Baby Shark.
• 29:18
  I'm just fascinated by it. Here's the thing.
• 29:20
  Here's Do you want to feel really old suddenly?
• 29:22
  I mean, I did when I got up this morning, sneezing and a
• 29:25
  coughing, crawling out of bed thinking I've got to do podcast
• 29:30
  so I feel old enough. But if yes, OK, I'll.
• 29:33
  Make it worse. Yeah.
• 29:35
  Baby Shark is 10 years old. It's 10 years since Baby Shark
• 29:39
  appeared. Right.
• 29:41
  Yeah, OK, a decade. A decade, but yeah, so this is
• 29:44
  OK, but this is this is a music, genuine music story.
• 29:46
  So, yeah, Hasbro owns Peppa Pig and this company called Pinkfall
• 29:50
  and Baby Shark, and they've come together and I'm right.
• 29:51
  You know what we'd be? We've both got 10s of millions
• 29:54
  of streams online. Put them together and they're
• 29:56
  Boxing Day collaboration track. I haven't heard it yet, but you
• 29:59
  know exactly how it's going to go, don't you?
• 30:02
  It's going to go. It's going.
• 30:05
  To go, please, please don't say. Please don't say.
• 30:09
  No. Just stop.
• 30:11
  Stop down there. Yeah, I don't.
• 30:14
  This is something I don't want in my head.
• 30:16
  The thought of what's it going to sound like?
• 30:17
  Of course it will sound like this.
• 30:20
  But you know this, this will do numbers more than anyone we like
• 30:23
  either of us like, I think. Yeah, absolutely.
• 30:26
  Absolutely. It might be, you know, the week
• 30:29
  after Christmas number one. It's not really a title, but I
• 30:32
  wouldn't surprise me if that's number one and the week after
• 30:34
  Christmas. So watch your space.
• 30:36
  You have been warned. We're out of time for this week.
• 30:39
  Thank you very much for listening.
• 30:40
  If you are enjoying what we're trying to do, please do spread
• 30:44
  the word. Tell your friends or your work
• 30:46
  colleagues, anyone really. You can leave us a review
• 30:49
  online, that always helps. Or repost the show from your
• 30:53
  socials, You know, the sort of thing.
• 30:55
  Alternatively, you can support this via Patreon.
• 30:57
  In fact, if you sign up to be a super fan, you get an extra 15
• 31:01
  minutes or more some weeks of me and him chatting about music and
• 31:05
  money. Thank you very much to new super
• 31:08
  fans Paul Brindley and David Ely.
• 31:11
  Much obliged you gents. We do appreciate your support.
• 31:14
  You too can become a super fan of the show at patreon.com/the
• 31:18
  Price of Music. Alternatively, if you'd just
• 31:22
  like to get in touch with us, you can use our socials.
• 31:25
  We'll send us an e-mail, particularly if you've got any
• 31:28
  questions, things you don't understand about how the music
• 31:31
  industry works. It's the price of music,
• 31:33
  podcast@gmail.com. Off the back of that, I should
• 31:36
  probably just flag very quickly that next week will be a
• 31:40
  listeners questions special looking at how artists set
• 31:44
  ticket prices and missing credits on songs listed on
• 31:51
  streaming services. That and probably other things.
• 31:55
  So join us for that in seven days time.
• 31:57
  Till then, Cheerio.