Latest / The Price of Music / Spotify and Universal sign new licensing deal, Deezer publishing 10,000 AI-generated tracks every day

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Spotify and Universal sign new licensing deal, Deezer publishing 10,000 AI-generated tracks every day · The Price of Music

• 0:37
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, the show that looks at
• 0:40
  the money behind the music industry with me, Steve Lemack
• 0:43
  and Music Allies head of Insight Stuart Dredge, who was otherwise
• 0:47
  engaged last week. Stuart, Which obviously on the
• 0:50
  upside meant we could bring everyone our interview with
• 0:53
  Simon Raymond, which I saw a lot of interesting revelations and
• 0:57
  opinions in it. But it does also, I mean, we
• 1:00
  have a lot of news to catch up on this week, including Macca's
• 1:03
  thoughts on AI, the latest report from the Music Venue
• 1:07
  Trust and Spotify's new deal with Universal Records.
• 1:12
  But first of all, talking about see where you were last week, it
• 1:16
  was the Music Ally conference. Was there did anything come out
• 1:20
  of that which you think we should know about?
• 1:22
  Yeah, it was good. So it's our annual conference
• 1:25
  and, and it's kind of just people from all over the world
• 1:27
  come along and talk about trends.
• 1:29
  It's all about trends and big picture stuff.
• 1:31
  And we had Apple Music speak this time, which is kind of a
• 1:34
  rarity. Like they speak at their own
• 1:35
  conferences and their own press launches, but not that often.
• 1:38
  And they came to talk about streaming fraud, which kind of
• 1:41
  is something we've, we've talked about quite regularly, haven't
• 1:43
  we, about people, kind of criminals.
• 1:45
  And their big announcement was that less than 1% of Apple Music
• 1:49
  streams are fraudulent. And they reckon it was actually
• 1:51
  close to 0.3%. And they kind of talked about
• 1:53
  how they've done it, which is a mixture of kind of creating
• 1:56
  tools to help labels and distributors work out if
• 1:58
  they're, if there's any dodginess going on with their
• 2:00
  music, but also punishment, like they'll kind of find them.
• 2:04
  I think they called it a financial adjustment, which is
• 2:06
  quite a nice euphemism for fine. So that was quite big news
• 2:09
  because like, I think remember a few months ago, we talked about
• 2:11
  Spotify coming out. And do you remember that $10
• 2:13
  million case where someone was allegedly stealing lots of money
• 2:16
  from this? And Spotify said very little if
• 2:18
  that was us. And now Apple is saying very
• 2:21
  little fraud is us too. So it's kind of pointing
• 2:24
  everyone to well, what if these if it's not those two services,
• 2:27
  where are all the criminals doing their streaming fraud?
• 2:30
  So we might see some of the other big streaming ServiceNow
• 2:32
  coming out and having to sort of talk about this too.
• 2:34
  Otherwise, you know, they'll get seen as seen as kind of the the
• 2:37
  problems. So that was good.
• 2:39
  But the other thing I'd pick out, we had this, we had this
• 2:42
  guy who I know he's called Darren Hemings.
• 2:43
  He runs an agency that works with kind of labels and artists
• 2:46
  and brands to do marketing. And he gave this brilliant.
• 2:49
  Like he gave one of those talks where everyone in the room is
• 2:51
  laughing because it's very funny, but it's also very
• 2:54
  serious. Like, I mean, he began by sort
• 2:56
  of saying space Karen has bought Twitter and it's now full of
• 3:00
  bigoted truth hating weirdos and meta's going the same way.
• 3:03
  And AI generated slop is about to ruin everything even more,
• 3:06
  which kind of gets everyone to set up and take, you know, pay
• 3:08
  attention. But he, he and other people were
• 3:11
  talking about this idea, like this idea of social media
• 3:13
  changing. So do you remember when, like
• 3:15
  when Twitter first came out and Instagram got big and it was all
• 3:19
  this thing of as an artist, you could reach your fans now and
• 3:21
  you could post and they could see your posts.
• 3:23
  And this is all the great the brave new world.
• 3:26
  And the, the sense I got from a few speakers was it's changing
• 3:30
  now and that these services, TikTok, Instagram, they're
• 3:33
  starting to see themselves in entertainment services, not
• 3:37
  social networks. So rather than seeing stuff from
• 3:40
  the people you follow or your friends, you're increasingly
• 3:43
  seeing a lot more stuff that they think you'll like by random
• 3:47
  things. And so you're seeing less of the
• 3:49
  stuff that your favorite artists post or your friends post.
• 3:52
  And there was a lot of talk in the room about that, about what
• 3:54
  does this mean for musicians who, you know, used to see
• 3:56
  social media as a really good place to connect with their
• 3:58
  fans. And there were people talking
• 3:59
  about, OK, now it's about bringing your fans to other
• 4:01
  places that you kind of have more control of.
• 4:04
  So a kind of resurgence in mailing lists and messaging
• 4:08
  groups and even like new stuff like Discord servers.
• 4:11
  But there was a lot of talk around the idea of, OK, social
• 4:14
  media is becoming less and less a place where if you post
• 4:18
  something, the people who follow you will see it.
• 4:20
  So I thought that was interesting that people are
• 4:21
  starting to figure out what to do about that.
• 4:23
  And it is all about, right, let's get our friends together.
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  So that was the other thing was a more trend.
• 4:27
  But it's good. Yeah.
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  It was generally quite positive, like everyone is.
• 4:30
  There was a lot of talk about AI and what that means.
• 4:32
  But again, more positive people saying actually all these things
• 4:35
  are quite disruptive, but we're going to roll up our sleeves and
• 4:38
  get on with making the best of it.
• 4:40
  So yeah. That's good.
• 4:41
  We'll come back to this week's AI story in a bit.
• 4:45
  You mentioned Spotify briefly there.
• 4:47
  This was big news a few days ago, Spotify and this came a bit
• 4:51
  out of the blue I I thought, but Spotify have signed a new deal
• 4:56
  with Universal Records. Yeah, so I remember the days
• 5:01
  when like the the signing of a new deal with a big major label
• 5:04
  was you'd have months leading up to it of like leaks and
• 5:07
  speculation, people saying, oh, this label's crossed with
• 5:10
  Spotify, but yeah, this has been quite, quite quiet.
• 5:13
  So yeah. So it's basically the the
• 5:14
  licensing deal between Universal Music Group and it's publishing
• 5:17
  armed with Spotify. So it means that basically like
• 5:20
  all of UM, GS music and the songwriters songs, they'll stay
• 5:22
  on Spotify and get paid. And it's kind of like the
• 5:25
  announcement. They usually stand to these
• 5:27
  announcements. They don't really tell you how
• 5:28
  much money it is or what the terms are obviously, because
• 5:30
  that's all confidential. So they kind of say things like
• 5:33
  we're going to work together on new things and initiatives and
• 5:35
  we're going to benefit artists. And it's normally normally it's
• 5:38
  quite, you know, it's quite kind of a there's not much in the
• 5:42
  press release of the juicy details.
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  But the thing this time was it includes a direct publishing
• 5:49
  deal, including in the US, which again, sounds quite boring if
• 5:53
  you don't follow publishing. But the reason it's important is
• 5:55
  in the US, like Spotify, we've talked about this decided last
• 5:58
  year that Spotify was now a bundle, which meant that it
• 6:01
  could pay lower role he's had to publishers because it also had
• 6:03
  audiobooks. And the rules for what role did
• 6:05
  you play if you're a bundle are lower.
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  And that caused an almighty Hoo ha, which is carrying on.
• 6:11
  But the reports this week suggest that Universal Music
• 6:13
  still has clawed back some of the royalties that are being
• 6:16
  lost there. So by having a direct deal with
• 6:18
  Spotify, its songwriters are going to get paid some of the
• 6:21
  money they maybe wouldn't have got under the way it was doing
• 6:24
  things. And there was a good quote from
• 6:27
  the NMPA who had the publishing body who'd been really like
• 6:30
  holding Spotify's feet to the fire over this whole issue.
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  And they said this signals Spotify is coming back to the
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  table after it's disastrous attempt to manipulate royalty
• 6:39
  rates. So the kind of speculation is
• 6:43
  right. This deal, universal is only for
• 6:44
  universal songwriters, but it maybe signifies there's kind of
• 6:48
  some compromise going on. There's a way through this big
• 6:52
  row. But it does beg the question of
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  will this, will this work for the other majors when they sign
• 6:56
  their deals with Spotify because they will sign at different
• 6:57
  times and also independent publishers who'll be thinking,
• 7:00
  well, hang on a minute, how do we make sure we get some of that
• 7:02
  money back? But yeah, so it's kind of, you
• 7:05
  know, it came out of the blue and all the analysis are focused
• 7:07
  on the publishing side and that this is going to pay, it's going
• 7:11
  to increase the royalties for Universal Songwriters and
• 7:13
  possibly signifies, you know, a change for others too, right?
• 7:17
  Spotify as well this week. Yeah.
• 7:19
  Well, actually just the other day also made an announcement
• 7:23
  about the money they're putting back into the music industry,
• 7:28
  claiming in fact that over the past year, well, in 2024,
• 7:32
  Spotify paid out $10 billion to the music industry.
• 7:38
  And they obviously wanted to make quite a fuss about this,
• 7:43
  didn't they? Just it felt like this was, this
• 7:45
  was a fanfare announcement saying, look, we're not the bad
• 7:48
  guys. We have spent well, we have put
• 7:50
  back $10 billion into the music biz.
• 7:54
  That's how it struck me. Yeah, I think that's fair.
• 7:58
  I think that's fair. Like, and Spotify has
• 8:00
  historically actually done this quite regularly.
• 8:01
  So it did this around the same time last year for the year
• 8:04
  before. It likes to say this number
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  because it is the biggest payer. So it's kind of to its advantage
• 8:10
  to say how much that is and then then point to everyone else and
• 8:13
  say, look, they're not telling you how much they pay because
• 8:15
  it's less than us. So it is, but it's, yeah, it's a
• 8:18
  big thing. And it comes actually like last
• 8:20
  week while I was in between the conference, this report came out
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  and it was talking about how much the different services pay
• 8:26
  per stream. And it's one of those tables
• 8:28
  where Spotify is right at the bottom.
• 8:30
  Because if you calculate, if you're a position, you calculate
• 8:32
  how much you got paid by Spotify, how many streams, the
• 8:34
  number is lower post stream, which is not how it pays out and
• 8:37
  so on. But it was really cross at that
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  report. It came out and said this report
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  is ridiculous. I think is a quote.
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  Who, just out of interest before you go on, who?
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  Who's at the top of the table then, in terms of paying out
• 8:49
  royalties in this report that Spotify don't like?
• 8:53
  Well, it's Apple Music and Amazon Music.
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  And one of the reasons for that is they only have paying users.
• 8:58
  So there's there's a lot more. It's only people who are paying.
• 9:01
  And so the per stream calculus tire, whereas Spotify has a lot
• 9:05
  of free users, which kind of this blog post announcing the
• 9:09
  $10 billion went into and it said, look, our free tier is
• 9:11
  really good. And this is something they said
• 9:13
  before, but they were saying, look, our free tier persuades
• 9:16
  people to eventually become subscribers.
• 9:18
  And they also talked about their growth in places like India and
• 9:21
  Brazil and Nigeria and Mexico. Like these really these are the
• 9:24
  exciting new countries, the music industry.
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  And Spotify says it's growing really well there.
• 9:29
  And that's starting to spend the money.
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  So it's kind of, it is a positive story.
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  Like it's it. Nothing Spotify says will ever
• 9:36
  dampen down some of the criticism of the company.
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  Like however much money it pays out.
• 9:41
  There's always going to be that debate and that this important
• 9:43
  debate, I don't think it should squash.
• 9:44
  It, you know, well, you see you say that and obviously the when,
• 9:47
  when I first saw the story, when you forward the, the release and
• 9:53
  my first thought is well, how much of that $10 billion is
• 9:57
  going to the top 3% of the music industry in terms of the, you
• 10:02
  know, popularity? Are all the big artists
• 10:05
  hoovering up this money? And this is not going to stop
• 10:09
  emerging artists saying, but we still get paid very little.
• 10:12
  It's all very well and good. You're saying, and you know,
• 10:14
  rightly so, somebody's very popular.
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  So they do receive a lot of the income.
• 10:20
  But it's, it kind of it's, it's very good business release,
• 10:27
  isn't it? It's a very for, for them, it's
• 10:30
  a, it's a great claim to make. We are doing a good job business
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  wise. It's not about the creative.
• 10:36
  And as you say, there's always going to be debates about
• 10:39
  whether the the money's going in the right places and how how
• 10:43
  Spotify would deal with, you know, artists who aren't right
• 10:47
  at the top of the commercial tree.
• 10:49
  Yeah, I mean, and in fact that was in there was a bit in the
• 10:51
  blog post announcing about that where he talked about and this
• 10:53
  is something that came up last year.
• 10:54
  It's, it's an existing stat, but the guy who was right, who's the
• 10:57
  head of music business said more than 10,000 artists are now
• 11:00
  making, are now generating more than $100,000 of annual Spotify
• 11:05
  payouts a year, which is obviously payments to their
• 11:08
  labels and publishers, which then they take a share of.
• 11:11
  But yeah, so I mean, the other thing I thought was interesting
• 11:13
  is there's this, there's there's kind of this in the background,
• 11:16
  this deadline approaching for YouTube that relates to this
• 11:19
  that I was going to tell you about.
• 11:21
  South. Spotify is the biggest payer to
• 11:23
  the music industry as an individual company, Like it
• 11:25
  overtook Apple quite a few years ago.
• 11:27
  Apple used to be the biggest, but a couple of years ago,
• 11:31
  YouTube, YouTube's music boss, who's a guy called Leo Cohen,
• 11:33
  who's obviously very famous music exec, he said that his
• 11:38
  intention was that YouTube would overtake Spotify as the biggest
• 11:41
  payer by 2025. And that's he like, you know, he
• 11:45
  set out that deadline and we were, we're going to be bigger
• 11:47
  than Spotify. And so a couple of years ago,
• 11:49
  YouTube's annual payouts were about $6 billion and the point
• 11:54
  when Spotify's were maybe 8 billion.
• 11:56
  So now Spotify said ours are 10 billion.
• 11:58
  It's kind of drawing that line in the sand.
• 12:01
  So I'm really interested to see if YouTube comes out now and
• 12:03
  says, well, actually ours were 9 billion last year and we're
• 12:06
  going to overtake you this year as we planned or where they'll
• 12:08
  be quite quiet because they're not.
• 12:09
  And that's kind of a, it doesn't really matter.
• 12:12
  Like it doesn't matter which of them is bigger because if
• 12:14
  they're both paying $10 billion a year, that's good.
• 12:17
  Like, but there is that kind of fundraising in the background
• 12:20
  for who is the biggest, the biggest payer in the playground.
• 12:24
  But for the moment it's Spotify. And then they're they're kind of
• 12:27
  capitalising on that by announcing it, I think.
• 12:29
  Also last week, the Music Venue Trust, the charity set up to
• 12:33
  support Britain's grassroots venues, launched its latest
• 12:36
  annual report at the House of Commons.
• 12:38
  It was last Thursday evening hosted by Alex Sobell, who's one
• 12:42
  of the MPs for Leeds and is very supportive of music in general,
• 12:47
  but particularly the live scene in this country.
• 12:51
  And it is. Having tried to digest as much
• 12:55
  as I could of the report, it is, as always, extremely
• 12:59
  comprehensive. I mean, there's enough stats and
• 13:01
  stories in this report to fill a whole episode of those podcasts,
• 13:05
  to be honest. But it was a good launch.
• 13:07
  I went along in the terrorist bar at the House of Commons,
• 13:10
  Kate Nash to the short live set, which was very good.
• 13:14
  She also, between a couple of her songs, gave a very
• 13:19
  impassioned speech about just what a struggle it is for
• 13:23
  artists to make touring work financially, which is a subject
• 13:27
  we've touched on a couple of times, once just before
• 13:29
  Christmas. Wasn't it that the artists are
• 13:31
  just finding it really difficult to go on the road and make, I
• 13:36
  mean, make some money would be brilliant, but just not lose as
• 13:39
  much money as, you know, the the that some artists have become
• 13:43
  almost accustomed to. In fact, Kate Nash said that
• 13:48
  obviously she wants to put on a good show.
• 13:50
  She wants to have a whole band with her.
• 13:52
  She wants decent production. So she said this is what the way
• 13:55
  the way she said she goes about it is I save up this act.
• 13:59
  I've noted this quote down. She said, I save up a nest egg
• 14:04
  from playing festivals and then I blow it all on going on tour.
• 14:08
  And then she said, and I'm Kate Nash so.
• 14:11
  So if I can only hope to break even on a tour, what's it like
• 14:14
  for anyone just starting out? And as I say, it's becoming more
• 14:17
  and more apparent, isn't it? Artists struggling to go on
• 14:20
  tour. 1 of the other stats in the report is, is this, that the
• 14:24
  average length of a grassroots tour in 1994 was 22 gigs.
• 14:30
  The average length in 2024 is 11.
• 14:35
  So the length of tours at grassroots level has halved
• 14:38
  since 94, which I think is because then the knock on effect
• 14:43
  of this is artists are missing out on some of what they call
• 14:48
  the, you know, the secondary towns.
• 14:50
  I mean, they're even missing out on some of the what's what's
• 14:53
  called the primary circuit. But the report points out you're
• 14:56
  getting less gigs in places like Portsmouth and Reading and Hull
• 14:59
  and Leicester and York and Wolverhampton, where these
• 15:03
  places are just becoming increasingly overlooked because
• 15:07
  musicians are cutting their losses.
• 15:09
  And, you know, that's that's not helping the grass roots venues
• 15:13
  in those towns who who are already facing up to a litany of
• 15:17
  challenges, many of which we've mentioned before.
• 15:21
  But it's, you know, if you can't attract artists to play, you put
• 15:25
  on less shows, your chance of, you know, getting to the desired
• 15:29
  level of turnover to make your venue work properly, you know,
• 15:33
  that gets harder and harder. There's loads of other stats in
• 15:36
  the report. I think you've glanced through
• 15:38
  it as as as well. Did anything strike you as being
• 15:41
  interesting that we should point out?
• 15:43
  Yeah. Do you know?
• 15:44
  So there was one thing that looks quite good, which was like
• 15:46
  I think the net loss of venues last year was 25, wasn't it?
• 15:49
  I think there were 100 and 810 venues at the end of the year on
• 15:52
  the circuit and there it and it's so that and that's good
• 15:54
  because it was 120 I think closed the previous year.
• 15:57
  So it looks like the number of venues closing.
• 16:00
  But then as the report points out, I think the number of
• 16:02
  events is down, income from ticket sales is down.
• 16:05
  I think 43% of them reported a loss last year.
• 16:09
  So they're not making money. And I actually interviewed Mark
• 16:12
  David, the CEO, which is the first time I've sat.
• 16:14
  I've actually given a proper long form interview with him.
• 16:16
  He's really, he's really interesting as an interviewee,
• 16:20
  not least because he does that thing of saying, oh, God, this
• 16:22
  is the sort of thing I get in trouble for saying.
• 16:24
  But and as a journalist, you just go, your ears pick up and
• 16:28
  you go, right, tell me, tell me this thing.
• 16:30
  And he's not doing that to kind of spin me a line.
• 16:32
  He's doing it because he genuinely, he's about to say
• 16:34
  something that might get him in trouble.
• 16:35
  Yeah, but he said he thinks a lot of venues have been hanging
• 16:39
  on and he called it the bubble of hope.
• 16:41
  I think in the hope that this idea of a ticket levy on on
• 16:45
  stadium Renegas will happen. But he was saying basically, and
• 16:49
  and it looks like that's going to happen and that's good and
• 16:51
  that's going to be a great thing.
• 16:51
  But he said if it doesn't happen, if it doesn't work, he
• 16:55
  reckons that between 300 and 400 grassroots venues could close.
• 16:58
  Like, and that's like half the circuit, which made me boggle
• 17:04
  like because I think we've we've that idea of losing half the
• 17:07
  circuit is it seems like it should be impossible.
• 17:09
  But that's what he thinks could happen.
• 17:11
  If yeah, in in, in his speech at the House of Commons at this
• 17:16
  launch event and he pointed out, yeah, 25 venues closed.
• 17:21
  But does anyone in this room think that 25 venues closing is
• 17:25
  a good thing? And of course it still isn't,
• 17:28
  however many venues closed and you say, do you, does anyone
• 17:31
  here think that losing 1 venue, you know, every couple of every
• 17:36
  couple of weeks another venue closes, is that good?
• 17:40
  But he did, he went on to say, you know, he says,
• 17:43
  uncharacteristically for me, I'm not here to criticise the rest
• 17:46
  of the live music industry because the live music industry
• 17:49
  has worked very hard on this. You know, the idea of the 1 LB
• 17:53
  levy, the live trust, which I'm a part of has launched.
• 17:59
  In fact, we'll, we'll come to that in a in a second because
• 18:01
  there's a, there's a, there's a band who've already signed up
• 18:04
  and pledged a pound from their ticket to go to grassroots
• 18:07
  venues. But the industry is attempting
• 18:11
  now to help to, to help the grassroots from the top end
• 18:15
  down, or at least it's trying. And as you know, as he told you,
• 18:19
  we'll see if it, we'll see if it works.
• 18:21
  I genuinely hope it does. What's coming down the line
• 18:25
  though, and one of the reasons I think he still fears for the
• 18:31
  future is things like, And this is where he directed his ire in
• 18:35
  his speech, not at the rest of the live music industry, but now
• 18:39
  a government. And because there's the business
• 18:43
  rate relief change coming. So at the end of April, the
• 18:48
  government will reduce its business rate relief for venues
• 18:51
  from 75% down to 45%. And Mark said in his in his
• 18:56
  speech, that's going to cost the indie sector something like with
• 19:00
  various other taxes that are coming £7 million and that's £7
• 19:06
  million that the grassroots music circuit doesn't have.
• 19:10
  And that's, that plays into what he was saying to you about X
• 19:14
  amount of venues. Might, you know, be, I mean,
• 19:18
  just the fact that if you think, and this was in the report, the
• 19:21
  profit margin for a venue is just under .5% tells you how
• 19:26
  much on a knife edge some of these venues are.
• 19:28
  So he turns his attention to to and there were MPs in the room.
• 19:33
  Alex Sober was there, Sean Berry was there.
• 19:36
  People are very supportive of of the Music Venue Trust.
• 19:40
  But he was saying, you know, you've got to, you've got to go
• 19:43
  away and you've got to keep campaigning.
• 19:45
  And it's all very, you know, all well and good.
• 19:48
  A lot of MPs saying we really believe in the grassroots music
• 19:51
  scene, the whole ecosystem that goes with it.
• 19:54
  But he said it's about action now.
• 19:56
  Words are just not enough. Otherwise things are going to
• 20:00
  get worse. As I say, I think there's a
• 20:02
  genuine fear. That although the rate of venue
• 20:05
  closures, as you say, has slowed down, but the amount of debt
• 20:09
  being carried around by some of the surviving venues I think is
• 20:13
  a real worry. But but sorry, you've got your
• 20:18
  hand up. This is what no.
• 20:22
  Well, you care because I think the other thing, the other thing
• 20:25
  he said though, that I thought was really interesting.
• 20:26
  He, you said about him criticizing MPs.
• 20:29
  He had a very spiky message for some of the people in the music
• 20:31
  industry who haven't chipped in so far outside live.
• 20:34
  Like in our interview, he, he addressed Spotify and he thinks
• 20:37
  outrageous they gave more than €230 million to Barcelona
• 20:41
  football club but haven't chipped into this kind of 'cause
• 20:44
  he wants a Universal Music Group to chip in.
• 20:46
  So he's actually, he's, he's kind of on the, I think he is on
• 20:49
  that warpath is the wrong word. I think he's drumming up really
• 20:53
  saying look, chip in words aren't good enough.
• 21:30
  Been slightly better news though.
• 21:33
  As I say, I know I've got some skin in this game myself, but
• 21:37
  can we just mention that Lynyrd Skynyrd are the first bands to
• 21:41
  commit to giving 1 LB from their ticket sales of their next tour
• 21:45
  to the newly formed Live Trust, which is the charitable trust
• 21:50
  set up by the trade body Live to help channel funds through to
• 21:54
  venues and artists and promoters via 1 LB voluntary levy.
• 22:01
  We've already seen a handful of big artists pledging money to
• 22:04
  the Music Venue Trust, but the Skinnerd are the 1st to sign up
• 22:08
  to the Trust plans. And I mean, I haven't had time
• 22:11
  to try and guesstimate how much that might raise from the tour.
• 22:16
  But, you know, hopefully it'll be a little whack of money and
• 22:19
  it's a start. And hopefully other artists will
• 22:22
  follow suit. And, you know, the money will
• 22:24
  come into the Trust and it will be redistributed to
• 22:27
  organisations like the Music Venue Trust and FAC, the
• 22:31
  featured artist coalition representing the artist
• 22:33
  community. So that we money for bricks and
• 22:35
  mortar, money for promoters, money for artists, which
• 22:38
  hopefully will help with partly at least in trying to find a
• 22:42
  solution to some of the problems that Kate Nash was highlighting
• 22:45
  last week. We shall see more, I'm sure on
• 22:48
  that to come. You got a final point.
• 22:51
  Yeah, well, I just, I forgot the other thing.
• 22:53
  The other thing Mark David said the week, well, I don't think we
• 22:55
  should speculate here because it would be irresponsible.
• 22:56
  But the other thing he said was he's they're preparing to do
• 22:59
  another fundraising round for their music venue properties
• 23:01
  offshoot, which is the one that buys the three holder venues.
• 23:04
  And he said, I want to quote this, they're looking at some
• 23:08
  very significant venues. When you see them as a music
• 23:10
  fan, you're going to go fucking hell because they're some of the
• 23:13
  most famous venues in the country.
• 23:15
  And as much as I want to sit with you now and go, who could
• 23:17
  that be? I'd like, I don't really want to
• 23:20
  do that because I think that's sort of suggesting what who's in
• 23:22
  trouble or not. But that's quite exciting
• 23:24
  because I think we've seen them buy some really interesting
• 23:26
  venues around the country so far.
• 23:29
  But it seems like they're setting the bar even higher in
• 23:31
  terms of size and reputation. So that's something to watch out
• 23:35
  for later in the year I think, and that's why they want
• 23:37
  everyone to chip in to the fundraising.
• 23:39
  By the way, we'll do this as a quiz question.
• 23:42
  If we do another Price of Music quiz, I'll just leave you with
• 23:45
  this. You can think about it before
• 23:47
  next week. Apart from Lynyrd Skynyrd, can
• 23:51
  you name two other bands that don't have vowels in their name?
• 23:55
  There you go. I think.
• 23:57
  Not now. Not now.
• 23:58
  OK, not now. We've got work to do.
• 24:00
  I'm going to be distracted for the next 20 minutes.
• 24:02
  At some point, sit down and think about it.
• 24:05
  We predicted, not unreasonably in our first show back after
• 24:09
  Christmas, that there would be some big AI stories this year.
• 24:13
  Well, here's a couples but starting with a big name.
• 24:16
  And this has been widely reported by news outlets
• 24:19
  including BBC Radio, spending loads of the newspapers because
• 24:24
  Sir Paul McCartney has weighed in into the AI debate, saying
• 24:28
  proposed changes to copyright law could allow, quote, RIP off
• 24:32
  technology that might make it impossible for musicians and
• 24:36
  artists to make a living. Tell us more about this.
• 24:41
  Well, this feels like to me the part in a movie where things are
• 24:45
  starting to look a bit dicey and someone goes deploy a beetle
• 24:50
  because that's what's happened, I think.
• 24:52
  So we've had this in the UK. We've had this debate about the
• 24:54
  government may be planning to give AI companies more rights to
• 24:58
  kind of train on copyrighted content and they may get the
• 25:01
  music industry. If you don't want that, you have
• 25:03
  to opt out. And the music industry is
• 25:04
  unhappy with that idea. And so, yeah, fab maca thumbs
• 25:08
  aloft as I will always know him from my Smash Hits days.
• 25:13
  He was on the BBC, I think, wasn't he on Laura Kunsberg on
• 25:15
  on Sunday morning? And he said, yeah, essentially
• 25:17
  his view is just ripping off young artists and songwriters.
• 25:20
  And he kind of pointed out, which I think is the reasonable
• 25:22
  point here, if there's money being paid, someone's getting
• 25:25
  paid, money's going somewhere. It should be going to the
• 25:28
  musicians too, who form the picnic.
• 25:30
  And I think he warned the government and he said,
• 25:32
  basically protect the creative thinkers and the creative
• 25:34
  artists. So you're not going to have
• 25:35
  them, which is a, it's that age-old thing, isn't it, of
• 25:40
  someone who is very famous, very rich, has done very well from
• 25:44
  the old recorded music industry is talking about, it's not about
• 25:47
  him. He's not worried about his
• 25:48
  money. He's talking on behalf of all
• 25:50
  those songwriters, musicians who are coming up now.
• 25:53
  And he's, he gets to go on the BBC and talk on their behalf
• 25:56
  when they couldn't. So it's a, it's a good thing I
• 25:58
  think, isn't it? And I think you've seen Bjorn
• 26:00
  from ABBA do the same thing, like that kind of musician who
• 26:03
  don't have to worry themselves personally, but they worry on
• 26:06
  behalf of the future them. Yeah, I mean, I think the more
• 26:09
  debate there is around this with particularly, as you say what
• 26:14
  what Macca brings to this is a a recognisable face that everyone
• 26:18
  knows. So people will, as you say, sit
• 26:20
  up and listen. Probably more so than if it was
• 26:23
  a young unknown artist saying I'm never going to be able to
• 26:27
  make a bean out of this because my music's been sold to AAI firm
• 26:33
  for no money and so I get nothing.
• 26:35
  And now there's a there's an AI bot churning out music, which
• 26:40
  sounds a bit like a bad version of what I would do.
• 26:44
  But so backup, I mean, yes, deploy the Macca.
• 26:48
  Yeah. Maybe maybe we should just maybe
• 26:52
  the industry should just get one big, one big name, one big voice
• 26:56
  per month and just, you know, during the calendar year.
• 27:00
  Bono, it's your turn next. I think this may happen because,
• 27:03
  you know, this is this goes back to musical.
• 27:05
  I connect last week and I I did an interview on stage with
• 27:08
  Victoria Oakley, who is the boss of the IFPI, the global labels
• 27:11
  body. And she's a really interesting
• 27:13
  figure because she she isn't from the world of policy.
• 27:16
  So she used to work for Google getting politicians to do what
• 27:18
  Google wanted. I mean, that's good.
• 27:21
  And now she's at the IFPI trying to get politicians to do what
• 27:23
  music industry wants. And she was talking about this,
• 27:26
  and she was saying, like, what we often do is we focus on the
• 27:29
  economic argument, like music industry generates this much
• 27:32
  money, this many jobs, this much export value.
• 27:35
  Like it's an economic value argument.
• 27:37
  And she was pointing out that as a big tech firm, you can say,
• 27:39
  well, we'll build a factory here, or we'll build this office
• 27:42
  and create this many jobs. And it's a hard, hard argument
• 27:47
  to win, especially if a government is thinking tech is
• 27:49
  the big new thing we need to support.
• 27:52
  And what she was saying was what we have is music.
• 27:56
  What we have is the brilliant song songwriters.
• 27:58
  And she was saying every politician has a favorite song,
• 28:00
  a song that means something to them in their life, favorite
• 28:02
  artist. And what she said was like, we
• 28:04
  need to lean into this more and get those people talking about
• 28:08
  if you do this, you may not have us in the future.
• 28:12
  You may not have this stuff. And she thought that was
• 28:14
  something the music industry needs to do more.
• 28:16
  So I think to what to what you said, I think that's probably
• 28:19
  quite a good strategy for every month.
• 28:20
  And there are artists who people love coming out and saying, here
• 28:23
  is my, here are my concerns, which, you know, there's,
• 28:27
  there's a lot of people bending politicians ears, aren't they?
• 28:29
  I mean, you've probably seen this in your work at live, but I
• 28:32
  think it is powerful when someone like Paul McCartney
• 28:34
  speaks out. And I, I do think we're going to
• 28:37
  see a lot more of it this year because I think that's the,
• 28:39
  that's the music industry's secret weapon is the people who
• 28:42
  made those songs that politicians and policymakers
• 28:45
  love as well as this. Just very quickly on while we're
• 28:49
  talking about AI gives us put some put some flesh on these
• 28:54
  bones. The music streaming service
• 28:56
  Deezer is saying that around 10,000 fully AI generated
• 29:02
  tracks. That's fully AI generated
• 29:04
  tracks. 10,000 AI tracks are being delivered to its platform
• 29:08
  every day. Ready.
• 29:11
  It's not me. Let's just make that very clear.
• 29:13
  It's not me. Dear listeners, just in case
• 29:16
  you're new to the program or missed it at some point last
• 29:19
  year, I think it was around springtime, while Stuart was
• 29:23
  testing out some AI software which he had on loan, he
• 29:28
  attempted to make some music. I, I, I emphasize, attempted to
• 29:34
  make some music. And he's threatening to do more
• 29:38
  of this, but it's not one of the Yeah, you haven't been flooding
• 29:41
  Deezer, then with with I haven't no in inverted commas music.
• 29:47
  I have not. I have not.
• 29:48
  So yeah. So 10,000 tracks a day, which is
• 29:50
  actually so around 100,000 tracks a day are uploaded to
• 29:53
  Deezer and other streaming services.
• 29:55
  So if this figure is correct, it's like a tenth of all the new
• 29:58
  music being uploaded. Is it wholly AI generated?
• 30:01
  So that's not, it's not like artists using an AI tool as part
• 30:04
  of their creativity. It's just people pressing on
• 30:06
  here and and we haven't. And the thing that struck me is
• 30:09
  we haven't really got started yet like this.
• 30:11
  This stuff is still quite new. It's not mainstream.
• 30:14
  Like AI models can generate millions of tracks a day.
• 30:18
  So 10,000 a day is actually quite small beans in terms of
• 30:21
  what it could be done. So it's a little warning shot
• 30:24
  for the industry of going look, this is starting now like and
• 30:27
  it, but the context is quite interesting here.
• 30:29
  So Deezer also said most of those songs are never streamed,
• 30:34
  which I thought was interesting. And it said, but it warned that
• 30:36
  they're kind of clogging up the catalogue and they could be used
• 30:39
  for fraud is the other thing it's worried about.
• 30:42
  But so the interesting thing is, is Deezer announced this not
• 30:44
  just to kind of make everyone run around panicking, but it's
• 30:47
  got it's been developing this tool to detect them.
• 30:50
  It's. Been working over the last year.
• 30:52
  So it's got this tool that it says can detect holy agent music
• 30:56
  and it's using that and and it's not going to take them down at
• 30:58
  the moment, but what it is going to do it's going to flag them.
• 31:01
  So if you're listening to Deezer and you will find yourself on a
• 31:04
  track that says, you will know, it will say this is AI
• 31:06
  generated, but also they're going to boot them out of their
• 31:09
  recommendation system. So when there are algorithms
• 31:12
  recommending you new stuff, it won't recommend that stuff.
• 31:14
  So that's the kind of approach they're taking.
• 31:16
  They're not kicking them. But yeah, it's it's kind of, and
• 31:21
  there's a lot, I mean, actually a few conferences recently,
• 31:23
  there are a few companies working on this kind of
• 31:25
  technology. Like if we're going to do
• 31:27
  something about lots of AI music flooding streaming services, we
• 31:30
  have to be able to detect it first.
• 31:33
  And it won't be the human ear because there'll be too much and
• 31:36
  also it will be indistinguishable.
• 31:38
  You know, a bad AI track isn't so different from a bad human
• 31:41
  track. So you're going to need
• 31:43
  technology, you'll need AI, other AIS to spot the AI.
• 31:47
  So that, so it's interesting, it's one of the first times a
• 31:49
  big streaming services said we're using this technology,
• 31:51
  we're going to detect it and here's what we're going to do.
• 31:54
  And that is something that big labels are encouraging.
• 31:56
  So Universal Music is very keen on this sort of thing.
• 31:59
  But yeah, I mean 10, but again, 10,000 tracks a day.
• 32:02
  I think this is like the thin end of the wedge, like in a
• 32:04
  year's time it could be a lot more.
• 32:06
  And that's what everyone's thinking about what to do, what
• 32:09
  they do. Just before we finish, I suppose
• 32:11
  we'd better bring the I know it's sort of marginal in some
• 32:15
  ways to what we do here around music, but it is quite a big
• 32:20
  marketing tool for the music industry.
• 32:23
  So we I guess we should bring the TikTok story up to date
• 32:27
  again. I know this has been very well
• 32:28
  reported Some some of you will have been following this anyway.
• 32:35
  But when we last left you TikTok was about to go dark which it
• 32:39
  did. But it he's back.
• 32:41
  But this isn't the end of the story.
• 32:43
  God, no. It was no.
• 32:46
  Yeah, a lot's been happening. So like, like, I mean, Donald
• 32:48
  Trump is a new president for anyone who's been living under a
• 32:51
  rock, screaming, trying not to find out.
• 32:54
  And he energetically, like, as soon as he took power, he did as
• 32:56
  many terrible things as possible in his first day.
• 32:59
  But one of the things he did, it was TikTok.
• 33:02
  So yeah, I think when we left it, TikTok had a deadline of
• 33:05
  19th of January. It had to be sold in the US or
• 33:07
  banned from app stores there. And like you say, it went dark.
• 33:10
  It was taken off the app stores, and the app stopped working for
• 33:12
  about four hours. And then Trump said, I'll sort
• 33:15
  it out. And it came back.
• 33:17
  But what's happened? So it's a bit complicated.
• 33:20
  Trump hasn't got rid of the law that said it had to be sold or
• 33:23
  banned. But he's told his attorney
• 33:25
  general don't enforce it for 75 days while I figure out a
• 33:28
  solution. And weirdly, Donald Trump
• 33:31
  appears to be leading negotiations.
• 33:33
  Like he keeps talking about how he's in talks with people who
• 33:36
  might want to buy TikTok because what he wants to do is sell it
• 33:38
  to AUS company essentially. And more than that, he seems he
• 33:42
  said that but quite openly. He'd like the US government to
• 33:45
  have up to 50% of TikTok as a stake.
• 33:49
  So the US government could be the co-owner of TikTok, at least
• 33:52
  in the US, which is and essentially, and this is this
• 33:57
  sounds flippant, but it's not. He kind of wants to grab TikTok
• 34:00
  like he wants to grab Greenland and the Panama Canal.
• 34:02
  You know, it's that kind of thing of I want that thing.
• 34:05
  So I got to take it. And I'm the president and this
• 34:09
  is this is ever growing list of people and companies who are
• 34:12
  rumoured to be involved. So there was, there was a few
• 34:14
  reports saying Elon Musk might be the new owner of Twitter,
• 34:17
  which given what he's done to Twitter is, you know.
• 34:19
  Of TikTok, Yeah, sorry, yeah. Yeah, or Space Karen as the the
• 34:23
  guy speaking our conference put it, tech firm Oracle, who's
• 34:27
  billionaire boss is a big Trump backhoe.
• 34:29
  It's been rumoured even. I don't know how aware you are
• 34:32
  of the work of Mr. Beast. Oh, yeah, no, I because because
• 34:36
  I have a a young daughter. I have seen Mr. Beast in
• 34:40
  actions. Yeah, you better explain Mr.
• 34:41
  Beast, though, for for other listeners.
• 34:44
  I mean, it's just it's not what was the guys the guys like?
• 34:48
  It's not it's not another it's not a Mr. Men character, Mr.
• 34:53
  Beast. It's not was it Hargreaves?
• 34:55
  It was not one of his characters.
• 34:58
  Mr. Beast is far is a YouTube phenomenon.
• 35:02
  He is so he's a guy called Jimmy Johnson and he's, he's, I mean,
• 35:04
  he, he, he does a lot of videos where he gives away money.
• 35:07
  He does a lot of kind of big concept videos.
• 35:09
  He's done ATV show now a kind of a game show with Amazon.
• 35:12
  But he is, he has made so much money for me.
• 35:14
  He's like, he's one of the most successful person I think to
• 35:16
  emerge from YouTube. And now he is he's a
• 35:18
  businessman, he's entrepreneur. He launches all kind of things.
• 35:21
  He's in talks with various groups of investors to try and
• 35:23
  buy TikTok. So one guy said, Oh yeah, Mr.
• 35:27
  Beast is part of my consortium. And then Mr. Beast's
• 35:29
  spokesperson, because he has a spokesperson said he's actually
• 35:32
  in talks with lots of groups because they all want to have
• 35:35
  someone like that as a big head. Microsoft, we would do this
• 35:38
  morning. So it's this weird situation
• 35:40
  where TikTok has been saved in that it's still available in the
• 35:43
  US. It's still not on the app stores
• 35:45
  there though, because this law that said it should be banned
• 35:49
  said if you, if you are party to making it available to Apple or
• 35:54
  Google, for example, they can be fined $5000 per person who uses
• 36:00
  it to access TikTok, which is I, I, I did the maths.
• 36:05
  It's $850 billion of potential fines for Apple and Google.
• 36:09
  And for some reason, like Trump has said, don't worry, don't
• 36:12
  worry, we won't punish you for that 75 days.
• 36:14
  You won't get in trouble. And for some reason they don't
• 36:17
  seem to trust his word. So they haven't put it back up,
• 36:20
  which means on a serious level that TikTok can't update its app
• 36:23
  in the US, which is kind of a security risk, but also can't
• 36:27
  add new features and new people can't download it.
• 36:30
  So it's, it's back, but it's not fully back.
• 36:33
  And there's this, this huge uncertainty over who Trump is
• 36:37
  going to try and make it be sold to and what their intentions are
• 36:41
  for. It and then I guess the knock on
• 36:43
  effect of that is what it will be in the future.
• 36:46
  I mean if you're talking at your conference about how these
• 36:49
  services will work and will function how they will work for
• 36:53
  musicians in the future. What will TikTok be like and
• 36:57
  will it continue to be a place where a 32nd clip of a track can
• 37:02
  help boost your career? You know, within a matter of 48
• 37:06
  hours almost. So it's what will it still be
• 37:09
  part of the the musical landscape or will it not this we
• 37:14
  wait and see. That'll have to do it for this
• 37:17
  week. Thank you very much as ever for
• 37:19
  listening. If you have enjoyed the show, I
• 37:21
  always say this, but it does help if you can subscribe to us
• 37:24
  in your podcast app and even better, give us a review and a
• 37:28
  rating. That would be lovely.
• 37:31
  Or if you have some loose change you can support the show through
• 37:34
  our Patreon page where you've become a Price of Music fan or
• 37:37
  super fan for as little as £2.00 a month.
• 37:40
  You'll find details@patreon.com/the Price of
• 37:43
  Music. And so finally, any thoughts on
• 37:46
  any of the stories in this weeks episode or if you have a
• 37:50
  question which you'd like answered on the show, something
• 37:54
  about the money flowing through the music industry or any tips
• 37:59
  you're after from us that we might be able to help you out
• 38:02
  with or find someone else, you can drop us a line The Price of
• 38:06
  Music, podcast@gmail.com. Until next time, thank you very
• 38:10
  much. Take care of yourselves,
• 38:12
  Cheerio. None.