Latest / The Price of Music / Spotify responds to Kate Nash’s comments on streaming royalties, Warner Music's superfan app

Transcript

Spotify responds to Kate Nash’s comments on streaming royalties, Warner Music's superfan app · The Price of Music

• 0:07
  Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, the show that looks at
• 0:10
  the money behind the music industry.
• 0:12
  With me, Steve Lamaca, Music Allies, head of insight Stuart
• 0:14
  Dredge. Important news regarding this
• 0:17
  podcast coming at the end of the episodes.
• 0:21
  By the way, just to just to infuse the proceedings for the
• 0:24
  sense of import and suspense. Stay tuned.
• 0:27
  But first, when another edition dominated by this week's news,
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  starting with this, Spotify has responded to Kate Nash's latest
• 0:37
  comments about streaming royalties.
• 0:39
  I guess we should explain what Kate said first and then and
• 0:42
  then the reply from Spotify. But it's all about the amount of
• 0:47
  money, or lack of it, as perceived by the artists, which
• 0:51
  is being paid to the people who make the music.
• 0:54
  That's the story. Yeah, so I mean, Kate was on
• 0:57
  Women's Hour last week on Radio 4 talking about a new album and
• 1:01
  a use of only fans and streaming.
• 1:02
  So it was weird for me because like, we have Women's Hour on in
• 1:05
  our Home Office. We're working here.
• 1:06
  And normally it's my I can zone into it when I want to break
• 1:09
  from my work and listen to someone talking about a book or
• 1:12
  something interesting. But this, I was like, bloody
• 1:13
  hell, it's work on Women's Hour too.
• 1:16
  I've got to listen to this. Damn you Woman's Hour.
• 1:20
  But yeah, and she was basically saying, yeah, found.
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  She's talked about foundations and said about how that track,
• 1:25
  which is her big, was that her big breakthrough here?
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  It was certainly off the first time.
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  Wasn't it? Yeah.
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  It's had over 100 million plays on Spotify.
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  And she said she was shocked she's not a millionaire when she
• 1:34
  hears that figure. She talked about the industry
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  being, you know, this thing. You've probably seen this, the
• 1:44
  study of the industry. Is it friendlier now for people
• 1:46
  from privileged backgrounds? They're only the ones who can
• 1:49
  afford to stick it. She talked about that a bit and
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  she's talked about touring, making lots of profits.
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  And then she came back to the idea of artists being paid
• 1:56
  really poorly for their recorded music.
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  And it's one of those, I don't know if you've ever had this as
• 2:01
  a as a, as a host, but the host read out a statement from
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  Spotify, which obviously Kate didn't know about beforehand.
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  And it's one of those awkward radio moments where Kate went
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  but and was about to respond and those were no time to move on,
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  Sorry, no time. And she didn't get to kind of
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  respond. It was on those women's.
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  And it kind of, I think she was a bit cross about that because
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  she posted on Instagram after us saying that wasn't very fair,
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  right? Right.
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  So yeah, that was it. But Spotify then sent this
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  statement out to journalists and it it's quite punchy.
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  So it basically said we love Kate.
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  We've paid around half £1,000,000 in revenue to Kate
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  Nash's rights holders. This is recordings but also
• 2:37
  publishing, so for the songwriting as well as that.
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  And then Spotify said this is a quote.
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  Her most streamed songs were released by a Universal Music
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  Group. Spotify has no visibility over
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  the deals that Kate signed with her rights holders.
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  Therefore we have no knowledge of the payment terms that were
• 2:52
  agreed upon between her and her partners.
• 2:54
  Right. And why this is important is
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  Spotify has said this sort of thing before when artists are
• 3:01
  criticising it and it says normally we don't pay the artist
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  directly, we pay out to their rights holders.
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  You need to talk to the rights holders about the deals.
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  But this is the first time it's actually pointed the finger at a
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  specific label, which is basically saying to journalists,
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  yeah, don't ask us, go and ask Universal Music Group over
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  there. So not only finger pointing a
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  label, finger pointing the biggest label, which is quite AI
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  mean. It's not really, it's not
• 3:24
  picking a fight quite, but it is pointing everyone in the
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  direction saying look, if someone hasn't received the
• 3:29
  money, it's not our fault, Go and talk to the label and find
• 3:32
  out about a deal. Right.
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  And this is where obviously it becomes really difficult because
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  we have no idea what sort of deal Kate Nash signed with.
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  I think initially it was Fiction Records, wasn't it?
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  And then fiction's been consumed by always part of Universal now.
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  So we, we don't know what sort of deal she did and what sort of
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  royalty rights Kate is on because royalty rates, they vary
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  quite dramatically. So we don't know what percentage
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  she would be getting from Universal for that's the
• 4:05
  recorded music, I'm guessing, isn't it or, or what.
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  I don't know who signed her publishing, but so in terms of
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  the recording and then also, I mean, we don't know.
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  There's, there's also, I suppose the, the point that for the, in
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  the old days, you would sign a record deal.
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  Your record would, you know, they would be pressed up on a,
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  you know, ACD or a piece of vinyl and you would get a small
• 4:27
  percentage of that back if of course, but only if you've paid
• 4:33
  off the loan because once you sign to a record label, they
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  give you some money and advance, which is essentially a loan and
• 4:41
  it's still a loan until, until you've paid it off.
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  So in some cases, groups never see any money because they spend
• 4:48
  their entire careers trying to pay off the money that they took
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  from the label in the 1st place. So we don't know whether, you
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  know, money's getting caught up paying off a debt even.
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  And that's it. And there was a point, I think,
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  when a lot of labels started talking about, right, we're
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  going to start paying artist roles even if they haven't
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  recouped. But that would have happened
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  several years into this period. I mean, I did do some maths on
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  this as I want to do. Yeah.
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  Good, good. Because well, do you remember
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  there was a streaming enquiry where all the major labels
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  talked and one of the bits they talked about was that, OK,
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  1,000,000 streams at the time, and this is like 4 years ago, a
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  million streams was about £5000 of recording royalties.
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  And if an artist was on a fairly standard 20% deal getting to the
• 5:28
  thing, the artist would get about £1000 of that.
• 5:30
  So £1000 per per million streams for an artist.
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  Was that a really rough? So Foundations, which has I
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  think it's 140 Spotify streams. Actually, Kate's underestimating
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  her, her popularity. If that had done 500 thousands
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  of recordings for royalties on Spotify, and if she was on that
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  kind of deal, her cut would be about 100,000 quid, right?
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  But the track came out in 2007. So that's 100K over 18 years.
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  So she's right. She's not a millionaire like
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  that. That's it.
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  Sounds like a big number, but when you actually say that's
• 6:01
  over 18 years of earnings, yeah, it is smaller.
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  But yeah, the thing we don't know her deal.
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  And and this is where it might be quite interesting because she
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  was actually saying she was on Instagram after the Women's Hour
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  interview saying I'm going to respond to Spotify, but I've got
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  a gig to play tonight. She was after doing that, which
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  is fair enough. She had to concentrate on that.
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  But you know, it would be interesting now if she comes out
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  and talks about this and and gives more information on well,
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  is it to do the deal? Did she still cross at Spotify
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  for their level of so like I think she's started this
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  conversation, but she's she's got.
• 6:32
  The place continuing yeah, that's but but this is the thing
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  and This is why and this is I mean Kate Nash is brilliant at
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  this. I love Kate Nash and she started
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  2 conversations here inadvertently. 1 is once again
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  bringing us back to discussing what the royalty rates from
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  Spotify like how much Spotify pay to the artists.
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  Because we're in no way are we defending spotifying the amount
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  of money that they pay out here because artists obviously are
• 7:00
  struggling to make a living out of the money that they get.
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  So on the one hand, it's about how much Spotify pay to the
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  artists, and on the other hand, it's how much it's a
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  conversation about record label deals in the new streaming era
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  and whether the the the deals have kept pace with the
• 7:23
  technology because the deals were based around you get a
• 7:26
  pound, you're essentially going to get a pound back from every
• 7:30
  CD album you sell. And that's everyone knew what
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  the deal was. But now it's a lot more
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  difficult, I think, for artists when they come to sign a deal to
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  understand just how that might take to pay off any sort of
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  advance. And whether they're short, they
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  should be, you know, fairer ways, you know, to construct a
• 7:50
  record contract in this, in this current landscape.
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  I think that's the thing, and I think I'm actually Tom Gray from
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  Gomez, but also an activist about this sort of thing.
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  He's talked about this, but it is a snapshot in time of those
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  artists who were releasing albums in the kind of the
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  nineties, 2000s, you know, pre streaming had these deals and
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  got this words. Now I think now if you would
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  like the young Kate Nash nowadays maybe does have a bit
• 8:17
  more agency to pick a deal that isn't as isn't has got terms
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  more favourable to her. So it is this idea of like, it's
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  very much artists at a certain point you sign those deals and
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  then streaming came along and it's taken time to untangle what
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  that means and where the money's going.
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  And like you say, it's not, it's still quite tangled.
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  So yeah, I'm, I'm sort of, so I am kind of in a way, I'm
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  positive. Like every time someone like
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  Kate Nash talks about this, I think younger artists might look
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  at it and say, right, this might help me decide what I want to do
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  and they may make decisions. So in a way, and I agree with
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  you, I, I, I love her. I think she's doing a really
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  important thing here. She's, she's, she's, she's sort
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  of educating younger artists and she's raising these points
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  publicly. And I think that will make
• 9:00
  things better for a lot of the artists who are who are yet to
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  sign a deal or deciding what to sign a deal at all.
• 9:05
  I did it, it, it took me down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to
• 9:09
  find out exactly which sort of royalty Spotify pay.
• 9:14
  And I came across A and well, it, it was described, I think as
• 9:18
  the definitive explanation of Spotify royalties in which a
• 9:23
  despairing journalist said the complexity of Spotify royalties
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  is frankly insane. So insane.
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  It took me over a month and 31 pages to explain it all.
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  Uh, but he goes on to say, to be, to be blunt, this is not
• 9:37
  really Spotify's fault, nor is it the music industry's fault or
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  copyright laws. But when you put all three of
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  these things together, you get a weird Franken monster royalty
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  scheme that has resulted from this new music business model
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  built on consumers paying to access music rather than paying
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  to own it. And that is The thing is the
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  evolution of the deals and whether they're keeping pace.
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  I think with, you know, the rest of the mechanics of how people
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  get paid. We should, you know what we
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  should do a whole show at some point as well on just the, the
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  construction of a record deal and what it actually means when
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  you sign it. If we could get a lawyer and
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  somebody from a record label together and an artist and just
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  sit them, it'd be great to just sit them down and negotiate the
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  record deal and explain point by point what it will mean for that
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  artist going forward in the in the future, for years come.
• 10:33
  Well, because stuff has always come along with that.
• 10:34
  I remember recently when we were talking about AI stuff, I
• 10:36
  remember a lawyer talked about how, yeah, now when you go and
• 10:38
  negotiate a deal, you're saying who's got the rights to my
• 10:41
  artist's soul for future for future AI purposes.
• 10:45
  And that's that's come in this now thing like, you know, you
• 10:48
  don't want to give, you maybe don't want to give your label
• 10:50
  the rights to to train any AI on your music without your
• 10:53
  permission. So all these every two years
• 10:55
  something new comes along that has to fix for into this.
• 10:57
  So yeah, that'll be fascinating. We should do that.
• 10:58
  Yeah, yeah. If if you're interested, drop us
• 11:02
  a lot and we'll we'll get that together.
• 11:04
  In the meantime, here's our next story.
• 11:06
  This is already one of the recurring themes of the year,
• 11:09
  the pursuit of the superfan. Warner Music now is in the final
• 11:14
  stages. We're told of testing a new
• 11:17
  superfan app with some involvement from he's back Ed
• 11:22
  Sheeran. Who who knew that Ed Sheeran was
• 11:25
  going to become such a regular on the price of Music?
• 11:29
  But yeah, so the superfan app, what does that entail?
• 11:33
  And and does it do the job that the superfan wants?
• 11:38
  Yeah, well, this was announced in February last year, actually,
• 11:40
  by by Warner Music's boss. And he said they'd assemble a
• 11:43
  team of incredible technology talent to create this app where
• 11:46
  artists could connect directly with their superfans.
• 11:49
  And it was going to launch later in the year, last year, and it
• 11:52
  still hasn't launched. And one reason seemingly now is
• 11:55
  that the first version wasn't very good, right?
• 11:58
  Which is partly anecdotal. I know some people who used it
• 12:01
  when it was being tested internally.
• 12:02
  And they were, when you asked them what it was like, they kind
• 12:04
  of gave you a face. It was like the grimace emoji,
• 12:06
  like they grit in their teeth. But also the Wall Street Journal
• 12:10
  did a report last week and it was mainly a profile of the New
• 12:12
  Boston Atlantic Records who's now involved in this, in this
• 12:15
  superfan app. But it also had gave it
• 12:17
  information and said, yeah, the original version.
• 12:19
  And I'm quoting from the Wall Street Journal here, so they
• 12:21
  can't get cross at us. So it looked like an Instagram
• 12:24
  feed of only Ed Sheeran posts that users could like and
• 12:28
  comment on, right? Which as much as Ed Sheeran
• 12:31
  seems a nice man, I'm not sure anyone, I'm not sure that's a
• 12:34
  ground breaking superfan thing because he posts, he posts on
• 12:37
  other places, you know, And so this report said that they've
• 12:40
  got a new version now it's better.
• 12:41
  Ed is still involved in testing it.
• 12:43
  So I mean, he's a he's a good artist to have tested it because
• 12:45
  he is one of Warner's top frontline artist, isn't he?
• 12:47
  And he's back on cycle now and they test it again.
• 12:51
  So they are they're still plugging away at it.
• 12:53
  And the version wasn't quite right, but I guess that's why
• 12:56
  you internally test something because you find out if it's not
• 12:59
  quite what you wanted. But it does seem to be Warner
• 13:04
  Music Groups version of Instagram from the sounds of it,
• 13:07
  which I'm, I mean, not to not to disagree with an incredible team
• 13:13
  of technology talent, but I'm not sure that's what people.
• 13:17
  Is anyone a super fan of a whole labels roster?
• 13:19
  Like for all the music's they've got, they've got Charlie XCX,
• 13:22
  they've got Ed Sheeran, they've got Lizzo, they've got Bruno
• 13:24
  Mars, they've got a lot of big stars.
• 13:26
  But is anyone a fan of all of them?
• 13:28
  So I'm not sure how that will work.
• 13:29
  Can you say I don't like Ed Sheeran?
• 13:31
  I don't want to see his posts. I'm just here for Lizzo or vice
• 13:34
  versa. It always seems a bit I don't.
• 13:37
  Know what it seems like it's just targeted advertising.
• 13:41
  That's what it feels like I. Remember, I remember.
• 13:44
  Disguised as artists being able to communicate directly with the
• 13:48
  fans. Well, yeah, well, well, as you
• 13:53
  say, if you've signed up to find out what Ed Sheeran's having for
• 13:58
  lunch, you're also being cold called by Lizzo at the same
• 14:02
  time. Yeah, which is some, I mean,
• 14:05
  it's weird because I mean, I remember, I remember back in the
• 14:07
  day, I can't which band it was, but I I signed up for one band's
• 14:09
  mailing list and I ended up getting loads of mail outs from
• 14:12
  all the other people on the roster who are very different.
• 14:14
  And I remember thinking I didn't sign up for this, but I think it
• 14:18
  is. The thing we don't know is we
• 14:20
  know roughly what the test app looked like, but we don't know
• 14:22
  what the plans are. Because I think when they
• 14:24
  announced it, they were talking about we're going to have ways
• 14:26
  for the artists to get the data on their fans and be able to
• 14:28
  talk to them, right? We're going to have ways to make
• 14:31
  money. Like there could be all kinds of
• 14:33
  stuff that hasn't been leaked in this app yet.
• 14:35
  But I think it's a challenge for any major label is people aren't
• 14:38
  fans of an entire major label roster.
• 14:40
  They're super fans of 1. And especially when, I mean,
• 14:43
  none of these artists are going to stop posting on Instagram.
• 14:46
  They're going to stop using TikTok, then they're still going
• 14:50
  to be in these other places. So it's going to have to be
• 14:52
  something special to make you say, yeah, I want another app on
• 14:54
  my phone. That's just the Warner Music
• 14:57
  Superfan app. Yeah.
• 14:58
  Like what you get from that that you can't get elsewhere is going
• 15:01
  to be quite good. But maybe they, you know,
• 15:02
  they're smart people in that company, so maybe they are
• 15:04
  figuring it out. What's going to kind of make you
• 15:06
  download it? Like we shall see live music
• 15:10
  next. And there are, there are quite a
• 15:12
  lot of stories around at the moment to do with ticketing,
• 15:16
  which I'm, I'm guessing. I mean, it's partly I think
• 15:20
  because organisations are trying to publicly state their position
• 15:24
  while the government is currently looking into the issue
• 15:27
  of secondary ticketing, which might be behind this.
• 15:30
  Via Gogo is under pressure in the UK, with campaigning body
• 15:35
  Fanfare Alliance accusing it of hosting of can we go as far as
• 15:40
  saying potentially illegal offences or is that overstepping
• 15:44
  the mark? That's what Fanfare described as
• 15:46
  potential offences. OK, yeah, we're going to have
• 15:50
  this thing. You'll put on multiple me that
• 15:52
  this government consultation on ticketing, but it's fairly seems
• 15:55
  fairly clear the government is interested in reforming the way
• 15:58
  secondary ticketing works and cracking down on some of the
• 16:00
  things that are not so good for buyers.
• 16:03
  And Fanfare Alliance. I mean, they've been a needle in
• 16:06
  the side of companies like Vehicle for years, haven't they?
• 16:08
  Sort of pointing out the things that are going wrong on their
• 16:11
  platform, criticising their business practice and so on.
• 16:14
  So, yeah, I mean, it's this list they published of potential
• 16:16
  offences and it was, it was everything from they said that
• 16:18
  people were speculatively listing Bastille tickets, so
• 16:21
  listing the tickets before they were on sale when the people
• 16:24
  selling them didn't have a ticket to sell, which is one of
• 16:27
  the things being cracked down on length of all list tickets with
• 16:30
  incorrect face values, drip pricing where you kind of get,
• 16:33
  you're charged more than you think you're going to get when
• 16:35
  you get to the end of it. And I think like you said, the
• 16:38
  timing is key because it's ramping up a pressure on the
• 16:41
  government. I think, I think that all these
• 16:44
  offences that they listed have been, they said they've been
• 16:46
  committed since the start of this consultation.
• 16:49
  Really. So it's kind of giving you a
• 16:50
  snapshot in time of saying, look, even though there's a
• 16:52
  consultation, this is what's been happening on there.
• 16:55
  Haven't seen Vigo go respond so far.
• 16:58
  They will be responding to the consultation I'm sure with their
• 17:00
  thoughts on on why they're not bad and and wrong.
• 17:04
  But yeah, I mean, I felt like the precious building.
• 17:06
  And this is where you could tell me something because I, I, this
• 17:09
  fanfare line statement came with this.
• 17:12
  It came with back, I think quotes from the MMF and live and
• 17:16
  UK music. So my sense is that the, the
• 17:18
  music industry is, is swinging behind the idea of reform.
• 17:21
  But you can probably tell me. Oh.
• 17:22
  Very, I mean very much. I mean, particularly on certain
• 17:26
  issues. Um, everyone's, yeah, as you
• 17:28
  say, everyone's coming, I think together because it's, I think,
• 17:33
  you know, it's, it's the secretary ticketing market,
• 17:36
  which is worth a lot of money to people outside of the music
• 17:40
  industry is a pain for the music industry.
• 17:43
  I think so, yeah. Touting and, and it's, I mean,
• 17:47
  there are debates going on about, you know, how much
• 17:51
  because no one, I don't think anyone saying we shouldn't be
• 17:54
  able to if we can't go to a gig, sell our gig tickets.
• 17:58
  But it's how much you can sell it for.
• 18:01
  So how much, how much can you, if you've got a ticket, I want
• 18:06
  to resell that ticket. Should you be able to resell
• 18:09
  that ticket for 10% above the value of the ticket or more?
• 18:14
  So there's a debate over if, if it's as much as government.
• 18:18
  So you cannot sell, come out and recommend that they legislate
• 18:23
  around, I don't know, say 30, but you can't sell your ticket
• 18:26
  for more than 30% above the original face value of the
• 18:29
  ticket. That still probably leaves
• 18:31
  enough profit margin for the touts to still make a business
• 18:35
  out of it. And I think the music industry
• 18:37
  would like the reseller tickets to come down to somewhere in the
• 18:41
  region of 10%. But there's various other issues
• 18:45
  involved as well, including, you know, it's also the Commission
• 18:49
  costs as well, you know, will be debated.
• 18:52
  But yeah, it's all part of this secondary ticketing consultation
• 18:58
  which is going on at the moment. And both sides are lobbying very
• 19:01
  hard from what I understand for your go go on the one side and
• 19:06
  as you say live and MMF and everyone else representing the
• 19:11
  the live industry on the other. And did you see the week before
• 19:15
  actually, again, Fanfare being a needle inside of beer Gogo?
• 19:18
  There was a beer Gogo, a little rap on the knuckles from the
• 19:21
  advertising watchdog. Did you see that story?
• 19:23
  No it didn't. So I don't want to start a
• 19:26
  podcast beef, but but we may have to.
• 19:30
  So, George, you know, George Osborne and Ed Balls have got a
• 19:32
  political podcast. Oh yeah, Yeah, I do, yeah.
• 19:35
  And they've read out, you know, those host read ads.
• 19:37
  They read out an ad from Beer Gogo include the line.
• 19:41
  Did you know that over half the events listed on Virgo had
• 19:43
  tickets selling below face value And fanfare Alliance put a
• 19:47
  complaint in saying that's not true.
• 19:50
  And the watchdog kind of backed it and said, well, I think more
• 19:55
  than half of the events had sold at least 1 ticket below face
• 19:57
  value. But the the watchdog said, but
• 20:00
  that's not a significant portion of tickets.
• 20:01
  So it's kind of not really a reasonable chance for you to get
• 20:04
  them. So there was.
• 20:05
  So again, this is a. I mean, Vega said the ad was
• 20:09
  from last year but discontinued. We haven't had it since then.
• 20:12
  But is the pressure is ramping up on them and like you say,
• 20:15
  they're lobbying hard and their own way and for the secondary
• 20:18
  ticket companies. But it's, yeah, I'm not sure
• 20:20
  when the consultation ends. It's soon, isn't it?
• 20:22
  I think, I think, I think everything's in, isn't it?
• 20:26
  Or yeah, I think everything's in.
• 20:31
  I haven't got my diary of important dates of what you
• 20:34
  know, of deadlines in front of me moving on to the next door,
• 20:41
  because this this is sort of staying with live gigs and
• 20:43
  something which used to obviously be frowned on by the
• 20:46
  music industry, which is bootlegs, bootlegs of live gigs.
• 20:51
  I don't know if you're coming in the old I remember standing at a
• 20:54
  gig. It was a gig by the Damned, and
• 20:57
  I was stood next to a man who was holding a carrier bag with
• 21:01
  a, with a, with an actual ghetto blaster in it recording the gig.
• 21:07
  And it was a really unwieldy thing.
• 21:09
  I mean, he's not going to notice a man with a carrier bag.
• 21:12
  He was holding this carrier bag under his arm and gave me some
• 21:16
  really some really filthy looks when I started singing along to
• 21:19
  one of the songs because obviously it was spoiling his.
• 21:22
  Recording Is there a bootleg somewhere with you singing
• 21:24
  loudly? Yeah, to the.
• 21:25
  Probably to the damned at at Crocs and Rayleigh.
• 21:30
  But yeah, Bootleg record seems. But there have been efforts over
• 21:35
  the last decade or so, haven't there?
• 21:36
  There have been companies who've recorded gigs officially and
• 21:41
  then pressed them up onto ACD within half an hour of the gig
• 21:44
  finishing. So you can take home, you could
• 21:46
  take home in theory, ACD of the gig you've just been at.
• 21:50
  But this is this is coming back again.
• 21:52
  So there's a new start up called Bootleg which has got a new,
• 21:57
  well this time a digital spin on the idea and thinks it can
• 22:01
  actually make some decent money for artists out of out of this
• 22:05
  is it? Is it a similar sort of concept?
• 22:07
  We'll record the gig and send you the stream or something.
• 22:10
  That's exactly it. So it's, and it interested me
• 22:12
  because they were, they were talking figures of how much
• 22:14
  artists can make. So yeah.
• 22:15
  So it's AUS company I think and and they've been working with a
• 22:18
  few artists so far, independent ones.
• 22:19
  They worked with a country artist called Caitlin Butts
• 22:21
  recently and yeah, they were saying basically they, they
• 22:25
  record from the soundboard and they turn it into additional
• 22:27
  things send you and they can combine sort of photos and video
• 22:30
  clips with it to make it like a souvenir of the gig.
• 22:33
  And they're describing it as like audio merch is the phrase
• 22:36
  they're using. So it's like, like you buy AT
• 22:38
  shirt at the end, you can buy the recording of the gig you're
• 22:40
  at. And yeah, so I, I actually did a
• 22:44
  little sort of e-mail interview with the the CEO and he was
• 22:46
  saying, yeah, they reckon they're using it in like 500 to
• 22:49
  1000 capacity venues. And they reckon that 5 to 10% of
• 22:53
  people who go are buying the bootleg.
• 22:56
  So, you know, up to what's that? If it's 500 people, 10% it's 50
• 23:01
  people. Yeah.
• 23:02
  So you know, 25 to 50 people out of 500 might buy this and
• 23:05
  they're selling them for between $10 and $40.
• 23:10
  I think the Caitlin Butts one was maybe 20 something.
• 23:13
  So it's a decent amount of money and they say it's quite cheap to
• 23:18
  do because they're just recording the the gig that's
• 23:21
  happening anyway. There's no extra cost from that.
• 23:24
  And yeah, and it's kind of a, it's a trend.
• 23:25
  There's a company called Set Mixer which does a similar thing
• 23:28
  in the UK. They're recording gigs and so
• 23:29
  on. And it's this idea of when you
• 23:31
  go home, you take the recording of the experience with you and
• 23:35
  also the potential to people who can't get there.
• 23:37
  So if someone's touring in the US and they've got some fans in
• 23:39
  Japan, they might want to buy these things as well because
• 23:42
  they're not going to get. To the tour, yeah.
• 23:44
  So it's it's interesting and I love the fact that it's called
• 23:47
  bootleg because like you say, I remember what I used to live in
• 23:50
  New Cross in London. There was it used to be a record
• 23:51
  fair thing in Greenwich regularly.
• 23:54
  And it was all mainly bootleg CDs and, and because you know, I
• 23:58
  would go in that they'd, I remember spending years trying
• 24:00
  to get Blur at my land because that was one of my first big
• 24:03
  gigs. Right.
• 24:04
  Yeah, as a teenager, and I eventually found that at one of
• 24:07
  these things and there were lots of Black Crows bootlegs because
• 24:09
  they encouraged it like they used to.
• 24:11
  Insane people. Bring your recording equipment.
• 24:13
  Don't need to hide. You get a blaster.
• 24:14
  Bring it along, Bryant. So I've got lots of those.
• 24:17
  So, yeah, it's like, it's not, it's like a little nice link to
• 24:19
  the this this culture of wanting to listen to the gigs you've
• 24:22
  been to or listen to fame. Listen to people singing along.
• 24:28
  And then and then send some photos out of where you were
• 24:33
  standing at the gig where which was a great view until 2 minutes
• 24:38
  before the band went on and then somebody come and stood in front
• 24:41
  of you. Just just the photo of the back
• 24:43
  of somebody's neck and a link to a recording of the gig with
• 24:48
  people singing along out of tune.
• 24:50
  It's a balance to I once tried to boot like a Chemical Brothers
• 24:55
  gig at Brixton Academy. I don't know what I was
• 24:56
  thinking. The phone, and the only good bit
• 24:58
  of it, which I wish I had still, was the bit where I go to the
• 25:01
  loo halfway through and it just records me through the crowd
• 25:06
  saying excuse me, excuse me, sorry, sorry.
• 25:08
  And then having a wig and then coming back out, then ordering a
• 25:10
  pint. And I think that's that was some
• 25:12
  really good, some really good colour.
• 25:15
  But the red, the actual chemical.
• 25:16
  But is it the speaker couldn't cope with it.
• 25:18
  It's just like white noise. Yeah, by the way, I'm very, I'm,
• 25:22
  I'm very impressed by the way you managed to shoehorn in
• 25:24
  another reference to the black crows in that as well.
• 25:27
  Well, there you go. Well done, right?
• 25:29
  YouTube is rolling out a new feature that allows creators to
• 25:32
  instantaneously generate custom and copyright free instrumental
• 25:39
  backing tracks using AI. If you're interested in such a
• 25:44
  thing, explain a bit more about this.
• 25:47
  Yeah, and there is a money angle to this which I'll get onto, but
• 25:50
  yeah, it's a new feature for, well, it's for Youtubers, but
• 25:52
  anyone making videos for YouTube really, And it's starting to
• 25:55
  roll out. So not everyone has it yet, but
• 25:57
  that's the ultimate goal is everyone will have this.
• 25:59
  And it's kind of an AI mean generous like we've talked about
• 26:01
  before. So it's you type in a text
• 26:04
  prompt saying I want this kind of track using these
• 26:06
  instruments, this kind of mood. And you can also say, well, it's
• 26:09
  for a it's for a video of me doing a cooking recipe or me
• 26:12
  playing a game or whatever the video is about.
• 26:14
  You can tell it that, right? And it will knock up this music
• 26:16
  for you and it's free to use. And the key thing is, your video
• 26:19
  won't be taken down with a copyright claim, which I guess I
• 26:23
  should explain because I don't know how much people listening
• 26:25
  will know about YouTube's Content ID programme.
• 26:28
  I mean, do you? Are you up on this Content ID?
• 26:31
  No. OK, explain it to us so.
• 26:33
  It's got this feature called Content ID.
• 26:35
  It's spent a lot of money developing it, which basically
• 26:36
  detects copyrighted music. So if I upload a video of me
• 26:40
  playing a game and I know I put the new Fat Dog single on as a
• 26:43
  soundtrack, it will say I recognise that Fat Dog.
• 26:46
  It will tell Fats Dogs rights holders the label and then they
• 26:50
  can decide to to leave the video alone.
• 26:52
  They don't mind. They can choose to get it taken
• 26:54
  down until they're in with music or they can claim it.
• 26:57
  And when you claim it, it means the label gets the money from
• 27:00
  any ads that are showing around it.
• 27:02
  And this has been a big deal. Like I'm back in 2022, YouTube
• 27:05
  said that I think more than 30% of its payouts to the music
• 27:08
  industry came from this content ID system of people using music
• 27:12
  and their videos and then it being detected.
• 27:14
  And then, you know, the labels get in the royalties.
• 27:16
  So that was like a couple of billion dollars.
• 27:18
  So that was a big deal. And so this is where if
• 27:20
  YouTube's suddenly as a tool to create your own AI soundtrack,
• 27:23
  it could impact that. It could mean that people won't
• 27:25
  use commercial music in their videos, which could produce.
• 27:29
  But I think the worst news is for companies.
• 27:31
  There's a whole bunch of companies that have built
• 27:33
  businesses around selling royalty free music to Youtubers.
• 27:35
  And that like there's a company with epidemic sound who are very
• 27:38
  big in this, for example, And they would say, right, subscribe
• 27:41
  to us, you can use our music and you won't get your, your videos
• 27:44
  taken down because they've got copyrighted music in.
• 27:47
  And so it's kind of a challenge for them if YouTube has now got
• 27:49
  a button to press to say, right, create me an AI soundtrack.
• 27:52
  So it's going to be interesting. And this was like quietly
• 27:56
  announced. It wasn't really press release.
• 27:58
  It just kind of announced on a YouTube support site.
• 28:00
  And gradually music industry press are picking up on it and
• 28:02
  saying, Ah, what does this mean though?
• 28:04
  Because YouTube's content idea is quite a good revenue source
• 28:07
  for the industry. Then again, if you want to use a
• 28:11
  great song in your video, knocking up an AI version isn't.
• 28:16
  Maybe, you know, you might not appeal.
• 28:18
  You may still want to use stuff. But it looks great.
• 28:20
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 28:21
  The song that people know which. Yeah.
• 28:24
  Yeah, yeah. Right.
• 28:25
  Finally, for this week, Bonnie Ver fans had some interesting
• 28:29
  ways to spend their money on Friday to celebrate his new
• 28:34
  albums release in various versions and tie insurance.
• 28:39
  Can you? Can you can you list what?
• 28:41
  Well, tell us. Tell us about the array of
• 28:44
  editions of the New Bonneville Record.
• 28:48
  Well, yeah, because I don't know if you saw he did a Guardian too
• 28:50
  last weekend. It was really, really
• 28:51
  interesting. And you know, because he's been,
• 28:53
  he's famously been through some stuff, he's been through some
• 28:55
  mental health issues. He doesn't really like big tours
• 28:57
  and promotional activities. He wants to make music and but
• 29:00
  he loves his new song, so he's got his album.
• 29:01
  Is it so I get it wrong that it's Sable Fable or is it Fable
• 29:04
  Sable Sable Fable I think, isn't it?
• 29:07
  Who knows? It's just confusing, but he love
• 29:11
  it Like he's, he's, he gave us an interview saying like, I'm
• 29:13
  pushing, I'm doing everything for this because I want this,
• 29:15
  these songs to get into people. And part of that is this
• 29:18
  promotional splurge. And but it's, it's not, it's
• 29:21
  like an it's a really creative 1.
• 29:23
  So this album is table fable. It's kind of like got this
• 29:28
  salmon pink visual motif. It's all this colour pink.
• 29:32
  And so all these things, so around the world like UK,
• 29:35
  Australia, Southeast Asia, US, they were kind of restaurants
• 29:40
  and pop ups and bars doing stuff.
• 29:43
  And it's all listed on his website.
• 29:44
  You can go to ititsboniva.org/release day and
• 29:48
  there's like there's a fresh Peach puree that was sold in
• 29:51
  Kuala Lumpur city centre. There's a salmon roulette bagel
• 29:54
  that was sold in NSW. There's a pizza in places, a
• 29:58
  limited edition Fable lager sold in Virginia space side smoothie
• 30:03
  bowl in Australia, like all these kind of food and drink.
• 30:06
  Then it's all kind of pink or salmony and it was around what
• 30:10
  there's coffees, there's sorbet and it's just, and on this
• 30:17
  website it's all presented in kind of an artwork style.
• 30:19
  It looks like album artwork, like everything's referred to
• 30:21
  it. So there's a shortcake with pink
• 30:23
  icing. It's it's it felt to me really
• 30:26
  creative because it wasn't just it wasn't just like here's loads
• 30:29
  of merch, buy it. It's not one of those things.
• 30:31
  It was like a go to this place and other Bonnie Ver fans will
• 30:35
  be going there too. And it's kind of that thing of
• 30:38
  gathering your fans in different places around the world to eat
• 30:41
  things that are not. So I liked it like it felt, it
• 30:44
  felt like a thing of I've been thinking, I didn't know if I
• 30:47
  word it right, but I've been thinking like recently about the
• 30:50
  importance of physical people getting together physically.
• 30:53
  And I think that is something that's one of the little trends
• 30:55
  in music marketing that's happening now is people going,
• 30:58
  it can't all be digital. Like, we can do all the stuff on
• 31:00
  TikTok and Instagram and all that, but getting fans together
• 31:04
  in the real world is is has always been powerful.
• 31:06
  And we're going to start doing it even more.
• 31:08
  And this felt like part of that. Like, it's very creative
• 31:11
  visually, but it's about getting his fans to kind of come and
• 31:13
  meet. And I thought that was nice.
• 31:15
  And while while they were eating their Boniva sorbet, what was
• 31:19
  was the record playing in the background or anything?
• 31:22
  I mean, how does this help get the songs across?
• 31:25
  I mean, well, it's an exciting menu Boniva, but has this maybe,
• 31:29
  I mean, maybe the fact that we're discussing it means that
• 31:31
  people will go. I wonder what that the album is
• 31:33
  like. I shall go and listen to Sable
• 31:36
  Phobia. But it was all, it was all
• 31:37
  venue, it was all specific restaurants, bars, coffee shops
• 31:40
  and so on. So I might, I would imagine they
• 31:41
  did have the album playing and it was on the release day as
• 31:44
  well, so. Do let us know if you attended
• 31:47
  any of the culinary events that were staged around the release
• 31:52
  of his new album. Yeah.
• 31:54
  And how, how did they taste? Good?
• 31:55
  Was it good? I think that is where we will
• 32:00
  leave it for this week. Just before we go, we have a
• 32:03
  couple of announcements actually.
• 32:05
  For starters, sadly this is producer Guy's final show with
• 32:10
  us and some of you will probably already know it was it was Guy
• 32:15
  who I went to originally with the idea for this podcast.
• 32:20
  It's some time ago now after my mate Tom said why don't why
• 32:24
  don't you do that? I bet you could do a music
• 32:25
  equivalent of the very successful full price of
• 32:29
  football podcasts, which of course was guys idea which he
• 32:32
  came up with for his production company Dapped it.
• 32:34
  So I went, I spoke to guy and he was kind enough to listen to the
• 32:38
  idea and said yeah, we could have a go at doing that.
• 32:43
  And he was so encouraging and enthusiastic because it took us
• 32:47
  a long time looking for the right Co host.
• 32:50
  But Guy eventually suggested Stuart.
• 32:52
  We met and so we launched this podcast last year.
• 32:56
  But sadly, as I said, with more and more demands on his time, we
• 33:00
  can't hang on to Guy any longer. But as he leaves, we would just
• 33:06
  like to say thank you very much a guy for all the work you put
• 33:11
  into this. I don't know if I don't know if
• 33:13
  you want to say, say a tearful goodbye here, Stuart.
• 33:16
  Yeah, no, I think so. It's been great because I'd say
• 33:18
  I came into this when it was already an idea and I've learned
• 33:22
  a lot just from seeing how he he does it and, and working with
• 33:24
  you. So it's been, it's been great.
• 33:26
  And he's, yeah, he's going on to do all kinds of stuff.
• 33:28
  Yeah. But yeah, they were very, very
• 33:31
  grateful. Which which meant, obviously,
• 33:33
  that we we ended up being in the position where we were looking
• 33:36
  for someone to come in and take over as guardians of the show.
• 33:40
  And we are very grateful to Stuart's friends at Music Ally
• 33:44
  who have come to our aids and will be the new production team
• 33:48
  behind the podcast. This does, however, mean because
• 33:53
  there's there's quite a lot of logistical change over stuff
• 33:56
  which needs to happen, means that we will be taking a short
• 34:02
  break while the, I don't know, the back end is swapped over.
• 34:06
  Whatever needs to be done. Don't ask me about the technical
• 34:08
  stuff was to say it means we will be absent for a short time,
• 34:13
  hopefully not very long at all, a matter of weeks as we
• 34:17
  reassemble the show and take the time to look, you know, to the
• 34:21
  future and examine what we do next, whether it's slightly
• 34:26
  different or just the same. Any suggestions what we might be
• 34:29
  doing right or wrong? Now's the time to speak now or
• 34:33
  forever hold your tongue. But we would like to say, well,
• 34:37
  to take this opportunity to thank you all for listening to
• 34:42
  date and for your support and especially our illustrious
• 34:47
  Patreon subscribers, of course. And do follow us on social
• 34:51
  media. I'm sure you can find myself and
• 34:53
  Stuart also, the price of music socials will still be there.
• 35:00
  So if you want to find out more about what we're up to and when
• 35:03
  we'll be back, or if you'd just like to keep in touch or send us
• 35:06
  some stories of interest, drop us a line wherever you can find
• 35:10
  us and we'll be back as soon as we can.
• 35:13
  Till then, thanks everybody, we'll talk to you soon.