Latest / Buzzcast / The Importance of Owning Your Show: A Spotify Exclusive Cautionary Tale

Transcript

The Importance of Owning Your Show: A Spotify Exclusive Cautionary Tale · Buzzcast

• 0:00
  Jordan: Was that a little more energetic? I don't know.
• 0:02
  Alban: That was more energy, but it's definitely more pauses.
• 0:05
  Kevin: It was more slow.
• 0:06
  Jordan: I'm gonna cut out the pauses. Oh my gosh, okay.
• 0:09
  Alban: Now you're getting amped.
• 0:09
  Alban: This is how we get each other pumped up. It's just annoying each other until we're talking a little bit higher and more frustrated.
• 0:16
  Jordan: Yeah.
• 0:16
  Alban: Good. This is good content.
• 0:24
  Alban: So, Kev, a few episodes ago, you told me that I needed to start listening to Buzzcast more religiously.
• 0:31
  Kevin: Yeah, we talked about that on the show. Yeah.
• 0:33
  Alban: Yeah. I have, for my own edification, half for possibly boosting our own numbers, I took your advice. And last week, it was especially pertinent because I wasn't on the show. And I have some follow up. This iHeart story, like broke, right as I'm getting ready to go out of town.
• 0:51
  Alban: And I'm asking Jordan, "hey, can you fill in for me?" And then it breaks. And I'm like, Oh, I gotta get back on the show.
• 1:00
  Jordan: And this is the mobile gaming app advertising story.
• 1:04
  Jordan: Yeah.
• 1:04
  Kevin: Right. I mean, this is Subway Surfers? Yeah.
• 1:06
  Alban: Is this not just like one of the most wild stories, I think, in podcasting in the last few years? And there's like three different versions of this story that I've heard. And I feel I'm not really sure which is true. I mean, the Podcast 2.0 show, the way they talked about it. Adam Curry's like, there's literally these fake games that are just a front to boost numbers. And I had not heard this. So apparently, Adam, when he worked in Silicon Valley said, there's some that it's a mobile game. And all it's really used for is filtering scammy activities, like he believes some of them aren't even games.
• 1:45
  Alban: It's not like they got a bunch of teenagers who aren't interested in the product. They create a game that you can click to get extra gems or something for doing something. And then they're actually hiring somebody like in Malaysia to go sign up.
• 2:00
  Alban: And so he was talking about this is a way that people fake growth. Kevin pointed out in the show, and I thought was a good point. That's probably unlikely, because the game that was being used, what's it called Kevin?
• 2:11
  Alban: Subway Surfers?
• 2:13
  Kevin: Subway Surfers, yeah, and a couple others. But that's definitely a real, it's a real game, very popular game.
• 2:18
  Alban: I'm of the opinion now, that one didn't happen. At the beginning, I was like, Oh, my gosh, this is a bigger story than we're talking about. And the other is like, Tom's kind of talking about, like, hey, this actually could kind of be a good idea if you're really getting listeners. But I feel like the middle is it's like the iHeart way it was so indicative of like some of the stuff we keep seeing with I heart, which is no not getting new listeners from this.
• 2:41
  Alban: And they're just juicing the numbers. Now they're doing it and IAB certified way which I think that should obviously change now. They're loading up the right amount of audio to get the right amount of download that they don't even care if somebody goes through and clicks and listens. But like, this is the same thing that I heard does with the who's the most powerful people in podcasting, and it's like, six people from my heart that you've never heard of.
• 3:09
  Alban: Yeah, so I really liked the conversation. But I found myself in that section, kind of like yelling at the radio, the radio, podcast. And I'm like, this is I heart I just feel like if it was a different company, I would maybe be a little bit more inclined to say maybe it was a smart marketing move. But when you have this fake it till you make it persona, it feels like the fake it till you make it is probably what was going on just like juice the numbers until we are number one, they started putting up the science number one in podcasting, most influential in podcasting. Well before the numbers reflected that. And then the rubber started reflecting it because the freaking mobile apps.
• 3:52
  Jordan: Yeah, and that's the thing is like that's, that's also harmful to podcasting as a whole. It's like, you know, when you are doing a round of funding for a business, you don't want to like overvalue your company.
• 4:02
  Jordan: Because if you can't live up to that, like you're screwed, you're not going to be able to make it to like the next valuation. Right. And it's a little scary to me putting it in that sort of like context.
• 4:14
  Jordan: They're inflating download numbers, and it kind of freaks me out.
• 4:17
  Alban: Yeah, you see this a lot with like, anything that's VC funded, they pump a bunch of money in to try to make it to the next level. And this is different because it's iHeart that has a very good profitable business. I believed until recently.
• 4:33
  Kevin: Yeah, I mean, their business is content and then selling advertising around the content. They absolutely make money doing that. I don't know how much they make or how profitable they are. But yeah, there's a business there. They own a lot of radio stations too.
• 4:43
  Kevin: So a lot of local ads.
• 4:45
  Jordan: That's true.
• 4:46
  Alban: Anyway, I think I just wanted to add like this is a little bit of like maybe the fourth time now that I'm like, huh, I liked I heart I have some respect for the shows they make.
• 4:55
  Alban: The creators who are associated with I heart are good people.
• 4:59
  Alban: And now This is like the third or fourth time I've seen this, Hey, we're the biggest. But that doesn't land for anybody in the podcasting industry who's like, doesn't pass my smell test.
• 5:11
  Alban: There was a lot of like, we're trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I was just kind of like, I can't give him the benefit of doubt anymore, that this point, this is the strategy for them. They say they're number one in podcasting. They say they're the top destination for radio. They say they're the most powerful people in podcasting. And they don't disclose that they wrote that article, and they published that article, it just feels like it's all have the same cloth.
• 5:37
  Jordan: Yeah, it appears to be like them manifesting that they are the number one in podcasting. If they say it like enough times, they'll come true.
• 5:44
  Jordan: But then when it doesn't, then they start like skewing things.
• 5:47
  Jordan: And that's a little different.
• 5:51
  Alban: I think manifesting is internal, you say to yourself, you tell yourself, I will be the number one in podcasting, you don't go lie.
• 6:04
  Kevin: You have to put it out to the world, that's part of it.
• 6:07
  Jordan: You have to, you have to put it out to the universe.
• 6:10
  Kevin: If you just say, in your own mind, I'm going to run a marathon, you may or may not run a marathon. But as soon as you start telling everybody that you're running a marathon, there's a much better chance that you're going to run a marathon.
• 6:20
  Alban: To be clear, if they didn't say we will be the number one. This is the right analogy.
• 6:22
  Alban: If you just said Kennedy, that they said was I am the fastest marathon runner in the world. I beat Kipchoge and I crossed the two hour mark. And you're like, wow, that does not seem right, based on the level of physical fitness that Alban seems to have. And then you dig into it.
• 6:41
  Alban: And it's like, I skipped half the race actually could skip half the race, and I still wouldn't beat--but like, that's what that's what they did. They they gamed it, and then they did win, but it's like, oh, everyone knows that's not real.
• 6:56
  Kevin: I don't know. I think it's worth a shot. Let's take it. Let's take a shot. Buzzcast The number one podcast about podcasting.
• 7:04
  Alban: Saying it, that's actually still more true I think than the iHeart one, but yeah.
• 7:09
  Kevin: I think it is to maybe we would even say about podcasting.
• 7:13
  Kevin: We're just the number one podcast number one podcast.
• 7:15
  Kevin: Thanks for listening to Buzzcast, the number one podcast in the world!
• 7:22
  Jordan: Buzzsprout dev team has been working super, super hard cranking out really awesome features back to back to back.
• 7:28
  Jordan: They're doing such a great job.
• 7:28
  Jordan: And they just cranked out a new one that is super amazing. What is that, Kev?
• 7:35
  Kevin: Yeah, it's episode footers. It's a great new feature. Listen, hey, instead of me talking about it. Why don't we let Alban do this one because the way we work at Buzzsprout is ideas can come from anybody in any department. And this was an idea that Alban pitched a long time ago, and there's some reasons why it sat around for a little while and till we got it, right. But Alban, why don't you tell us about it since it was your idea?
• 7:55
  Alban: Yeah, I just looked it up. I pitched this back in 2019.
• 7:59
  Jordan: Whoa.
• 8:00
  Alban: So this is a good example. There's a lot of times where people reach out and ask about features, and they're out there in some form inside of Buzzsprout. being kicked around, we're thinking about it, it takes a little while for us to go. This is exactly right. And it's the right time to do it.
• 8:16
  Alban: But this feature is episode footer. In descriptions I kept seeing, especially at the bottom, there was a lot of the same information. You know, these are the Twitter handles for the people who make the podcast, our music is made by brake master cylinder, our blah, blah, blah, like you put in all these credits, and all sorts of stuff. And the problem is like one your copy and pasting that every time. But the second problem is, if you ever want to change that, let's say I just added a new social media profile, you now we're gonna go add that back to in our case, like 70 episodes, like that's a little bit much. And so the episode footer is just like the footer on any page in a Word document. It's some part that's repeated on every page. And so you can put information down there like links to profiles and ways to support the show and calls to action. And it's included in all of your episode descriptions across all of your episodes. So I was super excited when I saw that we were working on it. Yeah, it's been a few years in the making, and it was really good.
• 9:19
  Kevin: It was, you know, this project was, it's a fun one to tackle. And we tried to keep it as simple as possible. One of the things that I'm seeing people kick around in the Facebook group is if you've got 70 episodes, or 100 episodes or 150 episodes, and then you add a footer, does that mean you have to go back and pull all that info out of your first 70, 100, 200, episodes, how many have and where we landed was that really is what has to happen. We tried and tried to figure out a programmatic way, like a systematic way to be able to edit previous episode descriptions in bulk and everything we came up with there are problems with it. So looking for repetitive content and using like an algorithmic system And to try to figure out how much to cut off of previous notes, where we landed was the possibility of doing damage to your descriptions was way too high.
• 10:05
  Kevin: And so depending how many episodes you have, you might have, you know, a couple hours of work to do to go through and edit all of them and get it back out. But the upside of that is that once it's done, now, you can use this new feature for all your episodes going forward and ever, you want to put a new link and all of your episodes at once, it's now a 22nd task instead of a two or three hour task. And so it does mean that some people are going to have a little bit more work to do if you've been podcasting for a while. But I think it's worth it's worth carving out some time on a Saturday or something to be able to get that done. And now you can use this new feature.
• 10:37
  Kevin: And you have this powerful tool moving forward.
• 10:41
  Jordan: It's funny that you mentioned that because our Facebook moderator, Jonathan Swenson, when I notified them that this feature was deployed, he told me that the night before, he had just gone through every single one of his prior episodes, updating his and it was literally one time and he just like I just felt through like the chat, just that dismay of like, "Oh, if I just waited one day!" So it's a real thing.
• 11:14
  Jordan: Like it's a lot, a lot of work to go back through, especially if you've been podcasting for a long time.
• 11:20
  Kevin: You know, I saw somebody else in the Facebook group who said that they had like a teenage son or daughter and they were going to pay them a few dollars to do this on an afternoon. And I'm like, That is a great job for a teenage kid.
• 11:31
  Kevin: You have somebody, a kid, 12 to whatever, that would be a good job for them. Like just edit, you show them how to edit an episode and pull this out and save it now do that 150 times and you get 10 out of it.
• 11:43
  Jordan: And don't delete!
• 11:44
  Kevin: Right?
• 11:44
  Alban: Just wait until your episode footer has like here's how to donate Roblox bucks. One of the questions I've seen since we announced this was people trying to understand how would this fit with a larger template.
• 11:58
  Alban: So the other version of requests I looked at when I was researching and pitching this project was people were talking about templates. And I kept like kind of running into this question of like, what is the value of a template, at least in law, like everyone uses tons of templates. And it's really valuable when something's highly repetitive. You know, there's some that are standard. And so you're almost using the exact same ones, you're replacing names. But then there's some times like it's very fact specific, like what things happened on what days. And when you get into those type of things, templates stopped becoming super useful. And that's kind of the thing that was sitting in my mind as I'm looking at, hey, can we get some sort of templates, what I realized was, the only part that needs to be quote, unquote, templatized, and actually needs to be consistent is this very small area that is always consistent. It's the links, it's the contact, it's the lead generation, it's the hey, here's the premium feed these 12 things max that you would ever include.
• 13:06
  Alban: And so it was just kind of an interesting point, I kind of wanted to share, this is a leading example of we went in a simpler direction. But in the end, I couldn't find a whole lot of value, maybe going the full template way.
• 13:22
  Jordan: That's what I found with doing both Dreamful and then also doing Buzzcast. So Dreamful, I just copy the prior episodes show notes and slap them into the next episode and just change like the story that I told. And then the music. That is it. That is all that I changed in my show notes. And then the rest of it's just all the same information they'll be putting in that footer. But Buzzcast I can't do that. I cannot just copy and paste our prior episodes, show notes, because all of the topics are different than what we have done in the prior episode. So yeah, it's kind of like a situational thing. Like you said it would it just would not make sense.
• 13:58
  Kevin: So one of the last things that's worth mentioning is if you look at the footer feature, it has a character limit of 500 characters, and that includes hidden characters. So if you do links, you might see that, you know, you just typed the word hello. But it didn't just take five off because you linked hello to whatever google.com/hello To do a Google search for the word. And all of a sudden, you've lost 75 characters, because all those characters that you don't see that are needed to make that link are counted as well. So let me explain that a little bit and why it's in place Apple podcast app, which is the most popular apps but like in the world, for most podcasts that applies as well has a 4000 character limit for what they now need to call episode descriptions. Now they're calling an episode notes. Okay, so that is a constraint that we put on the Episode notes for every episode 4000 characters. You've seen that anytime you've gone in and added episode notes for an episode, you see a little character counter and it counts down as we're introducing more and more dynamic content abilities into Buzzsprout thing He's like, if you set up an affiliate or sponsor, if you have dynamic content, if you use Buzzsprout ads, and if now if you use the footer, all of those things get added into your episode notes, right? So you might write, you know, 3999 characters versus where the episode notes and then you hit save and you think you're good.
• 15:15
  Kevin: But what you don't know is that you have an affiliate link getting dropped in, you have some dynamic content getting dropped in, and now you have an episode footer getting dropped in, pushes you over 4000 characters, so all that stuff's gonna get cut off in Apple podcasts and possibly some other apps as well. So how do we account for that, the way that we account for that is in our dynamic content tools, all of them, we put some limits around them to let you know, like, you shouldn't do too much in here, because it's going to impact how much of your episode description really gets to be used. And we also have to implement like a hierarchy, like at some point, something could get cut, what's gonna get cut. And so the way that we do that is that all of your dynamic content, your affiliate links, your dynamic content, Buzzsprout, add content, your footer content that will never get truncated, but we're going to truncate one piece of content, that's always going to be your episode description. If we add all that stuff up, and it's over 4000, we're going to truncate your description, to be able to make sure that we can fit all the dynamic stuff. Why, because they didn't know when stuff comes and goes. So once it leaves, then we can add more of your description. And so that's the way it works. If you're wondering, and you're wondering why we put 500 characters around it is because we don't want you doing you know, it doesn't make sense to do 2000 characters worth of footer stuff, because then you're not gonna have very much room to put in Episode notes for your specific episodes. So we're encouraging people to try to keep it tight.
• 16:28
  Kevin: That may be the right number, it may not be, but that's where we started, we're listening to feedback. And we'll adjust as needed. But that is a constraint that we're working within when we build stuff like that. So that's why it's there.
• 16:38
  Alban: This is one of the areas where Apple has a limitation that isn't there in other podcast apps. But I kind of side with apple here, like it's got to be a limit. There is some limit where it's like this is too much show notes. And I looked this up, the average English word is 4.7 characters.
• 16:56
  Alban: So 5.7. Once we add a space, we're getting 702 words into this episode description. That's three pages double spaced. If you can't write your show notes and three pages, double spaced, there's just too much going in there. Most people aren't reading the show notes, they're going in there to click a link.
• 17:15
  Alban: And they're taking one or two actions that you asked them to do, you have the ability to put the whole transcript in the transcript tag, or to direct people to a website where there's even more info. I like the limitation just saying hey, 4000 is where we're going to stop. And because there's different ways now to put words and links and content into this 4000 characters, let's just find ourselves like something that's reasonable. I noticed people just want to put more and more info in here. But after 2000 characters, you know, 350 words, diminishing returns are approaching very.
• 17:52
  Kevin: Yeah, I really like it as a place to drop links. Like it shouldn't necessarily be a narrative definitely shouldn't be a transcript transcripts or something totally different. And they live in a totally different tag. But for links for things that you talk about on your episode that you want to link to, or make it easy for your audience to be able to follow that link and find that resource. That's a great use for episode notes.
• 18:10
  Jordan: I think that a lot of people misuse episode descriptions for a place to keyword stuff. And they think that like, the more that they put in there and treat it as like a blog post, it's going to help the discoverability or searchability of their podcast, but Apple doesn't even use the episode description in their search engine. So I think that that's also a misconception and why people kind of make their shownotes a little bit too long.
• 18:35
  Kevin: they might be able to help a little bit. Alvin, you could probably speak to this because the if you're a Buzzsprout podcaster, you do have a public website, it does list all your episodes and your episodes, all of the episode notes for those episodes is put in there. So I imagine Google indexes it and uses it. But most people are not finding your podcast through Google. Some are but not all.
• 18:53
  Alban: Most of your podcast episodes are not going to rank for some highly competitive keyword based on the 700 words that you wrote in your description. Like you're interviewing, you know, somebody who is the creator of something, and you know, somebody's searching for her. And now they've all of a sudden they find like your interview. That's a perfect match. But if you're like, Hey, I'm going to do a 30 minute episode on credit cards, and hopefully I'm going to rank for credit cards that I can get like referral points when people sign up for them. That's not going to happen whether or not you have 20,000 words to write there rather than 700. So I think podcasting one of the nice things is like it's a little bit less game of firewall like a little bit less that you can trick it I guess you can go get some ads and mobile app that there's like a little bit less than this scam Enos just use your description the normal way, right something that's helpful for the people who are listening, make it clear what this episode is about. And when you reference something link to it. I've actually seen decoder which I really like it's a verge podcast with Eli Patel. They'll often give a little bit of like a glossary. So if they talk about Mike or chips, and then they'll mention like wafers and foundries and define those phrases. I think that's super useful. But again, like, that's not going to take up 700 words, they're defining the few words that you may not know, in case you want to check out the description. So good ways to use it, I take for 1000s More than enough.
• 20:22
  Jordan: In the news, in the last week or two, is Spotify platform exclusive podcasts. And, you know, we've talked about platform exclusivity a lot, and kind of like, why that's detrimental to the Creator. And this is really the perfect example of it. So Spotify cut 11 shows from Parcast and Gimlet to concentrate on exclusive hits that they consider to be bigger and better. And I'm really bummed out because some of these shows are actually ones I listened to on the regular, especially Crime Show. It was such a good show. And I've actually been looking for like the last like six months to see why they're not putting forth new episodes. And I was waiting for the next season to start.
• 21:05
  Jordan: And now it's done. And I'm not going to hear another episode.
• 21:09
  Alban: Yeah, the first way this crossed my radar was Dr. Ayana Johnson wrote something about it. She was the co host of how to save a planet was like their climate podcast. It's so frustrating to read this from the perspective of somebody who worked on these podcasts, they made a successful show at gimlet, gimlet ownership got a really big payout when they went and sold to Spotify. Nothing wrong with that. And then at some point, Spotify says, Hey, this is gonna be exclusive now.
• 21:42
  Alban: Well, then they drastically cut the available market for these shows by say they need to be exclusive. You know, the purpose being convinced everyone who's listening to your show, they better listen on Spotify. But then to come back during, you know, the beginning of an economic downturn and say, sorry, your shows just not cutting it anymore. Look at the numbers. They're way down from when you used to be on your own and be everywhere you're done.
• 22:06
  Alban: It's like you bought the show and made it exclusive for the intended purpose of convincing the existing audience to move.
• 22:14
  Alban: You did not buy this show, because it was a powerhouse to sell ads against the strategy if that's what you were trying to do is to not go exclusive. You know, this is a multimillion dollar slip up. Not a big deal for Spotify put me in is this a big deal for people who poured their heart and their time and their soul and their creativity into these shows only for the show to get cancelled? Because they got kneecapped by the Spotify strategy?
• 22:45
  Jordan: Yeah. And the thing that's like really crappy about this, too, is that Spotify never told them, Hey, your show isn't performing to the standard that we like, you're not meeting our version of audience goals. And so these teams that were working on these podcasts, didn't even know that their shows were underperforming until Spotify was like, Hey, your shows underperforming by and then they were like sent home, then these unions are requesting that Spotify release the work that they've already done on these shows, and just let them continue it independently. But I don't see that happening.
• 23:21
  Kevin: Yeah, I mean, is this too much different from when a network show gets canceled? Or a Netflix original show doesn't get renewed? Or something like that?
• 23:29
  Alban: It's different in that view, or a YouTube show? First, I don't know I'm trying to get the analogy right, you were open anywhere for free. And you actually built an audience, and you got pulled in for a specific strategy. And then that made the show not viable. And yeah, they don't get released. So that's acceptable. But it's like the frustrating bit is like, you got everything you wanted Spotify, which is us, convincing our audience to switch. And then when we are no longer useful, you discarded our show.
• 24:00
  Kevin: It's a bummer for sure for those creators, but I also think those creators now have the opportunity to go out and do it again, like this is a little bit like what we talked about last week, when we talked about this high school students who put together what was the name of the show? Know Justice, Know Peace, right? And the school board said that this is actually our IP, and we're gonna move forward with it. And we said, well, the students are the actual talent here. They're the ones that built this thing. And so now they can go do it. And I might have to do it under a different name, but they can do it. And I think the same thing applies for any of these creators whose shows were canceled. They have an audience, they have people who are upset, like Jordan, you're saying I listened to some of the shows on the regulars wondering why the new episodes weren't coming out, or when they're gonna do another one. Like now they get to go do that on their own terms their own way. They may or may not have wanted to be acquired by Spotify. They may or may not have wanted to go exclusive, but now they have the opportunity to do their own thing their own way. I don't know I have a hard time as much as I kind of come down on Spotify. I have a hard time getting really Like it was a business decision, the shows weren't performing the way that they needed them to perform. So they decided to cut back on what wasn't working and double down on the stuff that is working.
• 25:07
  Kevin: That sounds like a good business decision. But it's the same criticism that we have as Spotify all the time. It's not that they're not making good business decisions, it's that the business decisions come at the cost of some of these independent creators and independent podcasters. So I'm kinda like, I mean, it's just another thing. Like, it shouldn't be surprising. This is what Spotify does. I think the challenge here is to what's the opportunity for the creators, and the opportunity for the creators is now you can go and start again. And I know that's kind of a bummer that you have to start over again, but you get to do it on your own terms. And I'm hoping that at least somewhere along this journey, they were able to earn enough from the acquisition and from Spotify to be able to have some sort of buffer to be able to sustain themselves while they rebuild. But hopefully, it's a lesson learned for all of them.
• 25:50
  Kevin: I can't imagine it wouldn't be that they need to own stuff from the very beginning. This is exactly what Laura Meyer talks about on her shameless acquisition podcast.
• 25:59
  Jordan: Yeah. And in a similar vein, I think it was like last Thursday was when this happened, that Spotify, UK, they relaunched a Spotify Original podcast, but they replaced the hosts without telling the hosts that they were replaced.
• 26:14
  Alban: What?
• 26:15
  Jordan: Yeah. So there's a podcast that came out in 2020.
• 26:19
  Jordan: It's with Gizzi and Sydney, and they created this podcast like in their kitchen, called Sex, Lies, and DM Slides, and they got picked up by Spotif, did a full season of it. The final episode of the first season was in like 2021. And then just like last week, these other...I don't know what to even call them, because I don't I'm not familiar with them...but these other influencers, I suppose, posted a Spotify original screenshot of their podcast cover art called Sex, Lies, and DM Slides. And these poor hosts found out through this, and Spotify even went so far as to delete their podcast. So Spotify just like completely scrapped the whole thing and replaced it. This is a tough one. It's like Kevin was saying, this is really tough.
• 27:10
  Jordan: Because if it is a Spotify original, like, even though these girls were the ones that created the format created the the name of the podcast, they did all that work, they still got picked up by Spotify. And so does Spotify own that? It is probably baked into the papers.
• 27:27
  Kevin: Yeah, that's exactly what it means. I mean, when you sell something to someone, that's what they're buying. That's what you're selling. So I think what we're dealing with here is a lot of people have regrets about a deal that they made with Spotify. And I get it like I totally empathize with the pain that you're feeling and the regret. But I have a hard time saying, again, as much as I kind of complain about Spotify, I have a hard time saying that this is something unethical that they're doing, they bought it, they can do what they want with it now, so they can replace the talent. It's just like you're watching a sitcom on NBC. And all of a sudden, the George who used to be played by Joe Smith, is now played by Michael Jones.
• 28:01
  Kevin: Sometimes they make a joke of it on the show, sometimes they don't. And sometimes you hear the backstory of why they switched the actor, and sometimes they don't. It's their call their show they own it. I understand why people are like, this is a bummer. But it's like, it's theirs.
• 28:16
  Alban: Yeah, I think that, to me, this is a personal story.
• 28:19
  Alban: It's a story of putting everything in to a creative project to try to make a business or a company work that sold. And it seems to you like we're part of Spotify now.
• 28:30
  Alban: Everything's gonna be smooth sailing from here on out because we're aligned with this really powerful brand. But the truth of the matter is, the money is the value. And if you're not included in that sale, I mean, this isn't some unethical thing that they're doing this isn't legally suspect. They're well within their rights to do it. I think like there's two different perspectives here, the ones the human story, and one is the business story. And I think that we've been talking about this in many different ways. Now, since the beginning of the show, making Podcasting A primarily creative, independent thing. And making it commercial is going to have a lot of changes. One's gonna be money, like there's a lot of money here that wasn't here before. That's cool. But the downside is, a lot of the creatives are now no longer the people in control. And man like it hurts to get laid off from any job. But there is some nother level when like you're laid off and you're replaced with somebody who's doing the creative work you created, or you're laid off because your show didn't work. But their main reason your show didn't work is because the business made a move to make you exclusive to help them out and then they discarded you. If you're entering into a business relationship with somebody, make sure that you are comfortable with it going south the way that it could. And so for going exclusive or becoming an employee at a big company, like when things don't work out, they can let you go. Yeah. And so it's just it's tough to read because 38 Good people lost their jobs. And a year ago, that would have not been a big deal.
• 30:12
  Alban: And right now, it's just getting a little bit tougher to find a great job. And it's going to be tough on all those families.
• 30:19
  Jordan: You know, the other element about this, that is a little concerning to me is Spotify's disregard for the audience. Like it's not just hurting the creators, it's also hurting the audience, like I know that the shows aren't performing quite as well as the bigger ones that they want, you know, like the Kim Kardashian, or Megan, Markel, or whatever.
• 30:38
  Jordan: But how big are these shows, they could have a lot of really loyal listeners like myself, who are now hurt because some of their favorite shows are done.
• 30:50
  Alban: Alining yourself with somebody who's much more powerful than you is really awesome when you're totally aligned. But the minute that those roads diverge, and they have all the control, then things really start to hurt for the person who is in the worst position. So I mean, that happens with at will employment anywhere in the world. That happens in tons of different ways. But like we're seeing podcasters give up the benefits of freedom and control for the benefit of money and security.
• 31:20
  Alban: But the security is not as strong. As we really imagined.
• 31:24
  Alban: It seems really secure. When times are good, as soon as we start to even touch an economic downturn while the things change. So I really feel for everyone involved. But I do hope next time this kind of comes around that we hold on some of these lessons like there is a real benefit to being independent, controlling your own destiny, and be able to make the decisions yourself.
• 31:52
  Jordan: Elgato just announced that they have produced their first dynamic microphone!
• 31:59
  Kevin: Elgato is transitioning, right? They were big for video game streamers, Twitch streamers. That was their whole market for a few years. And now they're trying to make products for podcasters. And since Alban is big into the Twitch streaming scene, he of course, is the perfect audience member for this crossover they're trying to make because he's a podcaster and a Twitch streamer.
• 32:17
  Alban: I would actually I wouldn't be such a bad Twitch streamer. But I do like oh god, you both are right, I right now I'm using an Elgato key light.
• 32:24
  Alban: So it's one of these lights they put up on your desk and it lights your face, and you can change the color and the brightness. And man is the UI on the computer really good. And then the other thing I'm using right now is the Elgato wav XLR, which is just an audio interface. Very clean, we can drive at SM seven be easily so it's got a lot of gain. There's a lot of other stuff I like a lot of people swear by the streaming setups, I don't know a whole lot about it there. So when they put out a mic, I'm you know, somewhat interested to check it out. They're not super well known for their microphones, but the stuff that I've used of theirs, I am pleasantly surprised. It's well built, it's a reasonable price.
• 33:07
  Alban: And you know, this looks like it's coming in at 99 bucks, and it's a XLR mic that will work really well with the way of XLR I think like definitely worth trying out I doubt it's going to be something I replace my SM seven be with.
• 33:25
  Jordan: You know I'm always really surprised by the amount of companies that create microphones for like streamers and stuff and it's always condenser mics, and I don't I don't understand that because they capture so much ambient noise. And so I'm actually really excited that Elgato like finally did a dynamic mic and it's specifically for streamers broadcasters podcasters but what surprised me is that it's only XLR and not USB would you think that USB would be more beneficial to a lot of streamers.
• 33:57
  Kevin: Unless your company also makes USB interface.
• 34:00
  Alban: I was just about to say, when you have the product shots with your low profile boom arm which looks pretty good looks a lot like the ultimate OC YT and then you got the wave XLR in the background I'm like this is intended to be a make sure you buy all three of these things right.
• 34:22
  Kevin: Yeah, they all go together and I think the move from condenser mic to dynamic mic has been about because a dynamic mic requires a decent microphone technique like you can get the gain high enough that you don't have to have perfect microphone technique and when I say that I mean like just being close to the mic being on mic no more than like six inches away. Most streamers are not great at that and especially if you're playing a video game while you have the mic in front of you you might be moving quite a bit and so condenser mic does probably make sense for some of them especially when they're first getting into it. The problem is like you said it picks up a lot of keyboard noises whatever they're doing while they're playing the game, you know, controller or whatever might not be in the treated room might have outside no is so dynamic doesn't make sense. But it makes sense for a streamer as they're getting, you know, better microphone technique while they're playing. But it always makes perfect sense for a podcaster like podcasters. From day one, we need to understand microphone technique we need to be on the mic. We're not playing a game while we're talking. So it's not as difficult to be able to do both things. And so as Elgato moves into the podcasting space, make sense from the make a dynamic mic, it seems like it's worth checking out, because it does look like a guy who makes pretty high quality, not the highest quality, but pretty high quality products. And now they have a microphone that's designed for podcasters.
• 35:30
  Alban: I've brought this up a few times, maybe not on this show. But there's this thing I keep starting to run into where people like are the recommender, they're like, Oh, I'll tell you what to buy. And then they give you a bunch of pros and cons.
• 35:43
  Alban: And at the end, they say like, basically do your own research and like figure out what is best for you. And I'm like, you have to recommend something. If like you're the recommender, that's your job, I liked the Elgato is at least building up, like, here's the full set of what you should build. They're not building 12 different mics that like they're saying, figure out which is good for you. They're like, here's the mic, here's the interface, here's the boom arm, here's all the stuff, use our exact setup. It's not perfect for me. But I think for a lot of people who are recording, remote podcasts, they're doing streaming, maybe they play some video games, so they do a YouTube channel, you've got a pretty solid setup with Elgato.
• 36:25
  Alban: And it's not the exact thing I would pick. But I do use two of their things. And I found them both to be really high quality.
• 36:33
  Alban: So this is a mic I would be interested in testing out it's not my favorite looking mic. But yeah, I think if, if you've used Elgato is a pretty high quality brand.
• 36:42
  Jordan: I actually think that like aesthetically, they put a lot of thought into how the microphone is going to look on camera, because they have a very interesting mount for this microphone, the microphone, it's kind of like a rounded rectangle shape, right. And it has on one side like a button. And it's the Elgato logo. And what they did with this is there's like this one sided mount that you can actually remove from one side and put to the other based on like where your cameras angled.
• 37:15
  Jordan: And so you can actually put that logo button in the spot where the cameras going to face so that it just looks like this like floating microphone, and you don't see the swivel arm and things like that. And so I think that there's like a lot of thought actually went into the design of this. So I was actually surprised that you didn't like the look of it. And me from a crafting perspective, I'm looking at that logo button and thinking about how I could put my own logo on that button and stuff.
• 37:43
  Alban: I'm looking at this thing thinking whoever runs brand Elgato is like crushing it because they said on one side will be an ugly mount on the other side will be possibly a lighting up logo of Elgato. And what's this used for primarily streaming and video podcasts and stuff like this is going to be front and center. So in the same way, the SM seven B got a lot of notoriety when a bunch of video podcasters started using it and people were like, Oh, what's that podcast Mike, this Elgato wave dx, I bet ends up being in a ton of videos on YouTube and starts to become one of like the Go twos. And plus, they've got the camera, they've got the lights, they've got the little XLR, they've got the like stream deck, they've got all sorts of stuff. So I think they just rounded it out with a really good setup. And I bet a lot of people will buy it.
• 38:36
  Jordan: I'm hoping that the sound is actually comparable to other you know, $100 and less microphones that we really like like the Samsung and the Rode pod mic or something like that, because it looks so good. That's the thing is like, it looks like an expensive microphone. So if it's something that's more affordable, that'd be really good. I watched a video of someone testing it out. And it seemed like it handled plosives really, really well. And it seemed like it had like a really nice tonality to the sound. So I'm hoping that it's really good, except it's gonna be expensive because it's XLR, so you have to get the audio interface to go along with it.
• 39:13
  Jordan: So it'd be a lot better if it was XLR and USB and then that way a beginner podcaster could have a nice microphone or a nice looking microphone.
• 39:22
  Alban: Yeah, it looks like you're probably in for about 300 bucks. If you go the Elgato route you want to get $100 boom arm you're getting a $20 XLR cable 160 for the wave, XLR wave dx, another 100 and they give you a discount, but you end up at about 300 bucks when I built out my package. So it's cool.
• 39:40
  Alban: Mike will be interested to test it out and interested to hear what people say. The more mics we get like we're gonna keep getting better and better. So this is good.
• 39:47
  Kevin: Did you see my link to Vinylfy to create vinyl records from whatever audio files you have?
• 39:56
  Jordan: Oh yeah,
• 39:57
  Alban: This is wild and it's wild because of how cheap it
• 40:01
  Kevin: Well, it's--
• 40:03
  Jordan: Wait, how cheap is it?
• 40:03
  Jordan: Because I thought it was expensive.
• 40:06
  Kevin: Almost $100 for a record.
• 40:06
  Kevin: So I don't know why you're saying "cheap" for.
• 40:09
  Jordan: One record?
• 40:10
  Kevin: Yes. For one record.
• 40:11
  Jordan: Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Alban!
• 40:13
  Alban: I'm sorry. I'm imagining, like start this business. And think like, where do you have to be selling these custom made single vinyls to say, hey, this was a good idea that we started this business 100 euros seems like lower than what I would have expected. I'm not saying I'm going out and buying a bunch. I'm not buying $30 vinyls either, but 100 bucks that we could get a 10 minutes of Buzzcast on a 10 inch vinyl record. I could do it.
• 40:42
  Jordan: I think to make our money back, we would need to do like a Buzzcast like two hour special. And plus, vinyl records have two sides. So it would have to be.
• 40:53
  Kevin: I know, but they said you can only do 20 minutes of music total.
• 40:56
  Alban: Yeah, 10 minutes on each side
• 40:57
  Kevin: 10 minutes per side.
• 40:58
  Jordan: What? Okay, that's even worse. What?
• 41:01
  Kevin: So, it would have to be like "Best of" I don't know how many shows we've done. But we might be able to come up with 20 minutes best, you have to buy three of them. That's pushing it.
• 41:13
  Jordan: I think if we just spliced together all of albums like wonky transitions that sometimes make it to the show, and sometimes don't if we just did like a compilation of albums transition, like
• 41:24
  Kevin: when artists make it really big, they get their own channels on Spotify and Apple Music, like, you know, the Beatles essentials, this would be the Buzzcast Essentials. And it'd be 20 minutes from the past three years of our best stuff.
• 41:36
  Kevin: And, you know, we might have to stretch it a little bit to get full 20.
• 41:40
  Alban: These are the kind of like self indulgent things that I am highly skeptical of not because I'd be against owning this vinyl, but because I would No, I would never play it and no one's gonna buy it from us. It's just gonna be humiliating when we put this all together. And we have exactly one purchase from my own mom or something that that's like our entire sales. I thought 100 bucks, I was impressed. I was impressed the company was able to do it for that price. I'm not saying I'm buying them. But I'm kind of proud of them for being able to get it down to that price. I mean, it's a big deal, you're making something physical. That is like you're etching the grooves that there's work being done here, and it's totally custom. So 100 euros,
• 42:20
  Kevin: I just wanted to link to it, because we had this, you know, discussion, two or three episodes ago about a podcast that put their stuff to vinyl.
• 42:26
  Kevin: What I don't understand is the limitation, most records that I have have way more than 20 minutes worth of audio on them total. So it must have something to do with the process that they're using to create these.
• 42:37
  Kevin: But it could be cool as like a giveaway or something from your podcast, that you know, somebody could win their favorite episode on vinyl. Again, if your podcast episodes are under 20 minutes, whatever, it's not a big deal, I just want to show you that there is a service out there that exists. And so if you want to get your podcasts on vinyl, and it's under 20 minutes, and you don't mind spending $100 on it, it can be done.
• 42:58
  Jordan: There's gotta be something else. Like there's gotta be another way. So we live downtown near this really hip coffee shop that always has bands playing right, and we'll go down there and I'll see these like indie bands that they're not that great. And yet they have a merch table with a bunch of records. So I
• 43:19
  Kevin: imagine if you're getting like 500 or 1000 pressed or something like that, it's probably a different technique.
• 43:24
  Kevin: And so the price comes way down.
• 43:24
  Kevin: But if you just want to be able to get a one off
• 43:27
  Alban: guys, I'm I'm doing real time research right now in the clouds.io up to 72 minutes.
• 43:31
  Alban: They're doing it on 12 inch, and they're doing 2x LP lathe cut vinyl records at $5 in the US 72 minutes. That's a Buzzcast episode. So we're bringing the price down. We're getting the whole thing that's way better doable. Yeah. And I think that this might be a neat need to be one of our first growth strategies, Jordan. So we've been talking about trying to grow the podcast in unique ways.
• 44:00
  Alban: Hear me out, make some Buzzcast vinyls. Go drop them off, sneak them in to Jordan's local hipster coffee shop and CV someplace.
• 44:11
  Kevin: This is podcasting for hipsters. So like what if we sold a subscription a premium podcast subscription? You could subscribe and then every two weeks you get a vinyl delivered to your house every two weeks?
• 44:19
  Kevin: Yeah, because once we do an episode, then it has to get pressed the vinyl then we got to do shipping. So you'd be a little bit behind. But hipsters don't care about that. They're fine, because it's like it's old. So it's even better.
• 44:29
  Jordan: Yeah, it's not cool to like want things instantly.
• 44:33
  Kevin: Like it's an old business models like when Netflix used to mail DVDs to your house. It's like that we're doing podcasting on vinyl, you subscribe. It's like it's crazy expensive. It's gonna be like 500 ollars a month to records every month. And they always have like, new colors, new artwork, and the latest episode.
• 44:48
  Alban: This is...guys.
• 44:49
  Kevin: Could be huge.
• 44:50
  Jordan: We're making this happen.
• 44:52
  Alban: It's such a bad idea. I would be okay with printing one these ideas of like actually imagining of printing it. That'd be super exciting. If somebody actually did this, I would just if it was us, I would say we're really stupid for doing this.
• 45:06
  Jordan: Now I kind of want to do it because Alban thinks it's stupid.
• 45:10
  Kevin: There are definitely shows that are big enough to be able to pull this off.
• 45:13
  Alban: I mean, like, Radiolab and 99% Invisible and like a lot of these like kind of NPR shows.
• 45:17
  Alban: I feel like there's a lot in that realm that makes sense to me.
• 45:23
  Jordan: Or fiction.
• 45:24
  Alban: Yeah, Welcome to Nightvale or I could see something like that working.
• 45:28
  Kevin: Or what if you could buy like the original series of Serial or something on vinyl?
• 45:30
  Kevin: For like, $300 you just get the author get the whole box set.
• 45:35
  Jordan: Oh, that'd be cool.
• 45:36
  Jordan: Before we get into these Buzzboosts, I don't know how it's like slipped my radar, but Podnews has a Boostagram Numerology on GitHub. Is that how you say it? GitHub?
• 45:52
  Kevin: Yeah, GitHub.
• 45:53
  Jordan: GitHub. Okay, GitHub, GitHub. So I'll link to it in the show notes, but they have a list of boostagram numbers that are super funny. Like 500 is the Indy boost. I personally really loved the 1215 Magna Carta boost, or the 8675309 Jenny boost. Like there's some really funny ones in here.
• 46:18
  Alban: What is high five boost 4205? Why was that high five?
• 46:24
  Jordan: Oh, Alban. We don't have enough time for that. 420 is--
• 46:29
  Alban: Oh, yeah. 420. So what's five? Okay, so I get 420 with--
• 46:32
  Jordan: High five, cause it's five. High five.
• 46:35
  Alban: Why is this in the list of like, officially sanctioned.
• 46:40
  Jordan: I think it's clever.
• 46:40
  Jordan: 4205...high five,
• 46:45
  Alban: The Magna Carta boost makes no sense to me to people in like England celebrate 1215 the way that we talk about 1776?
• 46:54
  Jordan: I don't know. 1776 made the cut to it's the Liberty boost.
• 46:59
  Alban: That makes sense, I just have never heard anyone say 1215. Like remember when we got the Magna Carta, we got our rights. I never heard anyone from England say that. But maybe it's just that I'm vhere in the US.
• 47:09
  Kevin: I think most of these come from like the No Agenda Show.
• 47:12
  Alban: Okay, so this is just stuff that Adam curry and the other guy have like, invented.
• 47:17
  Kevin: Dvorak. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if they invented but they're their producers, which are what they call their audience members. They talked about value for value. So as they're giving back, they do funny things with numerology.
• 47:28
  Kevin: And so most of it has be has probably come from there.
• 47:30
  Jordan: Yeah, there's there's a lot in this list. Some of them I don't quite understand, like the Star Trek boost being 1701.
• 47:37
  Kevin: Yeah, I don't know, either. And I think I've talked about this before is the problem with the way that we accept boosts, we don't have our own node or whatever. So I don't always see the full amount, we have splits in our boost. So if you boost us, I think we give like 10% to the podcast index and a certain percentage goes to the app that it was boosted through and then we just get the remainder. I think I only see the remainder. So even if you did, you know, whatever, an indie boost to us, and you send us five hundreds that might look to us like you sent 400. I'm like, Well, I don't know what 400 is.
• 48:05
  Alban: So all our numerology is off. So we apologize to people who've sent like, there's a specific amount because we donated a little bit away. I did look it up 1701 Tom would know this if he was on the podcast, the USS Enterprise from Star Trek is call sign is INCC - 1701. So it is the Star Trek boost for the USS Enterprise.
• 48:26
  Alban: This is why Tom needs to be on the show. I know this is the kind of breaking facts that he really want to get on Buzzcast.
• 48:35
  Kevin: One other thing that's interesting in the value for value discussion before we get too far into booster grams is that fountain I don't think we've talked about this. But if you go to fountain.fm, they've got a link at the top for charts. And the charts show the show's episodes and boosts like who has the most so like what shows are getting boosted the most which episodes are getting boosted the most. And then just like the largest booths that are going through mountain, like what show they're going to. And I thought this was interesting that the largest boost is only 200,000 sets, which sounds like a lot, but it's really only $30.
• 49:04
  Kevin: And so for $40, you could be at the top of that chart for who knows how long because the next one is only 135,000 sets. But if somebody out there wants to be at the top of the chart, all you have to do is boost Buzzcast like 220,000 sets, it's like $40 And then you would be at the top of the chart.
• 49:22
  Jordan: Let's gamify this a little bit and play a little good old fashioned king of the hill.
• 49:27
  Alban: If you give us the biggest boost of all time, Jordan will make you a vinyl record Buzzcast and mail it to your house.
• 49:34
  Kevin: Yeah, I like it. No, that's a losing proposition. The vinyl record costs $100. And the boost is only worth 40 that's losing. That's how we go out of business.
• 49:44
  Jordan: It should totally be like a king of the hill thing.
• 49:46
  Jordan: So whoever boosts the most is gonna be the king of the hill until the next person knocks them down off that hill.
• 49:52
  Kevin: But just remember this, just remember if you're going to do this, you have to boost through the fountain app because if you send 240,000 SATs or something through a different I'm not going to get to the top of the chart, it's only fountain that has the chart and the chart is only for booths that go through fountain
• 50:05
  Alban: Do you remember on Foursquare, where it will, if you checked into a location the most you were like the mayor of that coffee shop or something?
• 50:11
  Alban: Yes, we need the mayor of Buzzcast. So whoever is the top booster at any given point, and all this money is then re donated out to our listeners. So it's not like we're all getting rich off of it. Yeah. But if you're the top booster, according to the Fountain charts.
• 50:28
  Kevin: Yeah. According to Fountain charts, that's the thing. I can't keep track in the spreadsheet. So it has to be through fountain. It has
• 50:33
  Alban: to be through fountain.
• 50:33
  Alban: If you're the top booster, then that's it. We've locked it in you are the mayor of Buzzcast.
• 50:40
  Alban: And that will update as time goes on.
• 50:43
  Kevin: Well, let's be clear.
• 50:43
  Kevin: It's like an honorary mayor.
• 50:45
  Kevin: Like you don't really have any power.
• 50:47
  Alban: No, you have to give them power. Like, cut Alban from the show.
• 50:52
  Jordan: They get to make one executive decision per episode.
• 50:58
  Alban: Talk more about politics.
• 50:59
  Kevin: Alright, so we've got three booths this week. First one is from Brian at Top Tier Audio. And he's, he sent us 900 SATs and said "Love this idea".
• 51:11
  Kevin: I have no idea which idea you're talking about. But thank you.
• 51:18
  Jordan: You know what, he probably loved the idea of the mobile gaming download strategy.
• 51:25
  Kevin: Maybe. So here's something to remember when you're sending a boost is like we do get a timestamp with the boosts but it would take us a long time to actually you know, figure out the timestamp go back to the episode that you've boosted figure out what we're talking about. So just write in your boost love this idea. And then in parentheses just mentioned the idea that you're talking about, but either way, thank you for your support.
• 51:41
  Kevin: Thank you for your boost, Brian.
• 51:43
  Jordan: Or you can be like Mere Mortals Podcast and send 100 SATs, "boosting just cuz". No explanation needed.
• 51:52
  Kevin: Thank you, Mere Mortals.
• 51:53
  Alban: And 1203 from GeneBean that just that number feels like there probably was some numerology in there that we might be missing. But in this episode, December 4 2020, you link to a blog post on podcasting terms being defined.
• 52:09
  Alban: And that page gives a 404 G mean, I think that we had a blog post that was just a lot of different podcasting terms. And that's probably my fault. And I think that's intentional if they had deleted that blog post or archived it, and moved all that content to other pages. So we should go back and make sure that that link is pulled out of the show notes. But thank you for going back and listening to our old episodes. We really appreciate it.
• 52:31
  Jordan: And letting us know when things don't work. That's always helpful to us. Thanks for listening and keep podcasting.
• 52:45
  Jordan: For my personal podcast, I was looking for a story to do that would be kind of Halloween centric, you know, like spooky season, things like that. And I stumbled upon this short story from 1905 from like a Cosmopolitan magazine. And it's a comedic ghost story about a scientist that realizes that he can spray ghosts with this like formula, and then they materialize and then he sucks them through a hose into the cylinders strapped on his back.
• 53:17
  Jordan: Does that sound familiar at all?
• 53:21
  Kevin: yeah, Ghostbusters.
• 53:23
  Alban: I was gonna say, is Dan Ackroyd in this podcast, Bill Murray in there?
• 53:27
  Jordan: Yeah, so the story is called The Ghost Extinguisher.
• 53:31
  Alban: What?
• 53:32
  Jordan: Yeah!
• 53:32
  Alban: Well, what year's this cosmopolitan story?
• 53:34
  Jordan: 1905. But yeah, so it's this guy who realizes that there's too many ghosts like affecting real estate in San Francisco and so he gets hired by people to suck their ghosts into his backpack of cylinders and tomfoolery ensues because the ghosts escape the things...it is like exactly the plot of Ghostbusters. Here's the thing is Dan Ackroyd took credit for writing this story right like because here's the thing is he says that the story is based upon, or Ghostbusters when he wrote that script. It's based upon his family's--
• 54:10
  Alban: It's a documentary.
• 54:11
  Jordan: No, it's not. But it's based upon his family's experiences because his family was like very superstitious and like really into that kind of thing. There is no mention anywhere of Gelett Burgess who's like the person who actually like wrote it.
• 54:27
  Kevin: Wow, that's super interesting. So are you saying this is this is like clearly a rip off? Or is it are you putting this like in the conspiracy theory camp?
• 54:35
  Jordan: Um, maybe a little both.
• 54:35
  Jordan: Let's, let's spice it up. I did look into this like quite a bit because as I was reading the story, I was just like, Wait a second. Wait a second. Whoa, wait a second. And it is a comedy. Like it just feels like it got completely ripped off.
• 54:53
  Kevin: How close is it? Okay, so they capture goes in cylinders on backpacks...it's a comedy...those things are all the same, like how, what's the rest of the story? Is there a marshmallow man?
• 55:04
  Alban: It's affecting house prices in one of the two major cities in the United States.
• 55:11
  Kevin: Does this ghost exterminator like get an old hearse and make it into his emergency vehicle?
• 55:16
  Jordan: I mean, this is a short story. So it doesn't go like quite that far in depth. But I mean, he basically finds a way to commercialize the ghost extinguishing business and capturing the ghosts into his backpack cylinders. And then he also gets some assistance to also help him suck the ghosts into their backpacks.
• 55:36
  Kevin: That's wild. That is wild.
• 55:38
  Jordan: I mean, it's really close. I'll link to the story.
• 55:42
  Jordan: It's really interesting. But yeah, it's wild.
• 55:45
  Kevin: At what point do these written stories become public domain? How many years after publishing?
• 55:50
  Jordan: See, that's the thing is it was public domain when Ghostbusters was written because it takes like, I want to say, like seventy years or something like that, for the copyright to expire.
• 55:59
  Kevin: Yeah, but you should still give credit, right? Yes.
• 56:02
  Kevin: If it was inspired by?
• 56:03
  Jordan: Yeah, like, inspired by this story. And it's a short story. Like I don't think it's very well known. But it is like, exactly Ghostbusters.
• 56:11
  Alban: There been a few different cheating scandals last few weeks in like, just the world. So like, there's the fishermen who stuck lead weight into their fish and got busted.
• 56:22
  Alban: There's like, chess right now has a guy who's like very likely been cheating in some really big chess tournaments. There possibly was cheating in a high stakes cash, Texas Hold'em game.
• 56:36
  Alban: And I heard somebody like hypothesize, maybe is it not that there's more cheating now than there's ever been, maybe is that now we're better at catching cheating, because we have lots of people with cameras. And so when it happens, like we can go back, review the footage, make sure we got them for sure. And then publicize it.
• 56:53
  Alban: I mean, we see this all the time in books now. Or somebody writes a memoir, and then someone's like, you know, they plagiarized like stuff from a somebody else's story in the 70s. And you go back and you're like, yeah, there's actually some sections that are very highly likely lifted right out of this old book. And I just think this is going to happen more and more like, sometimes I think it's totally accidental. You know, maybe Dan actually, like, heard a story from his grandfather at some point. And his grandfather told it and his grandfather was really just kind of telling him the short story that he remembered a story that he read in a magazine sticks in your brain. Yeah. And so when you're writing this story, you don't know where exactly it's coming from. And then later on, it's just kind of humiliating or embarrassing, because it looks like you just plagiarized it, or you, you're just kind of skeezy and you've plagiarized and gave no credit at all.
• 57:47
  Kevin: You know, the Ghostbusters theme song was also controversial, Ray Parker Jr.
• 57:49
  Kevin: wrote the song, but shortly after it was released, he was sued by Huey Lewis, who claimed that he stole the baseline from I Want a New Drug.
• 58:01
  Alban: Really. So Ghostbusters is just all sorts of controversies.
• 58:06
  Kevin: All sorts of controversy.
• 58:06
  Kevin: In that case, it sounded like Huey Lewis was right because it was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount and part of the settlement said they can't discuss the case. So no one really knows but it sounds like Ray Parker Jr. did something wrong. And then you know what else happened? I don't know the studio that owns Ghostbusters, but then they re released Ghostbusters years later with a completely different cast.
• 58:31
  Jordan: And it wasn't as good!
• 58:33
  Kevin: Wasn't as good.