[HN Gopher] A Man Who's Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song
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A Man Who's Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song
Author : SirLJ
Score : 236 points
Date : 2020-01-11 14:10 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (marker.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (marker.medium.com)
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| This doesn't bother me one bit. I think he's making a mistake
| though.
|
| Taylor Swift, Timbaland, and Bruno Mars are all arguably
| homogenous music made by marketing groups for middle American
| focus groups. They are endlessly replaceable, rather forgettable,
| artists and will be lost to history by the 'next big thing' that
| sounds just like it or very similar in a year or two. It has more
| in common with pop fashion than originally expressive art.
|
| Music made by marketers for middle America focus groups
| commodifies music so that the next thing can easily replace the
| current thing.
|
| Who remembers blaque, or 3LW, or All-4-One or the train is boy
| and girl bands from the past?
|
| This is just the music business cannibalizing itself.
|
| Truly expressive, original, personal, music will always be
| timeless in my opinion, because its irreplaceable, the style is
| non reproducible, and it's pretty much unexplainable how it's
| created.even by the artist...see led zepp, Beatles, Billy Corgan,
| Mozart, etc. etc.
|
| That's my thoughts and what music I think what he should be
| focusing on.
| dangus wrote:
| This gives me the impression that you didn't quite get what the
| article was about, and I'm not supposed to suggest that you
| didn't read it but let's just say I have my suspicions.
|
| This company is often buying songwriter's catalogs, not just
| specific public-facing artists that come and go.
|
| And while you may not remember the artists names, these songs
| often end up in commercials and other adaptations that generate
| revenue, even if they're not actually the original recording.
|
| If a commercial plays the song "Whip It," do you remember that
| it was performed by Devo? I sure didn't, but I've seen it in a
| heck of a lot of commercials, like this one:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqnPciNhQXU
|
| The rights holder to that song undoubtedly made money from that
| commercial, even though the lyrics have been changed.
|
| The importance of the songwriter over the artist has been
| growing, all of this was mentioned in the article.
| loso wrote:
| This comment is very focused on your point of view of what
| timeless music is. Plus your examples of who remembers are all
| artist or groups who were big for a song or two. Middle tier
| artists. There is a difference as far as staying power between
| the first set of artist (Swift, Timbaland, Bruno Mars)you used
| as an example and the second set (Blaque, 3LW, etc).
| gilbetron wrote:
| "I don't believe in material things."
|
| Wants to own everything musical and starts up a billion dollar
| fund to do so.
| anm89 wrote:
| This kind of posturing is nauseating but I find it to be
| bizarrely common.
|
| I think if you are not an overly literal person it makes more
| sense though. It's social posturing which is meant to mean "I
| don't like the most extreme elements of consumer culture like
| designer belt buckles and luxury automobiles". To many people
| "believing in material things" means that and not what they are
| literally saying.
|
| It seems like many people find this type of exaggerated speech
| to be really charismatic which I find really annoying.
| hinkley wrote:
| Spends a lot of time in record shops expanding his collection.
| chiph wrote:
| Has he never heard of the Hunt Brothers and their attempt to
| corner the silver market? Supply & Demand dictates that prices
| can go higher than you are liquid.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday
| yorwba wrote:
| He's not really trying to buy everything:
|
| > "We turn down 70% of what's offered to us, and oftentimes we
| make the first move in finding writers whose catalogs aren't
| publicly for sale," he says.
|
| > Ultimately, his goal with Hipgnosis -- which went public on
| the London Stock Exchange in June 2018 -- is to own 15% to 20%
| of the overall publishing market.
|
| That's more like someone buying up the silver mining rights
| across large but carefully picked swathes of land. Then he
| rents those rights to miners for a fee he can use to buy even
| more mining rights.
| fastball wrote:
| With songs though, they'll generate revenue while you're
| sitting on them. Silver doesn't do that.
| cgriswald wrote:
| > With songs though, they'll generate revenue while you're
| sitting on them.
|
| How, exactly? I'm fairly certain most of a songs revenue is
| made by the first year. To go beyond that, you've got to get
| your song back in the public mind.
|
| > Silver doesn't do that.
|
| You can certainly borrow against the value of the silver to
| fund low risk investments.
| djaychela wrote:
| > How, exactly? I'm fairly certain most of a songs revenue
| is made by the first year. To go beyond that, you've got to
| get your song back in the public mind.
|
| Bass player with a 70s pop star who's still working and
| making music here.... I know that his hit songs still
| generate a significant amount of income for him (I'm not
| giving figures, but I would be more than happy if I had
| that much coming in for a full time income, let alone as
| passive income 50 years later). The songs get airplay, and
| get used in adverts and so on, and that generates income
| that I'd certainly be very happy to have. (I don't, I'm
| just a hired hand, very late to the party!)
| cgriswald wrote:
| That's kind of my point. Getting airplay and being in
| adverts helps keep his song in the public mind which
| generates income from the song. _He_ may see it as
| passive income, but people are doing things to keep that
| income going. I 'm also guessing he didn't start out
| eight figures in the hole by purchasing his songs from
| someone else.
| djaychela wrote:
| Sorry, I should have been clearer about my point - his
| songs have had a 'long tail' - most of the money wasn't
| made in the first year.
|
| He didn't start out 8 figures in the hole, but he has
| spent a LOT of time getting the money he was owed due to
| being ripped off by managers doing dodgy deals - every
| story he tells me is jaw-dropping and you just can't
| believe people would act like that, but they do.
| Repeatedly!
| [deleted]
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Passive income typically refers to whether the owner of
| the income-generating asset needs to put in a significant
| amount of regular effort to generate the income, not
| whether anyone in the value chain does.
| cgriswald wrote:
| The question wasn't about whether anyone in the value
| chain gets passive income, but whether the songs generate
| revenue 'by sitting on them.' If you're going to invest
| in either silver or songs with the intention of doing
| nothing, which are you going to invest in? The
| experiences of a 70's pop star getting royalties are not
| equivalent to what Mercuriadis will have to do to produce
| revenue from his investors' investments.
| fastball wrote:
| I don't know where you're getting your loans, but around
| here the cost of interest on the loans is going to be
| higher than my return on low risk investments.
| kaffeemitsahne wrote:
| I don't think you can really corner the market for songs,
| people can just make new songs. Also if you don't have a lot of
| media clout besides owning some pop songs IP there's nothing
| you can do to keep the popular taste aligned to your music
| portfolio.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Not a bad idea. Finding avenues to rent-seek seems to be the
| winning strategy, especially with all the cash floating around
| looking for returns.
| umvi wrote:
| It's like the old aristocracy days except for instead of the
| elite owning physical property and renting it out to the
| peasants, the elite own intellectual property and rent it out
| to the peasants.
| netcan wrote:
| In a basic sense, that's what all wealth is. Income
| generating property. Debt produces interest. Company shares
| produce dividends Real estate earns rent. Capital produces
| revenue. It's all quite interchangeable.
|
| The most famous rant on this is Marx & Engel's manifesto.
| Chapter one explains how history works, making similar
| comparisons from their day to older days. The second chapter
| describes communism's aims. It's also (largely) a rant about
| the bourgeois.
|
| Anyway, like most Marx, it's hard to translate to concrete
| terms. One unambiguous line stands out though. _"..the theory
| of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence:
| Abolition of private property._ " - Communist Manifesto
|
| In the very next paragraph, ambiguity re-enters. Even in
| theory, it's very hard to flesh this out. ...It's especially
| hard in the context he's most interested in: urban
| industry/society. Replacing all property with a "commons" is
| easier to imagine in a rural/village context. Rural commons
| exist.
|
| I think Marx _got_ the idea from a rural context. Formal and
| informal privatisations of agricultural commons were part of
| his stated inspiration, iirc.
|
| Anyway, I think the basics are trivial. Property is
| effectively income generating by definition. If aristocracy
| is immoral, then property owning is immoral.
|
| To me, this is a reductio ad absurdum for fundamentalist
| thinking... kind of like the monty python witch trial.
| umvi wrote:
| Intellectual property didn't used to be rent seeking. It's
| a relatively recent phenomenon where you can no longer buy-
| to-own, you can only subscribe-to-use.
|
| Virtually every company is moving toward this model -
| Microsoft, Adobe, Disney, etc. That's my main complaint.
| netcan wrote:
| Depends on what you mean by "rent seeking."
|
| Liberal economists use this term the most, they usually
| mean large companies trying to get goodies from the
| state. Lefty ones tend to mean something like
| "profiteering."
|
| X-as-a-service businesses models aren't exactly new in
| intellectual property. The patent/copyright systems
| explicitly assume licensing and royalties. But, I agree
| that subscriptions are pretty new in consumer-land.
|
| But we need a different term rent seeking already has
| competing usages.
| rhizome wrote:
| > _they usually mean large companies trying to get
| goodies from the state_
|
| I think here you might be thinking of Regulatory Capture.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
| prepend wrote:
| Rent seeking [0] typically means exploiting a captive
| market without providing value. I don't think that fits
| either of your definitions. The key piece is they
| basically squeeze without proving value. So buying IP and
| then upping the rent fits that.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
| opportune wrote:
| A very large number of early economists railed on
| rentiership (Adam Smith, Herny George, of course Marx).
|
| With regard to intellectual property, "ownership" is
| effectively monopoly because nobody else has the right to
| produce the good. There might be "inferior" or replacements
| goods with pop music, but maybe not even that when it comes
| to things like patents.
|
| However I disagree with your assertion that wealth is
| income generating property. If I store $5mm under my
| mattress, I have wealth without generating income: the
| wealth can be used to purchase a large amount of services
| over a sustained period of time, but it is not generating
| more wealth.
|
| The argument about "private property" is not hard to
| understand, it is just confusing for many people because of
| the way we use the term in modern language. It is not only
| to be compared with public property, but also personal
| property: for example, the apartment I live in, or the comb
| I use to brush my hair. Interestingly, personal property is
| almost by definition a form of wealth which does not
| produce income/accumulate value. Here's a good explanation:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_property#Personal_ve
| r...
| netcan wrote:
| There are all sorts of practical exceptions, but it's
| still all backed by income generating wealth.
|
| That $5mm under your mattress is backed by bonds, income
| yielding bonds. That's why it's worth $5mm. If the
| country or bank that issues those bonds were defunct, the
| money would be worthless because the bonds would no
| longer be income generating.
|
| You could say that gold is nonproductive wealth. Adam
| Smith sorta argued that gold isn't wealth. You could use
| a sack of grain as an example..
|
| These examples are theoretical though. IRL, the majority
| of wealth is equity, bonds, real estate, etc. The value
| of that property is determined by the income it generates
| for its owner. If you really had that $5mm, it would
| probably be in equity, bonds, real estate, and generate a
| yield... like most wealth in the world.
| selrumingo wrote:
| >If I story $5mm under my mattress, I have wealth without
| generating income.
|
| This isn't true. The $5mm is merely representational. The
| social dynamics that maintain it's exchange value, i.e.
| security, is circumstantial. The security is exercised by
| way of capital.
|
| >personal property is almost by definition a form of
| wealth which does not produce income/accumulate value.
|
| This is ahistorical. In a capitalist society, personal
| property is a means to produce value all the same.
| Capitalism comprises relational circumstances that deem
| your toothbrush, comb, computer, school supplies, and
| your quiet home all as means to produce value.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I genuinely googled Mark Engels to see who he was - I was
| guessing a friend of Brian Eno.
|
| Now I get it.
|
| And yes, the commons may well be becoming more of the world
| than the private world. interesting idea
| netcan wrote:
| Ha! (fixed, thanks)
| tomrod wrote:
| Feudalism is one of the standard memes of history, as per
| David Brin.[1] The essay is well worth reading, as well as
| the thesis that a new meme ("otherness") arose within Western
| Liberalism. In my mind Otherness is a saddle point, and worth
| investing in to protect.[2]
|
| [1] http://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/dogmaofotherness.html
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
| Orou wrote:
| Great read, thanks for linking.
| jrs95 wrote:
| Western Liberalism increasingly seems to just be a system
| by which you establish global feudalism. I guess it's good
| for a few generations. Hard to argue it's even good now
| though because even though we're wealthier than ever we're
| increasingly unhappy and mentally ill.
| mrmonkeyman wrote:
| Speak for yourself.
| NOGDP wrote:
| I think pop songs are a depreciating asset since new ones can
| be pumped out rather quickly like out of a factory.
| dehrmann wrote:
| It's not just than new ones are pumped out, it's that people
| lose interest and move on. Taylor Swift will do better than
| someone less popular, but people still listen to "Blank
| Space" more than "Love Story." Going back further, kids these
| days are less likely to know the Beatles.
| loso wrote:
| When you hit 40 you start to see in real time how valuable
| those old songs are. Your friends and other people in your
| age group hate the new music so they only listen to music
| from when they were young. All of the commercials play music
| you thought would never be used in a commercial. Walking
| through the grocery store or waiting in an elevator you start
| to bop your head because one of your favorite songs from high
| school is now elevator music. A popular song has a lot of
| long tail value, sometimes you have to wait a generation to
| start to see the returns.
| jariel wrote:
| "Your friends and other people in your age group hate the
| new music so they only listen to music from when they were
| young."
|
| Young people hate a lot of music made these days and listen
| to older music. It's not just a 'when I was young' thing
| anymore.
|
| There's something very profound that comes from artists who
| make music, as opposed to a producer who makes some licks,
| a mediocre singer who belts it out, and a label that brands
| it.
|
| When the brand/hype/marketing of the 'current flavour' dies
| down, what is left?
|
| Music older than 4 years has to compete on its own merits,
| and most of it is forgotten, the better stuff hangs around.
|
| Because music is ever more produced and less created, a lot
| of the stock today just stand the test of time.
|
| When I was young you'd hear 50's music in the grocery
| store. Now you hear 80's music. But I think in 30 years
| we're still going to hear a lot of 80's music (and 60's,
| 70's and other eras) but the ratio of 'recently
| contemporary' to older music will be a lot lower.
| hinkley wrote:
| See also Stranger Things, Guardians of the Galaxy (I and
| II), Captain America, etc.
| jedberg wrote:
| And yet when you see a car commercial they use an old song.
|
| You're not accounting for the value of nostalgia and cultural
| significance.
| olalonde wrote:
| In many cases, old songs are used precisely because they
| are cheaper to license.
| wolco wrote:
| Old songs have greater surface. Many more people have
| heard it over something popular today which 20% might
| have heard of. New music is usually much cheaper. Even
| within the same artist. Would you lic. Bieber's Baby,
| baby O or something new. More extreme example would you
| lic gangnam style or anything newer by that artist?
| walshemj wrote:
| Not really its why TV shows have to be careful with the
| budget for licences - though this can work very well
| "sinner Man" as used in an episode of Person of interest.
| lowdose wrote:
| Only when the car is advertised to boomers. Fords new
| electrified cars commercial pumps techno.
| windyaskew wrote:
| And they'll keep pumping that same techno in 5 years when
| they want people to get Gen 2 electric cars
| sjg007 wrote:
| Michael Jackson owned the Beatles catalog which made him a lot
| of money.
| fakinghistory wrote:
| Thats what he meant by the phrase "just Beat it"
| walshemj wrote:
| Which the Beatles lost due to some super scummy tax dodge
| shi314 wrote:
| And Sony made him gave that with pennies.
| TomMckenny wrote:
| Seems that's the way society ended up being structured. Perhaps
| we will all end up selling houses to each other and no one will
| have to make anything at all!
|
| I swear, even the Aztecs had a less destructive system.
| fakinghistory wrote:
| you probably say that because you are a revolutionary that
| wants the aztec empire to exist again. You would be happy
| with the beheadings. Either that or your jokes are awful.
| poordaniel wrote:
| That's a strangely ignorant thing to say.
| neilwilson wrote:
| We need about 1% of people to grow the food and perhaps 9% of
| the people to make stuff we need.
|
| The other 90% then have to convince the 10% that do the
| actual work that they are worth the time to produce a surplus
| for. IP barriers are one way of doing that. Even farmers like
| pop songs.
| TomMckenny wrote:
| That 90% does not live on IP, they live by offering medical
| care, police service, education, roads, reservoirs and
| aqueducts. By transporting those farm goods, inventing new
| tractors and efficiently managing all these things.
|
| And while pop songs artists may deserve compensation,
| society does not crucially depend on someone collecting
| royalties for generations after the guy's death.
|
| On the farmer analogy (and inspired by the recent .org tld
| acquisition), if one really wanted to extract rents, simply
| acquire the land they work on and set them all to
| sharecropping.
| Animats wrote:
| Close. About 1.4% for farming and under 13% for all other
| tangible goods.[1]
|
| Take a close look at that table. It's really important.
| Growth areas: Health care and social assistance,
| educational services, leisure and hospitality, and
| construction.
|
| [1] https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/employment-by-major-
| industry-...
| sb057 wrote:
| Bear in mind that the United States manufactures a
| fraction of the manufactured goods it consumes.
| mindslight wrote:
| That assumes the amount each individual person "works"
| remains the same. Why not full-time employment at 15 hours
| a week, with 30% of people making stuff we need?
|
| Most of our efficiency gains are presently being funneled
| into a glut of overproduction of nonsensical "goods" (eg
| overfinancialization and overadministration) rather than
| direct quality of life improvements of everyone being able
| to work less.
| wolco wrote:
| Why not 4% with robots handling the rest?
| [deleted]
| bitL wrote:
| Everybody should read about Tibetan society in the early 20th
| century to understand consequences of extreme rent seeking...
| Hell has many forms.
| stanferder wrote:
| It's actually kind of brilliant. Mercuriadis et al are getting
| some of the rights to well-known intellectual property through
| the presumably underpaid, behind-the-scenes contributors. His
| competitors say he's paying too much, but is that just because
| they've been paying too little?
|
| I was biased against the guy when I started the article, but if
| the status quo ante was other execs paying pennies to
| songwriters for their rights, and then doing little to nothing
| with them, maybe Mercuriadis is onto something.
| walshemj wrote:
| Exactly back in the 50's 60's performers got ripped off left
| right and centre.
| jacobwilliamroy wrote:
| I just wish they'd go rob a liquor store, like normal
| hardworking people do.
| zmix wrote:
| Title is totally off!
| electriclove wrote:
| Would be nice if he bought them to make them free.. this is just
| another capitalistic play by those who are already wealthy..
| great..
| bbrree66 wrote:
| Yes, because being wealthy is intrinsically a bad thing! Down
| with capitalism!
| adamsea wrote:
| Extreme wealth inequality has been found to be bad for both
| the poor and wealthy individuals and for society, in terms of
| happiness
| bbrree66 wrote:
| What a juicy statement, I don't know where to start!
|
| 1. What study? How do you know it's causative and not
| correlated? Should we make policy decisions based on this
| study?
|
| 2. Are you saying the reason some people are poor is
| because others are rich? If so, why?
|
| 3. Does this mean we should have someone arbitrarily decide
| what too rich is and take their money to redistribute it?
| sinoue wrote:
| At some point this is going to suck for consumers as spotify and
| other streaming services get squeezed hard.
| wiseleo wrote:
| It will be industry-wide game over when they grab Max Martin and
| Lukasz Gottwald https://nypost.com/2015/10/04/your-favorite-song-
| on-the-radi...
|
| I think the goal is to launch the next ASCAP/BMI/SESAC and
| basically charge astronomical rates for songs people want to
| hear. Songwriters will love it and artists will have no choice.
|
| This is pretty much a confirmation: "Along with owning a bigger
| chunk of the publishing market, he wants to continue altering it.
| He's considering launching a songwriter's union, something akin
| to the Screenwriters Guild, that would give songwriters more
| leverage to extract better deals from the industry's power
| brokers."
|
| It's a public company. I might want to buy some stock in it when
| I can.
| m0zg wrote:
| I hope he succeeds and makes "every pop song" so expensive to
| license that pop music just dies a natural death, yielding way to
| musicians who can actually play instruments and singers who can
| actually sing. The current situation is kind of absurd.
| [deleted]
| Jerry2 wrote:
| Here's their investing prospectus with the complete business
| strategy laid out:
|
| https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5937f2f1bebafb1297678...
| walshemj wrote:
| I invested in this interesting investment trust back in
| February last year when it was featured the investors chronical
| and late last year when they had an offer for subscription at
| 100.
|
| I look at it as an alternate bond like investment that is not
| corelated with traditional bonds - target yield is 5% I think
| carbocation wrote:
| Hipgnosis is a beautiful portmanteau.
| goodmachine wrote:
| Pity the guy stole the name from Storm Thorgerson's design
| studio. Kind of a dick move.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipgnosis
| trsohmers wrote:
| Since it says his favorite band of all time is Pink Floyd,
| it is fair he is using the name as Storm and Hipgnosis
| designed all their major album covers. Hopefully he paid
| for the name...
| zozbot234 wrote:
| I wonder why this guy thinks that the rights to a successful song
| are an "uncorrelated" asset. Wouldn't strong economic growth mean
| that people are far _more_ likely to spend money on these things?
| Especially for 'sync' rights which mostly come up for things
| like ads, or derivative mass-marketed media (e.g. successful song
| X ends up in the soundtrack of movie Y)? Just seemed like a weird
| claim to me.
| lordnacho wrote:
| He really means "less correlated". Just about everything is
| glued to interest rates and the general economy.
| DSingularity wrote:
| Yeah. And that money goes to him. And with a weak economy
| people will stop paying him but now the streaming services will
| pay him more.
| stuart78 wrote:
| While everything may be influenced by macro trends, there will
| still be movies, Super Bowl Ads, radio and Spotify playlists
| which rely on music licensing. It may dip in bad times, but the
| bet is that they will do better than other investment types.
| MR4D wrote:
| Uncorrelated probably means to the stock market. The US market
| was up about 30% in 2019, but I doubt the value of any
| particular Taylor Swift song increased by that much.
|
| I'm sure there is some correlation to general GDP growth, and
| you would actually want that. It's the specific stock market
| correlation that you tend to not want.
| turk73 wrote:
| If I could buy up the rights to every pop song the next day would
| be Emancipation Day as every one of them was deemed public
| domain.
| Hipgnosis wrote:
| and of course this guy is trying to associate his effort with the
| English art design group Hipgnosis[1] that specialised in
| creating cover art for many famous bands.
|
| 1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipgnosis
| m3kw9 wrote:
| They'd need to acquire more and more music as the years go by
| because they are always competing with other hits and the more
| that hits the market the more competition they have that cut into
| their returns. It depends how good they are at squeezing dollars
| from each music.
| seanalltogether wrote:
| So if I'm reading this correctly, this guy is saying that
| traditional labels put too much time and effort into album sales
| and completely ignore the money available from licensing and
| performance royalties (if they don't own the rights to a song why
| would they care to)
|
| So by buying up the rights he has the incentive to push hard to
| sell licenses to that music and can build up teams of salespeople
| to do only that. What songwriter wouldn't want to sign up if they
| don't like the burden of managing those opportunities themselves
| and don't trust that labels will put the effort in.
| allcentury wrote:
| I think he's buying the publishing (mechanical royalties).
| zozbot234 wrote:
| That's quite ironic in a sense, because "the publishing" is
| the very thing where there's a _huge_ amount of perfectly-
| serviceable music that 's totally in the public domain, with
| zero "rights" or "royalties" to contend with. And it's not
| just 'boring', classical pieces, but music in popular styles
| too. This whole setup is ripe for a "disrupt from
| below"/"commoditize your complement" play where someone
| _purposely_ brings those old 19th century (and before!) songs
| from IMSLP back in style as the perfect troll move.
|
| Heck, the record labels might do it at this point - after
| all, they'll still have the rights to the actual performed
| audio ("the master").
| technofiend wrote:
| From the article he's dedicating marketers to synch rather
| than mechanicals. I quoted the explanation of all three
| revenue streams for people like myself who don't
| automatically know which is which.
|
| With Hipgnosis Songs Fund, Mercuriadis bypassed all of them.
| Songwriters are able to generate revenue from three sources:
| mechanical royalties (the sale or legal download of a song),
| performance royalties (paid every time a song is heard in
| public, whether it's a live performance, on TV, or in a
| movie; played in a bar or restaurant; or streamed), and synch
| fees (song licensing for use in movies, video games, and
| commercials). Mechanical royalties are the only stream with a
| set rate; performance and synch royalties are negotiated
| percentages. Synchs are often more lucrative for the
| songwriter, since they generally split 50% for the writer and
| the artist, with the label taking its cut from the artist's
| piece of the pie. _Synch is where Hipgnosis Song Fund could
| make them money, as Mercuriadis explained to the 177 hedge
| fund and private investors he pitched between 2015 and 2018._
| ancientworldnow wrote:
| For people curious about synch rates, a friend just
| licensed the music (not performance) to an unknown song for
| promos for a major streaming production with A listers for
| $8000 on a two month license. This was with the assistance
| of an entertainment lawyer.
|
| Of course every case is unique.
| djmobley wrote:
| Sounds like this is all the money being poured into
| television and film content by Netflix/Amazon/Apple etc.
| trickling down.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| In Canada what you're talking about is managed on behalf of
| artists by SOCAN which acts kind of like a performers union in
| that they'll go to bat for you and have health insurance plans,
| etc.
|
| And you retain all rights to your creation.
|
| http://www.socan.com/
| superkuh wrote:
| Oh cool. Joshua Newman's print scifi dystopia short, "Feral", is
| coming true. https://glyphpress.com/talk/2014/feral
| bagacrap wrote:
| He raised $1B of others' money; he hasn't spent anything close to
| that yet, even in aggregate. The article is extremely light on
| details of why this guy thinks he can turn a bigger profit off
| these song catalogs than the traditional publishers can, but I
| guess he's cutting a lot of fat compared to the big publishing
| houses? This seems positive to me because it's shifting more
| money towards the artists:
|
| "In the music industry, paying for assets at a 10x multiple is
| considered top dollar. Mercuriadis is reportedly paying up to
| 20x, making it impossible for others to compete."
| mrnobody_67 wrote:
| His big bet is that the assets are undervalued...
|
| Could end up exiting through the launch of a Music Royalties
| REIT. Liquid assets that trade always get a premium over
| illiquid limited partnerships. Could be an interesting asset
| class for diversification that's relatively uncorrelated...
|
| Anyway, full investment prospectus for his fund is here:
| https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5937f2f1bebafb1297678...
| wtn wrote:
| That would be a royalty trust.
| Scown wrote:
| Think the killer point is making "synch managers" responsible
| for far fewer songs than traditional publishers.
|
| They're effectively treating each song as an artist with its
| own manager, so naturally that manager is gonna be much better
| able to see how and where to place "their" songs.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| That's optimistic of you to think that he's going to give more
| profits to the artist.
| cpach wrote:
| Nitpick: To the songwriters.
| zaroth wrote:
| If he's paying 20x multiples versus 10x multiples than that
| is _exactly_ what is happening.
|
| His investors take all the risk on trying to make a return on
| that investment, the songwriter gets paid double up front.
| decasia wrote:
| This new moment of marketization is interesting to observe from
| the sidelines.
|
| I'm a musician but I've never gotten paid for making music and
| don't want to be. This way, songwriting and playing music can
| remain something I do purely for the intrinsic joy of it. And
| it's not really so long ago that, if you wanted music in your
| house, you had to play it yourself.
|
| I have nothing against recorded music or professional musicians,
| but it's interesting how much we seem to collectively forget that
| buying music isn't the only way to have access to it. Not
| everything we need has to be obtained as a commodity (still less
| through a monthly subscription).
| maroonblazer wrote:
| I could also write my own novels and produce my own TV shows
| but they wouldn't be as good as what an Orwell or Sorkin could
| produce.
| jahewson wrote:
| Do the things you do have to be world-class all-time greats
| in order to be worth doing?
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| If they are accessible, then yes, and I don't see why that
| would be controversial.
|
| Normally enjoyment of the art making process for amateurs
| is just that, enjoyment of the _process_. If I want to
| enjoy literature, I'll read the work of professional
| writers. If I want to enjoy the task of writing, I'll write
| myself.
|
| For most people, art making as a hobby is occasional,
| simply by the time & resource limits of regular jobs,
| family obligations, etc. While consuming art is much more
| accessible.
|
| Some other things can be closer to a gray middle area. For
| me, that is cooking. I expect myself to be able to make
| really world class food even in my crappy apartment kitchen
| with limited time and a normal grocery budget. So when I
| can't do that, due to time constraints generally, I won't
| whip together something quick just 'cause.. I'd rather
| simply transfer the grocery budget to restaurant budget and
| eat better made things.
|
| Thankfully, since most of the very best food is found at
| cheap or medium end restaurants, and not too much at five
| star expensive places, this is fairly easy without changing
| my budget. But compromising to make a mediocre thing
| myself, either purely for the sake of cooking or to
| allegedly save money, is not interesting or useful to me.
|
| I could imagine people feel that way about a lot of things.
| decasia wrote:
| I think you said it better than I did!
| shi314 wrote:
| I personally would have a not so great food with room for
| improvement everyday rather than to eat similar delicious
| food every day. Improvement makes a mundane thing not-so-
| mudane while no improvement makes a not-so-mudane thing
| look mudane. Anyways, different people have different
| preference.
| imtringued wrote:
| >If they are accessible, then yes, and I don't see why
| that would be controversial.
|
| The simple answer is that it completely ignores how the
| world works. Things don't decide to be world class. They
| are labeled world class after they have existed and were
| compared with other things that are not world class. If
| you decide to remove the non world class things from the
| ranking (because they were not worth doing) you will
| realize that the number of non world class things has
| increased.
| braythwayt wrote:
| Nope, not at all.
|
| You and only you decide if a thing is worth doing. If you
| want to learn Mandarin, so what? You will probably never be
| a best-selling or critically acclaimed author of Mandarin
| books. You are unlikely to be the next star in a Mandarin-
| singing boy-or girl-band. You will not be a TV host reading
| the news in Mandarin.
|
| What of it? Does learning even a little Mandarin give you
| pleasure? Do it!
|
| It's insane to judge everything in your life by whether you
| are going to be in the top one tenth of one percentile.
| That is a recipe for constant stress an unhappiness, for
| forever judging yourself by impossible standards and coming
| up short.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I don't mean to flatter you, but there's no evidence of that.
| decasia wrote:
| Sure. And the pleasure you would get out of this would depend
| in part on your skill in the relevant medium.
|
| But I think there's a significant difference: with music, as
| you play it, you are also experiencing ("consuming") it. And
| that's what also brings a lot of the pleasure to it.
|
| With writing and videography, meanwhile, the act of
| production is usually a lot more decoupled from the
| experience of consumption. I happen to think that producing
| writing and producing video are also fun activities in their
| own right. But they don't fit into social life in the way
| that playing someone a song does.
| maroonblazer wrote:
| I play music too and derive a lot of pleasure from it, both
| as a performer and a consumer. However you seemed to be
| claiming that DIY-ing music was a viable alternative to
| consuming professionally produced music. Depending on one's
| aesthetic standards this is most likely not the case.
| braythwayt wrote:
| +1000
|
| I perform Bach terribly. But I consume Bach wonderfully
| when I play. I call it "Listening to the music with my
| hands."
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfENUjqz4bs
|
| I have experienced this with many other physical
| activities. To ride a twisting descent engages your brain
| more deeply than to look at the same road or trail. To
| climb a boulder engages your brain more deeply than to look
| at the line.
|
| Climbers pantomime the moves before climbing just as
| aerobatic pilots pantomime their routine before flying.
| Physical motion engages the brain a certain way that simply
| thinking, listening, or watching does not.
|
| The pleasure of listening to music with your hands begins
| when you first make a single satisfying note happen. It is
| not necessary to be able to play what you would like to
| hear.
| eslaught wrote:
| I think it's harder to get to this point with e.g. writing,
| but it is possible. There have been more than a couple
| times I've thought to myself (while writing), "wow, this is
| actually what I had imagined in my head." Which is not to
| say that anyone else would be impressed with it. But there
| is definitely a certain satisfaction (and even in the
| moment, not just afterwards when you read it) in being able
| to tell _your_ story instead of endlessly reading others '
| stories.
|
| I'm not sure it's enough to keep me going by itself
| (honestly, I still like to think someone else may be able
| to enjoy it, eventually, even if this is probably
| unrealistic). But it's definitely a factor.
| Can_Not wrote:
| Obviously that's because you'd have to be doing it after
| spending your primary energy in your current 40-60hr job and
| plus you don't have money to hire professional editors and
| screenwriters. I guess we'll never know if you lacked the
| talent or not.
| beefield wrote:
| Sorry, but you do not exist. Everybody knows that we need to
| have IP because otherwise nothing currently under copyright or
| patents would be produced.
|
| (Sarcasm.)
| corrys wrote:
| I mostly agree with this sentiment. However, even in the pre-
| recorded music times there was a pretty clear separation
| between the music people would play themselves at home and the
| music they would actively seek out to hear in a more
| professional environment (churches, concerts etc). When first
| recording mediums were invented, people were really excited
| specifically about being able to preserve and listen to the
| greats, not just any music.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Before music was recorded, copyright cops chased people
| playing songs or trading sheet music, bootleg player piano
| rolls, and fakebooks. Recording didn't change much - the
| people playing the music get far less protection or benefit
| than people who get the songwriting credits and the
| publishing.
| rdiddly wrote:
| Yeah and you know, thank god for that. As a musician I thought
| I would be interested in reading this article, but I kept
| finding myself fiddling, doing other things, looking at other
| tabs, even playing 2048 at one point. I guess I will always be
| a peasant, because this guy and everything in this article is
| FUCKING BORING. Why would I do any of that when I can _play
| music anytime I want?_ I "have" music in a way they never can.
| If I write one song right now, that's 1/0 = infinity percent
| more than he's written. I respect this guy about as much as I
| respect someone who pays for sex.
| jancsika wrote:
| Who is buying music? On the whole don't people either stream it
| or look it up on Youtube?
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| Plenty of people!
|
| There's a market. Not what it once was, because what was once
| the recording market was born out of necessity as much as
| anything else.
|
| I, like a lot of other people, am definitely interested in
| the ephemera. I like owning records. There's a tangible
| ritual to putting a record on, and there's really something
| to be said for the sound. Even dirty records with their
| occasional pops and scratches. It's a visceral appreciation
| for the medium, to be sure. That said I also buy a lot of
| paper books.
|
| There's also something to owning a copy. I use Apple Music
| these days when I'm commuting or on the road and it's great.
| I can hear most anything I want for the price I pay each
| month, but I even still buy copies of albums I really love
| because they're _mine_. It won't go away if Apple decides to
| kill the streaming service, or if I decide to unsubscribe
| (which will be the case at some point because the stacking up
| of subscriptions wears on me).
|
| On the whole? I don't know. I'm curious about the data, too.
| But who is buying music? A lot of people! There is still a
| lot of people who don't just see it as a commodity.
|
| On that last note I'm not a great trend-chaser, so I probably
| have a certain lens I see the whole thing through--but I'm
| not the only one.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Avid music fans do. And also it's easier to manage a vast
| digital collection any way you see fit than going through
| streaming options that offer next to no organizational
| capability except creating playlists, and maybe a master list
| of all artists you follow.
|
| Organizing data is a problem music freaks have.
| hakfoo wrote:
| A compact disc is, for practical purposes, indestructible
| under normal use (compared to vinyl and tape, which degrade
| in playback) Rip it lossless and use good backup discipline,
| even more so.
|
| It's never going to say "our business model requires you pay
| 20% more to keep listening to me", or "we're going to stop
| working on your favourite playback device because we changed
| the DRM and expect you to buy a new one."
|
| No service-based model can match those claims.
| pzmarzly wrote:
| All the music I'm listening to nowadays is the songs I buy on
| Bandcamp, and I'm far from being a hardcore music fan. I do
| see music as commodity, and that's why I don't mind limiting
| the selection available to me. I download the songs I buy to
| my laptop, and stream them to my phone via Bandcamp app. It
| has bugs and imperfect UI, but so does every Subsonic or Plex
| client I've tested.
|
| The main problem with streaming off Youtube is that, unless
| you stick to popular songs (>100M views), it's just a matter
| of time before some songs in your playlists become
| unavailable ("video is not available in your country", or
| unofficial upload gets deleted). I've been using NewPipe
| (Android) and Ivory (iOS) to play YT videos in background, so
| I'm not as annoyed with that as I would've been if I had been
| paying for Youtube Music, but it's still a deal breaker.
| Meanwhile on Bandcamp, some songs I bought have been deleted
| since that time, but I still have them in my library and can
| stream them in the app (I can't share link to these, though,
| as it's 404 unless you're logged into an account that has
| these in the library). Of course I could have been
| downloading YT videos to my PC, and stream them via Subsonic,
| and I was doing exactly this for many years, but I kept
| having weird issues with that (and it's metadata hell).
|
| If I were to switch to Spotify, I would have to leave my
| music collection behind, as the songs I have on Bandcamp are
| not on Spotify, and vice versa. But I don't see a reason to,
| as Spotify would also be more expensive option vs buying 1-2
| $2 albums per month. And the money I would be paying to
| Spotify wouldn't even go to the artist I listen to afaik,
| since the only thing that matters when it comes to Spotify
| payouts is the total number of times your songs have been
| played, which is determined in a large part by what the
| recommendation algorithm has been recommending to
| hairdressers and drivers, as well as what the current
| mainstream trends are.
| jancsika wrote:
| > This new moment of marketization is interesting to observe
| from the sidelines.
|
| I don't see what "marketization" has to do with things.
|
| There have been plenty of "busy beavers" over the years
| organizing all the music recordings on various non-commercial
| services at a scale that surpasses most similar commercial
| services. If anything, "marketization" has prevented them from
| making these collections even bigger than they have been.
|
| Those collections are thus better seen as a resource for people
| who want to play music themselves, rather than as a consumer
| substitute for musicianship.
| trunc wrote:
| Ha! Their homepage (www.hipgnosissongs.com) is full of Youtube
| embeds of songs they own.
| walshemj wrote:
| Vevo actualy
| michaeljohansen wrote:
| This is not the Bond villain we want.
| ghastmaster wrote:
| This looks to me like WeWork on a smaller scale. There is nothing
| innovative about borrowing money in a central bank facilitated
| bubble.
| [deleted]
| choward wrote:
| This is what's considered innovation. It's not innovative in that
| he's solving a problem but just an innovative way to try make
| more money.
| microcolonel wrote:
| What's to say he's not trying to provide an innovative service?
| It'd be interesting to be at least able to license most pop
| music from one place, not that this is an ideal way to get
| there. If he prices pop music out of the culture, then less
| popular music becomes a viable alternative.
| adamsea wrote:
| Hopefully it will make the world a better place!
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > It'd be interesting to be at least able to license most pop
| music from one place
|
| Didn't Spotify do that already?
| microcolonel wrote:
| > _Didn 't Spotify do that already?_
|
| If you can license music for distribution or inclusion in
| TV/film scores from Spotify, I am not aware of that.
| _jal wrote:
| This is finance. "Innovative" means it puts more money in a
| banker's pocket.
| dangus wrote:
| And more money in the investors' pockets.
|
| Essentially, the summary of this article is that this dude
| thinks he can leverage these song catalogs better than other
| investors. He's literally a music fund manager for music.
|
| His firm is "overpaying" for these back catalogs because he's
| essentially putting together a collection that might command
| more revenue than other "fund" managers, and possibly set up
| something of a targeted monopoly, and he's betting that they
| can extract more value than less competent managers and
| record labels.
|
| It wasn't directly addressed in the article but I suspect
| that the general strategy is to own the majority the sorts of
| songs that are more suitable for generating Synch fees. A big
| corporation is going to look around for a collection of songs
| that tend to do well in a TV commercial, for example. Perhaps
| they find that Hipgnosis happens to own all of them, and now
| they have to pay a higher rate, and all of a sudden the high
| price paid for this catalog doesn't seem like overpaying.
| [deleted]
| makapuf wrote:
| The issue there is that new songs ans creativity destroys value
| of old songs and so this way of treating copyright plus no
| entries to public domain means that old songs will be pushed
| forward all the time whereas new songs have no incentive at all
| to emerge. Especially if distribution is consolidated between a
| few actors.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Oh how I totally disagree with you... I thought I'd never move
| on to listen to "what kids listen to these days" and "most of
| it is crap". And then a cousin (with similar music taste)
| pointed me to "Post Rock" genre.. Mogwai (yes from the movie),
| Bloc Party, Sigur Ros, God is an Astronaut, 65daysofstatic..
|
| I now split my time between good old classic heavy metal (Iron
| Maiden - Iron Maiden)(anything after 7nth son is junk imho),
| Metallica (up to Justice..), everything Sepultura, basically
| eveything rock/metal up-to-early-1990.
|
| I get it that for new musicians it's hard to find their place
| in the world/market, but go start your own cafe/bakery/what-
| have-you and face competition.
|
| Porter's five forces to the max!
| ModernMech wrote:
| You might want to try the band "This Will Destroy You". I bet
| it's right up your alley.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| Haha I'm going to join the others who seemed to get excited
| at your comment.
|
| This is a short, two-part doc about a small music venue I was
| fortunate enough to spend my late teens and early twenties
| frequenting. It was the closest thing to my small town that
| brought me a lot of music from the generation you're listing.
| Searching YouTube will unearth performances from the place.
| I'm in one of the group photos they put up somewhere in this.
| I miss the place.
|
| Some of Tim and Scott's stories are entertaining and worth
| the listen.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ngBr-WiQ5ek
| corrys wrote:
| Strange to see Block Party in this list! Also post rock had
| its time in the late 90s / early 00s. Doubt we can put it in
| the category "what kids listen to these days". This category
| today is more along the lines of Post Malone and Lil Yachty.
| masklinn wrote:
| TBF GP's comment was responding to
|
| > new songs ans creativity destroys value of old songs
| [...] new songs have no incentive at all to emerge
|
| and though it's probably not the most popular genre today,
| there's plenty of post rock being made these days:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/postrock/wiki/albums/2019
| stdclass wrote:
| If you dig sigur ros and god is an astronaut, check out my
| post rock band MOLLY, we kind of go in the same direction :)
|
| /shameless selfplug
| prpl wrote:
| You might try out Mono, Boris, Pelican, Mastodon, Drive Like
| Jehu, Hot Snakes.
|
| Maybe Pissed Jeans and Envy, but that might be a bit too punk
| rock.
| chx wrote:
| > anything after 7nth son is junk imho
|
| those are fighting words, my friend. Fear of the Dark and
| Paschendale are just two examples that came after Seventh Son
| and are rightly played often by the band at their concerts
| and immensely popular.
| corrys wrote:
| New songs do have an incentive to emerge - it's just human
| creativity. In the last 2 decades distribution has been
| massively democratized, the opposite of what your fear is.
| Anyone can distribute their music online to billions of people
| for free (YouTube, SoundCloud, etc).
| gigatexal wrote:
| all this means is that musicians need to find a way to own their
| masters. You will never see Chance The Rapper sell his masters
| for the very reason this guy is buying up rights.
| setpatchaddress wrote:
| The publishing rights are where the money is. Owning the
| masters doesn't help much.
| gigatexal wrote:
| oh, dang. I thought they were one in the same. Then this guy
| is going to make a ton of money.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| From one perspective, this looks like economically useless
| activity. And it could be. But it isn't necessarily so.
|
| Historically, content creation and distribution were bundled.
| Distribution further bundled the content _per se_ and
| performances. This was all an artefact of the up-front cost of
| manufacturing and distributing physical media.
|
| With digitization, there is no reason a content creator shouldn't
| be able to essentially freelance. Make good content. Get paid for
| it. No requirement to promote yourself on social media, no need
| to perform for audiences. One _could_ still do that. But it would
| be a vertical play, not the default.
|
| A financial vector such as this one, which identifies good
| content, buys it, and then works out distribution, is one way to
| solve this problem.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Yes, financially this is similar to being good at picking
| credits. Some firms will default, some will not. Buy the ones
| that won't. Or another related analogy is convertibles, which
| are a sort of bundle package that is separable. That's not an
| economically useless activity at all.
|
| The big question though is why does he think he'll be better at
| this than others? Or rather, for his investors, why will it be
| better after his fees?
|
| He's got a first mover advantage by the looks of it. It takes
| some balls to buy a team with music experience to do this new
| thing. Of course you have the issue that some other guy will
| just do the same and compete with you, just like umpteen
| financial businesses (eg Private Equity).
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| I'd actually argue the opposite. The way it is trending in with
| digitization, the owners of the commodity distribution channels
| _decide_ what consumers prefer, through algorithmic
| manipulation, seeded content and artificial scarcity.
|
| It essentially allows the distribution channel to dictate terms
| _both ways_. If you're an artist, you can accept a pittance to
| produce things the distribution channel approves of (through
| algorithmic selection or explicit curation), or else you can
| make all your money from concerts and merch.
|
| But if you "make good content" that the actual end users
| actually monetarily value, it won't succeed except for the
| concert and fame cultivation route. Because the distribution
| channel is going to be a buzzsaw mowing down your created
| content on the way to whatever it decides to force feed the
| masses. It takes free will entirely out of content selection on
| the part of the ultimate paying customer. They pay for what
| they have been manipulated to think they chose.
|
| The alternative is something like Bandcamp where the artist
| just posts music and the world decides to buy it or not. But
| through license & regulatory capture, catalog hoarding, etc.,
| big distribution channels can easily use non-market forces to
| crush these things, and what's left is such a low volume so as
| to not matter at all.
|
| It's a certain kind of irrational exuberance / maniac grab for
| stock returns that we lavish ridiculous overvaluations on media
| delivery businesses that empower them to build these types of
| moats, essentially de-risking themselves from having to
| participate in a market by delivering a market valued product
| by algorithmically manipulating the consumer to eat what
| they're given so the distribution channel can have all of the
| negotiation power.
|
| Frankly the same is true for app store distribution and tv
| distribution, delivery food distribution and many other things.
|
| Just such destructive behavior by investors (both VC and
| everyday) who are bidding up these kinds of "delivery capture"
| businesses.
| m12k wrote:
| The article makes it sound like he's only buying proven songs,
| meaning they already have distribution. Also, as Napster,
| Pirate Bay and now Spotify have shown, distribution really is
| trivial - what he's buying is the right to restrict legal
| distribution.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _as Napster, Pirate Bay and now Spotify have shown,
| distribution really is trivial_
|
| Spotify is a multi-billion dollar company. I'm not sure what
| it does is trivial.
|
| On buying proven content, that still increases competition on
| the buy side for that content. The decoupling of distribution
| and content acquisition still happens, and makes the top end
| of the market pricier. That, in turn, means more money to the
| lower end, _et cetera_.
| look_lookatme wrote:
| They are saying distribution is trivial from a technical
| perspective.
|
| Acquiring the rights to distribute profitably is non
| trivial, of course.
| kowalakian wrote:
| Spotify is a music player. This is a commodity industry.
| sunstone wrote:
| Through my bleary eyes this morning I read this on my phone as
| $18 and I thought, yes that would be a good investment.
| microcolonel wrote:
| Thank you, if you try to make anything from that, we'll he a much
| healthier recorded music market.
|
| A billion dollars seems a bit low though, no? Surely he's gonna
| miss a lot.
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