inspiares

[inspiares]

press release | joc de grans de biel martí

Pocs mesos després de la publicació de “La llum que portes dins” (Microscopi, 2023), Biel Martí torna amb un single on la sonoritat acústica que caracteritza al cantautor barceloní es veu substituïda pels delays i els efectes de la guitarra elèctrica. Amb clares influències d’artistes com Julien Baker, Angie McMahon o Noah Gundersen i agafant per primer cop l’instrument elèctric, Biel Martí no deixa de banda la narrativa característica de la seva música, i amb un puntejat ràpid, senzill i familiar, decora una història sobre pèrdua i maduresa a parts iguals. A través d’algú que ha deixat enrere un amor, una amistat o totes dues coses, el músic de 28 anys reflexiona sobre el pas del temps i el seu efecte sobre les relacions humanes. Aprendre a deixar anar, acceptar que la vida no sempre segueix el que la nostra ment desitja i entendre que les persones creixen i es distancien són les tres idees principals que el protagonista de Joc de grans ha integrat un cop acaben els tres minuts que dura la cançó. I és que, efectivament, la gent canvia. I la gent canvia igual que canvien les relacions que ens uneixen. I acceptar-ho no és fàcil. Deixar enrere a gent estimada, entendre que no es pot forçar una relació i acceptar que l’amor és lliure i no pot ser imposat són claus a l’hora de fer-se gran. I la cançó intenta reflexionar al voltant d’aquestes idees a través dels ulls d’algú que ho va deixar tot enrere i ara, amb la mort a l’horitzó, mira al passat amb nostàlgia, sense ressentiment i desitjant que fos diferent. Així doncs, amb aquesta cançó, Biel Martí segueix en una línia melancòlica, però esperançadora, aquest cop decorant les paraules amb els efectes d’una guitarra elèctrica que, igual Que els pensaments, no para mai quieta. I per acompanyar-lo, aquesta vegada Biel Martí s’ha rodejat d’un amic de la infància, Juan Tintoré, que posa l’emoció amb la producció i amb una segona guitarra elèctrica que sembla plorar a la vida no viscuda

[inspiares]

evolution of record label demands to artists

evolution of record label demands to artists to sign a deal and its effect on artists in the present

Firstly, after having the opportunity to examine carefully different aspects related to the recorded music side of the music industry, the present essay aims to analyze the position of record labels - notably major ones- nowadays with regards to their demands to artists in conjunction with the evolution of the music business caused mainly by the internet and the digital revolution which has democratized the way music is presented to the audiences and the way the role of the audience has also changed. At the same time, we would also like to put light into how the other sign of this coin affects artists nowadays, with special regard to the effect on emerging artists and the new requests for the established ones.

With no further ado, let’s deep ourselves into the evolution of the music industry, and by extension, of the position of record labels in terms of their relationship with artists by looking into different aspects into which the internet and digital have had an impact. To that respect, it must be said that, succinctly, in the last decades, the internet revolution has totally changed the way music is created and consumed. That’s why, while the consumer-based power emerges, the music industry has had to find a way to recalibrate and put themselves out, also in their demands to do so. For example, many promotional practices in the music industry that were useful in the past are now no longer effective, like radio airplay versus landing on the right DSP playlist that can get the artists the best visibility and exposure needed to be successful.

Fundamentally digital service providers (also known as “DSPs”) such as Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube have paved the way for consumers to discover new ways to listen music not subject to the media-curated filter of music they want to highlight of the major label supported advertising. At the same time, artists have also found spots to become their own bosses and entrepreneurs of their project.

However, not only DSPs, but social networks have also a say in all of this, because, while streaming services still work as tools to discover new artists, social networks have also influenced the music industry. On the one hand, Instagram has been a platform which has changed music discovery for music and visuals. The choices made by artists when promoting and posing music in this platform look for instant gratification, which requires to a visual fast captivating content, so audiences engage with it and then, as a next step, listen to the music.

On the other hand, TikTok has been the most recent revolutionary player to enter the game. In that sense, […] “the industry's attention on TikTok isn't unfounded. Songs that trend on TikTok often end up charting on the Billboard 100 or Spotify Viral 50. And 67% of the app's users are more likely to seek out songs on music-streaming services after hearing them on TikTok, according to a November 2021 study conducted for TikTok by the music-analytics company MRC Data.[1] On top of that, "<<Record labels would decide who to sign, then they'd market them, send them to radio, put the CDs on the shelves and you'd discover music from there. And now, I feel like the music industry is just increasingly reactive to fans' discoveries. So the equation has flipped, which is fascinating.>> […] <<Fans on TikTok are connecting with artistry in a different way. When they find music they resonate with, they root for these artists, and then it propels it forward and it has offline success>>”.

Furthermore, “Platforms like TikTok and Twitch allow you to experiment and get feedback in real time. Singers like SZA and PinkPantheress have found a success by uploading demos and unfinished songs, then putting their full resources behind the ones their fans seem to connect with the most. It's a strategy that plays directly into TikTok's creator community, says Gleeson.”[2]

To that effect, here we can see some stats regarding TikTok and music discovery:

Source: Routenote.com

Along with it is important to emphasize that social media has impacted in the attention spans of the audiences, which have shortened at unprecedented levels. Considering that: “It cannot be denied that modern technology and the Internet have made it incredibly simple for even a bedroom musician to release their music to a global audience, but this comes with the flipside that the audience is now inundated with a flood of music and choices. The result of this is that an average listener simply will not spend time listening to an entire album or even a six-minute song to make their decision about an artist. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram Stories, and Reels, with their 10-15 second limits, have further popularized the need for cramming as much attention-grabbing content as possible within the first minute of a song. Musicians have been relegated to content creators, who must churn out catchy material continuously to stay relevant.”[3]

However, after exposing all the data regarding the influence of internet in the music industry and the changes provoked by it, if we move forward to how the digital revolution has influenced the position of artists in this equation reports indicate that “musicians only gained 12% of $43 billion generated in the industry of 2017. This alarming statistic proves that while the industry is still a profitable enterprise, its protagonists, the musicians who actively produce that richness, are left as starving artists This fact is reiterated by the statistics of how much money musicians make on the biggest music platform of our time – Spotify. To earn a decent income, an artist needs roughly 120.000 streams consistently per month, and that is considering he/she is the only rights holder of the track, which is seldom the case.”[4] Additionally, regarding the live music side of the business, a lot of established and emerging artists are also struggling to sell out their shows, because of the price increase in the last few years, because of many factors, including the pandemic, and for more emerging artists, the idea of touring is not worth the investment.

So, focusing on the subject matter of this paper, all this is translated into record labels being more demanding in their exigences to sign artists. First off, they require that the artist is already a jack of all trades. In the past, deals offered by record labels to emerging artists demanded to only be responsible of doing the music, all the other things related to their career were handled by them. While this could lead to abusive deals from record labels, the balance has now flipped to the other side completely, where musicians, to get their music to the audience, have to look for strategies that distract them from their craft. Otherwise, they will not get noticed by audiences nor record labels. So, “the line between being a musician, a businessperson, and a salesperson have become largely blurred, which might suit some with the inclination for it, but proves to be a shortcoming for many musicians.”[5]

Withal, advances offered by record labels now can be more attractive, but the demands also imply creating music instantly, with no margin for error, resulting in record labels having no patience with the artist to find its own way into success in the industry. All this also relates to the fact that record labels in the past where more patient with high-potential artists, giving them time to grow, experiment and even fail in their attempts. In fact, some years ago, “A record label would sign an act for three or four releases (sometimes less, sometimes more), and during the amount of time needed to produce and publish those records, an artist had the opportunity to mature.”[6]

For instance, Bruce Springsteen case with Columbia Records. At first, “label executives faced the question of how to package Springsteen as an artist. On some level, it seemed simple: Market him as a singer-songwriter, like James Taylor, Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell — all then thriving. […]  Then the album flopped. But Columbia could afford to be patient. Those were the glory days of the music business, which sold 1 billion records in 1974. It was standard practice to support budding artists, including subsidizing national tours as a means of selling records. Concert tickets would go for about the price of a long-playing album; the idea was to generate excitement that would lead to radio airplay, and, ultimately, profits. […] The label’s new president, Walter Yetnikoff, wanted to drop Springsteen — prompting a junior executive to swear at him. Columbia decided to advance Springsteen enough money to record a hit single and see if he could rise to the occasion. After six months of work — and driving everyone around him crazy in the process — Springsteen answered emphatically, yes, he could rise to the occasion with “Born to Run.”[7]

In short, the industry now demands a finished product to sign a deal with, yet “New young stars, sometimes even teenagers, rise almost daily, offering some perfectly polished tracks that cost them (or their parents) thousands of dollars. They have no time to work on themselves and their music, to hit the road and make some life experiences to feed their art: they need to start making money quickly to return on the investment initially made.”

It must be highlighted that still in the present, there’s a lot of players in the music industry continue raising their hand to reiterate that, in their opinion, contracts are still not on point, but not only for emerging artists, also for established ones: “Behind so many of the world’s most successful and beloved musicians is often a terrible contract. For decades, the music industry has found ways to squeeze as much profit from artists and songwriters as possible, and while awareness of these practices has grown, exploitative deals remain practically an industry standard.”[8]

On a different note, the reaction of artists to those demands of the record labels has been translated into increasingly more and more musicians releasing their own music. That is the case of Lauren-Spencer Smith, who got to be in the to five of the UK singles charts, after going viral on TikTok. “Much like Olivia Rodrigo's Driver’s License, which was released this time last year, Smith's song is a mournful lament for the end of a relationship that went viral on TikTok before crossing over to mainstream success. But there's one crucial difference: While Rodrigo is signed to the world's biggest record label, Universal Music, Smith has no record deal at all. Instead, her music is distributed by a US service called TuneCore, which puts her songs onto services like Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube for a flat fee. Smith retains ownership of her master recordings and gets 100% of the royalties when her songs are streamed.”[9]

Even though they still do not pose a real threat to major record labels, whose requirements are usually more stringent “It's no secret that major labels are being outpaced by the independent sector. In 2020, indie labels and self-releasing artists saw their revenues grow by 27%, compared to an overall market growth of 7%. In the UK, the sector represents 26% of the market, a figure that's grown by an average of 1% every year since 2017. Globally, the indies' share of the music market is at an all-time high of 43.1% - worth a not-too-shabby $9.8bn (£7.19bn), according to MIDiA Research.”[10] However, this does not imply independent record labels should pay attention to this situation.

In conclusion, even though labels, and particularly major record labels still control the majority of the market and have created their own “label service” companies, similar to independent record labels, offering global, despite being more limited, resources to musicians and artists, which could lead them to find this challenge not a real challenge, it is important to keep in mind that the music industry moves really fast.

Along with that, new technologies that are and will be coming along, the advance of the power and supremacy of social networks and the above-mentioned consumer/audience-centered plans for artists when signed to a label could lead to a potential backlash for record labels, especially majors, in a short to mid-term. It would not be the first time the music industry does not react or starts looking one step further, which then causes sudden changes in a short timeframe and lots of convulsion.

Therefore, the proposed improvement for fairer requirements by record labels and an improvement of conditions in the industry, albeit it may seem common or logical would be for the key players of the industry such as record labels are to put their head up and look to what can happen to get a head start and propose more innovative solutions. To put it in a nutshell, this way, they would make the impact and subsequent evolution of them music industry more natural, fairer and, to put nutshell, better. It’s an exercise of finding a middle ground between artists and record labels, where both can be benefited.

Source: Image by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Moreover, and to end up, to be more precise of where to start taking the aforementioned little steps into the future of the music industry within the technological revolution, one of one of the suggested solutions by the writer of this essay, and in connection to one of the challenges posed to the music publishing industry, would be to take hints, references, and practices of the relationships some artists are building with their fans in the metaverse. Using the fan or consumer-based experience, artists are shaping new ways to collect royalties, to make money out of their craft and passion, which is the main goal of most professional musicians. Record labels could help and boost those kinds of practices, even if adapted to their way of doing business and their responsibilities, to put the music industry where it has not been before and help artists along the way.  

[1] As stated in the article “How Tiktok is changing the music industry” published on https://www.businessinsider.com/how-tiktok-is-changing-the-music-industry-marketing-discovery-2021-7

[2] As stated in the article “More and more musicians are releasing their own music: Here’s why” published on https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-60051802   

[3] Extract from the article “7 biggest problems with the Music Industry?” published on https://www.musicianwave.com/biggest-problems-with-the-music-industry/

[4] Idem

[5] Idem

[6] Idem

[7] Extract from the article “Springsteen’s early struggles reveal how the music industry has changed”  published on https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/01/05/springsteen-greetings-50th-anniversary/

[8] As stated in the article “Bad Contracts Are a Music Industry Standard. Why haven’t they evolved?” published on https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/music-industry-bad-contracts-summer-walker-1258695/amp/

[9] As stated in the article “More and more musicians are releasing their own music: Here’s why” published on https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-60051802   

[10] Idem

[inspiares]

quo vadis ticket reselling

The aim of this present essay is to analyze ticket reselling or scalping and the challenges this area of the live music industry is facing concerning this situation. This subject is right now on its peak of “popularity” among the most debated topics of the music industry after the Taylor Swift debacle, that is the frustrated ticket selling management and process with companies Live Nation and its owned and associated ticketing company Ticketmaster.

In order to be able to put the reader in context, the Taylor Swift case occurred back in November when: “Ticketmaster made headlines after its site crashed during the pre-sale ticket drop for Swift’s upcoming “Eras” tour. After hours-long wait times and oversold tickets, Ticketmaster temporarily suspended sales. While the company blamed high demand, Swift said Ticketmaster assured her they could manage the situation. In a statement, Swift said she asked the groups several times “if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.” Live Nation’s president told Congress last month the industry has faced “industrial scale ticket scalping” that contributed to the issues with the Swift presale.”[1]

However, before getting our feet in the mud of ticket reselling to try to uncover what is happening with scalping, what are the challenges and how they could be tackled, we would like to point out some facts and data that have been surfacing regarding ticket reselling these past few months and that we think that will be useful to understand the dilemma.

Growth of the secondary ticketing market

“Despite COVID-19, the European secondary ticketing market was estimated to be worth €1.83bn in 2021, with predictions to grow to €2.29bn by 2023; money that is drained from consumers and the sports and cultural industries.”[2]

Secondary ticketing fraud and disappointment from fans

““We all know people who have bought tickets to the big concerts, sporting events and festivals who have not been able to attend because the tickets were fake or were duplicates,” she said.”[3]

Huge fees besides the ticket price

“Some customers who bought VIP packages for the tour — already among the priciest and highest-quality experiences at the venue — saw service fees as high as $550 (about a 15% service fee) atop the $3,757 the customer already spent on their seat. The most expensive tickets, of course, will also catch the most eye-popping fees. Among the more affordable seats, one customer’s screenshot detailed a $43.90 service fee on a $162 ticket (about a 27 percent fee), plus another $8 for the facility charge.”

What is happening with ticket scalping?

As it was mentioned, the Taylor Swift case with the selling of tickets for her tour has started a debate over ticketing and secondary market ticketing, reselling or scalping that is putting Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster at stake for their monopolistic practices.

Concretely, the US Senate has asked what happened with Taylor Swift demand for tickets and why people experience problems to get their seats even if they were previously registered in a verified fan program. And, also, they want more information regarding additional fees, dynamic prices, limited availability of tickets and restrictions to ticket scalping.

As it has been mentioned before and stated by the entertainment company, Live Nation response to that petition has been to reflect that the problem occurred with Taylor Swift and other similar cases and the backbone of this problem was the over-demand for tickets to speculate with them in the secondary market and in other landing and re-selling pages and apps such as StubHub for instance. That is also their shield defense method and justification of their practices within their own feud. In that sense, other players and the government have acknowledged that “Live Nation’s model, “makes them a vertically integrated giant,” […]. “They book the concert, sell the tickets and own the venue [and] that makes for little competition. And despite the consent decree which they agreed to extend, we don’t see the competition that we should. We’ve seen evidence of violations of them using monopoly power to cut out competition.”[4]

What are the arguments from the key players regarding this situation?

While the company is under a thorough investigation by the US Senate, they have been calling for action to prevent and limit reselling. To that respect Live Nation recently announced a support statement for a Fair Ticketing Act[5] based on the following premises:

Source: Live Nation Entertainment

So, In its intend to push for a “Fair Ticketing act ”Live Nation — owner of both the eponymous live music promoter as well as ticketing giant Ticketmaster — is advocating for federal laws that could weaken scalpers’ ability to mark up ticket prices and gouge customers for in-demand concerts. Among the changes it proposed are outlawing speculative ticketing in which scalpers try to sell tickets they don’t actually own yet, expanding legislation to stop bots from buying mass amounts of tickets and slowing down on-sale periods, mandating all-in ticketing to avoid hidden fees at the end of purchases, and protecting artists’ ability to decide how their tickets can sell on the secondary market.”[6] However, “Legislation focused around the points Live Nation mentioned doesn’t touch on all the complaints customers often have in the ticket-buying process such as high fees or dynamically-priced tickets, but they could in part address other long-held issues in the market regarding flexibility for artists and transparency for fans.”[7]

But, just as StubHub – a major reselling company among others - claims, the act is missing any mention of Live Nation and Ticketmaster behavior, as we were also pointin out in this essay.  In particular, regarding the Fair Ticketing Act, a StubHub rep stated that: “LNE and TM’s “Fair Ticketing Act” specifically focuses on regulating the secondary ticketing market and does not include any significant reforms to their own practices. Anything but fair, the proposal is meant to strengthen the control LNE, TM, and their venues and artists have over this industry and consumers at large.

Ticket transferability laws that empower consumers in the ticket buying transaction have long had the support and advocacy of consumer groups. LNE and TM’s regular opposition to these laws and their frequent use of derogatory terms like “scalper” are a veiled attempt to maintain the control they’ve had over consumers and cover up their own willful failures in helping to enforce existing statutes like the BOTS Act that go after bad actors.

This proposal is particularly concerning in a marketplace where LNE and TM regularly manipulate the release of ticket supply and availability to take advantage of high demand through dynamic ticket pricing.

LNE and TM’s own resale marketplaces cater to the same consumers and professional ticket resellers (or in their words, “scalpers”) as their secondary marketplace competitors, AND they provide services, such as their TradeDesk inventory management system, to encourage professional resellers to utilize their own resale sites“.[8]

Live Nation, however, responded to that by stating “The artist will always make the best decision for fans. FAIR Ticketing is not about locking down resale to our site, all resellers can take part as long as they are abiding by the terms the artist sets on their content. This isn’t theoretical, that is exactly how the NFL Ticket Exchange works. StubHub is pushing to make it illegal for artists to have choice – even choices that are good for consumers.”[9]

So, in summary, what StubHub is accusing Live Nation of is that they want restrict certain behaviors and practices for resellers and competitors, while they continue acting the same way, to which Live Nation claims that they are looking for the artist interests, and that is why they see suitable to sometimes have higher fees or prices, to prevent the Artist wishes from having all their sold out tickets from a concert being sold in a secondary market, for instance.

The debate is served, and the opinions on whichever secondary should be legal or not, and under which circumstances as well.

Is there any regulation of the secondary market that could outline some kind of solution to overcome this situation?

Thereunder, unlike the United States, Europe (the European Union) already started making steps to respond to this ticket scalping situation some time ago. To do so, they adopted regulation secondary ticketing markets in the Digital Service Act (“DSA”)[10] which aims to prevent abuses on online marketplaces, including ticket resale sites. To that extent, it includes measures to ensure professional sellers are identifiable, prevent certain manipulative sales tactics and requires regular reporting to try to improve transparency for consumers. In more detail, online market places will be required to obtain essential information about third party professional sellers, from their name and contact details, to their bank details and ID, before traders are allowed to list tickets on the platform, to increase accountability for marketplaces, resale platforms should make it clear throughout the buying process that the tickets listed are provided by a third party, dark patterns (user interfaces designed in such a way as to trick users into making certain decisions, such as “pop-ups” or giving prominence to specific choices) will be prohibited; those platforms will be required to provide with transparent annual reporting and finally, every Member State will be required to appoint a Digital Services Coordinator (DSC) to enforce the rules laid out in the DSA.

So, while the DSA may not be the most extensive or even demanding regulation, it is a step further on, not limiting secondary ticketing, but making it fairer and more transparent, to prevent, above all, fraud. Right now, lots of fans are willingly buying in secondary ticketing pages or apps, such as Ticket Swap, as they see a guarantee for the tickets they’re buying, and they rely on those providers to attend their favorite events. However, speculation is still an open debate.

Conclusions and ideas to handle this disjunctive

In conclusion, what is being discussed here goes beyond the regulation and what kind of regulation ticket reselling or scalping should have, as the Taylor Swift debacle and the US government saying in all this opened up much more debates regarding ticketing and the music industry.

In our personal opinion, the way to tackle this great challenge of ticket scalping is not by making it illegal. It’s a question of assuming there’s always going to be a secondary market for ticket demands. However, the way Live Nation, for instance, wants to regulate it, by making it difficult for companies that aren’t theirs, such as StubHub or Ticket Swap, for instance, to resell tickets, while they can still “play” with the dynamic pricing isn’t the solution as well. That’s why we think there’s a necessity to push these new players of the industry, like the European Parliament did with the DSA Act which, even if it’s not perfect or covers all the demands by other players such as promoters, has put the focus on, at least, guaranteeing that the fans that buy tickets from the secondary market can actually attend the event and purchase it from a “legal owner” if it can be said like this. This would make ticketing companies and ticketing reselling companies “official channels” for the purchase of live performance tickets from Artists.

Moreover, other innovative ideas could go by the usage of NFTs. Right now, the usage of NFTs is being under scrutiny as well after some experiences with “crypto-art” that may have damaged their reputation. However, there are already companies advocating and working on multiple uses for these tokens, regarding royalties, digital merchandising, ticketing. A combined usage of a NFT in the ticketing and “fan-artist” engagement fields could be creating exclusive tokens for fans to be able to have priority in those live performances and/or in the venues and other kind of associated experiences to their ticket, what is now VIP or Golden Ticket for instance. This would also help ensure that the reselling of the token has traceability and counts on the benefits of the blockchain technology. A lot has to be worked in this area but those companies, some of which have already presented ideas at the MWC or 4YFN events, may be a great tool for the future of ticketing.

Finally, what the US Senate is doing right now with the scrutiny over Live Nation still has no other outcome more than trying to discover Live Nation and Ticketmaster practices and make them work with the same rules as the other promoters in the country and globally. Our thought regarding that subject is that this exercise should be an empowerment to be able to do things right and combat the lobby this company and their associates are doing, by making a “fresh” start for other promoters and stopping the monopolistic practices they seem to be using right now. Nevertheless, the regulation and re-position if it can be defined like that of promoting and ticketing companies in the music industry may not be as easy as it may seem on paper, so we wouldn’t advocate 100% on that idea, even though practices like this in the market should be avoided and tackled.

In a nutshell, ticketing scalping may be more moral or immoral and overflows a much bigger complexity than saying yes or no to letting people and companies resell one or more times a ticket, as it needs a deeper thought on the limitation of those selling and reselling prices, the demands from fans, the impact on Artist’s careers and fairness in the future.

[1] As stated in the article “Ticketmaster Urges Congress To Crack Down On Ticket Scalping As Lawmakers Take Aim Over Taylor Swift Debacle” published on https://www.forbes.com/sites/anafaguy/2023/02/23/ticketmaster-urges-congress-to-crack-down-on-ticket-scalping-as-lawmakers-take-aim-over-taylor-swift-debacle/?sh=1c042495c4c5

[2] As stated in the article “European Parliament approves new digital rules with major impact on secondary ticketing” published on https://www.feat-alliance.org/2022/07/05/new-eu-digital-laws-resale/

[3] Quote extracted from the article “Why didn't we make ticket scalping illegal?” published on https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/131244894/why-didnt-we-make-ticket-scalping-illegal

[4] As stated in the article “Ticketmaster Takes Aim at Resale Sites, Scalpers with ‘Fair Ticketing Act’ Proposal” published on https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ticketmaster-live-nation-ticket-scalpers-fair-ticket-act-1234685502/

[5] The full statement “Live Nation Entertainment announces support for a Fair Ticketing Act” can be read at https://www.livenationentertainment.com/2023/02/live-nation-entertainment-announces-support-for-a-fair-ticketing-act/

[6] As stated in the article “Ticketmaster Takes Aim at Resale Sites, Scalpers with ‘Fair Ticketing Act’ Proposal” published on https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ticketmaster-live-nation-ticket-scalpers-fair-ticket-act-1234685502/

[7] ídem

[8] As stated in the article “StubHub Slams Live Nation’s ‘Anything But Fair’ FAIR Ticketing Act Proposal” published on https://variety.com/2023/music/news/stubhub-slams-live-nation-fair-ticketing-act-1235537266/

[9] ídem

[10] The DSA will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union, and its provisions will mainly apply fifteen months after entry into force or from 1 January 2024, whichever comes later.

[inspiares]

the art of modern-day artist management & how to keep an artist in the game

Game on!

Is managing an artist in the present a new form of art itself? Is it possible nowadays to keep an artist on the wheel? What are the requirements to do so? Why is it necessary to have a modern-day artist manager?

Well, let us start by sharing this quote: “Little is written about Leopold Mozart. As a musician working in Salzburg he had a successful but undistinguished career.  It wasn’t until 1776, when he became a pioneering music manager, that he made his mark on history.

Leopold quickly recognised the talent of his son, Wolfgang Amadeus. He nurtured Wolfgang’s prodigious talent, booking him on several successful European tours before finally landing him a deal with the Court of Prince Colloredo.

When young Wolfgang complained about his first financial contract (150 florins per year), it was Leopold’s canny negotiation skills that secured Wolfgang a triple salary increase, the equivalent of $4,500 per year! Perhaps, without the help of his manager, young Wolfgang’s career could have stalled before his first symphony?

My (tongue-in-cheek) point is, the history of the music manager is almost as old as music itself. An artist’s ability to create great music does not necessarily make them a great business person. A manager represents an artist’s best interests and helps guide their career.”[1]

Firstly, after posing some questions about the music industry panorama and the role of the artist manager in the present, as well as a “curious” quote explaining how important it has been and can be for an artist to count on this person as a part of his/her/they career, the aim of this of this essay is to examine and put some thoughts onto these initial questions, as we think that the role is in constant change. Not only that, but also that the role has forcedly, in one or another way, evolved to adapt to new needs required for an artist to have a long career as well as for the manager to be considered a successful.

Without further prelude, let’s dive right into the subject by starting to put the spotlight on the fact that just as in many other aspects and areas of the industry - and as we have discussed in the previous essays regarding publishing and recorded music-, digitalization, the internet and social media have changed completely the rules of the game in the music business.

Indeed, this fact as announced has provoked that role of an artist manager has also had to changed. Before that, an artist management company could have a manager, an account and a lawyer and we could say it was more than enough, as the deal with a label, a publisher and a booking agent where B2B relationships.

Now, the tasks carried out by a manager have “[…] moved from simply being the sale of either cassettes, vinyl, CDs, videos and live touring into a world that encompasses social media brands, streaming platforms, virtual concerts as well as physical concerts, new technology, fan management and fan engagement, campaign management and instant global music distribution at virtually zero cost.”[2] Also, this has developed into managers having to “[…] consider themselves as a CEO. And they must have oversight of absolutely everything! Finance, logistics, HR, technology, global marketing, e-commerce, merchandising, film rights, publishing, syncs, master rights, radio streaming….. […].”[3]

So, in a nutshell this means that managers have had to adapt their services and craft to reflect those changes and deal with:

On the one side, the emergence of new fee structures,

On the other, the expansion of management roles to offer new services and, last but not least,

The biggest of the changes, the analysis of the great quantity of data that now it’s available, whether if it’s using AI as a support or not.

Regarding that last thing, data, the volume of information to which artist managers and other players of the industry have access has risen exponentially, and this has led to artist manager having to understand it and interpret it in order to use the data for the benefit of the artist. In this regard, “At first you had a few pieces of data and they were called ‘insights’. Things like, ‘Hey, you’ve got a bunch of fans in Thailand and China and Japan!’. Then, as we received more data, it got more functional. ‘Great, let’s use it to plan tours – where should we go and how much time, money and effort am I going to spend in each of the markets around the world’. But we’re now at the point where people are asking, how can this data and information be used for the purpose of making the art itself?”[4] This said, data can drive to discovery, innovation and revenue across the value chain and make an artist more competitive in a court based on the music data. So, artist managers are now then like some kind of gurus and chess players – strategists - that need to have a clear vision of where they want to take their artist to.

In addition, social media and streaming platforms have also provided musicians with global audiences and different alternatives to distribute their work, but that also leads us again to the fact that those tools, besides their functionalities as a social network, ultimately provide with data and that data, as we were stating has become one of the most important assets to keep in mind as a modern artist manager.

Besides that, this new era of the music industry has been also affected by the generalized short attention span society has in the present. Matt Johnson and Steve Ambler from Red Light Management/SB Management point out that, "People have such short attention spans nowadays, it’s a real challenge to retain it in a very noisy, cluttered landscape. And dealing with the vast number of people scattered across the industry who are stuck in their ways and the archaic nature of some deals that are still getting done."[5]

To that respect, as we were discussing, is not only analyzing, but also understanding data. The ability of the social networks to put people very quickly in the spotlight by going viral, has also led to a necessity of knowing how to manage all that information so it can have a good impact on their roster. Regarding that, “The algorithms working behind the scenes at Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Apple, YouTube etc are changing not just the music industry but possibly society itself. “Spotify and YouTube are subject to algorithms where having a hefty spike of people aware your record is out and streaming it, sends a message to the effect of, ‘This track’s performing well, play it more […] The smart music companies now understand they have to work with this data and be pragmatic about it. You’re seeing more companies realizing the old methods just aren’t gonna work and power is shifting”[6]. And the artist manager must then, “[…] make sure that the artist is doing the right thing he needs to do at the right time. He watches out for his artists so that they are not taken advantage of by any of the different elements.”[7]

At the end of the day, it’s no mystery that certain skills, knowledge and experience are crucial to become a successful artist manager and help the artists reach their goal. This happens to every other job, as it’s part of the nature of it.

However, we would point out that an artist manager, whichever type, more 360 or more only business oriented, with a bigger team or company or alone, has much more responsibility, as the development and exposure of the art – in this case music - of certain people and their ambition to be musicians, producers, songwriters as their primary (and/or only job) forces the artist manager to have and develop new abilities constantly to help and develop the artist career.

Then, ee can affirm that the modern-day artist manager must be data oriented as it is the biggest asset, but, at the same time, the artist manager has to be risky, when appropriate.

A lot of things have been mentioned throughout the whole essay, but the truth and summary of all of it would be that an artist manager must be multidisciplinary, as we were saying previously, they have artists career at their stake, so they have to be ready to reinvent and create multiple strategies and take risks. That doesn’t mean you have to take them with the whole roster, it’s also a question of knowing which artists could fit in certain innovative ideas and which ones doesn’t or other ideas can be applied to them. All of this, in our opinion, comes now from the above mentioned, profoundanalysis of data, so an artist manager becomes part data scientist, but also being creative with their own ideas for the artists, thinking out of the box.  

Overall, and as a note to conclude with the present essay, we would say that the modern-day artist manager has to be more open than ever to new ideas, very up to date with what is going on in the music industry, motivated, knowing how to read the particularities of each artist of the roster, to come up with strategies and a career development that is perdurable for them and that adapts to the necessities and ambitions of each artist as well. This includes knowing where to put the efforts, where to invest, and where to draw that red line. To do so, it is needed to have a control of data.

it is important to think about the immediate next steps for the artists in the roster but also the long-term career and combine this data analysis with other evidence to make the right steps towards the future and the ultimate goals. As Johnny Pinchard and Dan Bearman from Holy-Toto state to keep the longevity of the artists “As managers have ever-increasing access to data and analytics, it will become vital that they become experts in using these insights to best serve the artists. And managers investing time and money into artists’ development, rather than labels, will become more and more expected."[8] Artists create stories and have their own storytelling, and the modern artist manager is also making his art to make that story visible.

Finally, it’s also important to point out the artist manager doesn’t have to work alone and do all this process solo. In fact, most of the time there’s a team of collaborators or members of the company that are experts in certain fields or areas of the industry. Nevertheless, we would advise that right now an artist manager not only counts on big network of collaborators and colleagues, but also contacts that are experts and have that same philosophy of being constantly learning and trying to be one step ahead. In relation to that “The key to success is standing out and getting your music away from the noise to the prospective fan using innovative ways of distribution and marketing. Artist, tour, financial management and promotions — each is a different type of art.”[9]

So, at the end, it’s question of knowing where to be and be there at the same time, and this is easier said than done, so, as with the same words that we were starting this document, we must culminate that the game is on for all those emerging, established, and veteran artist managers that want to leave their blueprint in their artist and the music industry nowadays.

[1] Quote from the article “The future role of a music manager” published on https://theartistnetwork.ws/the-future-role-of-a-music-manager/

[2] As stated in the article article “The future role of a music manager” published on https://theartistnetwork.ws/the-future-role-of-a-music-manager/

[3] ídem

[4] ídem

[5] As stated in the article “Managers shaping the industry reveal their biggest challenges” published on https://www.musicweek.com/management/read/managers-shaping-the-industry-reveal-their-biggest-challenges/066730

[6] As stated in the article article “The future role of a music manager” published on https://theartistnetwork.ws/the-future-role-of-a-music-manager/

[7] ídem

[8] As stated in the article “Managers shaping the industry reveal their biggest challenges” published on https://www.musicweek.com/management/read/managers-shaping-the-industry-reveal-their-biggest-challenges/066730

[9] As stated in the article “Modern day artist management” published on https://medium.com/giglue/modern-day-artist-management-1dc11acb0d36

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collecting royalties in the metavers3

First off, it is important to mention how music publishing is very complex and has lots of key players, making it very interesting to find challenges and aspects that could be handled in a better and/or fairer way and that still wait for new answers and proposals of solutions from the music industry.

However, one of the topics that is being debated by the music experts is their vision and expectations regarding the Web3 and the metaverse.

In that regard, MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) may have introduced a new category this year 2022, the “Best Metaverse performance”, but what we can say is that they all had different approaches and impressions when being asked about this subject. Turns out some of the experts were quite skeptical about it; some others acknowledged that this could or is already transforming the music industry but didn’t quite knew how the paradigm could or is going to be changed. Overall, there was a cloud of doubts over this matter. In the end, the experiences and opinions from the experts were just a sample of the thoughts of various key players of the industry at its largest extension, with startups moving towards the “new” music industry and others just sitting and analyzing the situation with more or less interest and faith.

Quite frankly, and as mentioned, the whole industry may have the same or similar doubts, as what is put into the table - even though it looks promising- is something so new and so unexplored in a way (or many), that still requires lots of understanding, solutions and changes have to be made and developed to know the real impact it may have in the music industry.

That is why we’ve been examining and reading about the Web3 and metaverse and we’ve chosen to investigate over the challenge of how royalties can be collected in the metaverse.

In that sense, this essay is going to tackle different topics related to that challenge. The examination of subjects related to the central theme will help us to get to get a bit of understanding of what is going on with that thing called Web3 or metaverse and what is the importance of sitting down to debate and explore whether and how the music industry can change its paradigm to adopt this new reality.

Therefore, we will start by looking at the emergence of new forms of selling, licensing, and promoting music (songs and records), as well as merchandising and even experiences in the metaverse. We’ll also see how metaverse could impact the dominance – or even existence - of traditional music companies and platforms we know today, by putting the relationship artist-fan in the spotlight. Moreover, we’ll get deep into the viability of the business models created in the metaverse to ultimately get to the central theme of the whole analysis, the possible ways to collect royalties in the metaverse.

Regarding the first issue that has been raised - which is what could the metaverse offer to the music industry - it is important to look at how the development of new technologies and new ways to interact with devices and other people digitally has already impacted our lives. The metaverse promises to go one step further and make the digital world even more experienceable, whether if it’s with VR glasses or acquiring NFTs, which, to put it in simple words would be the equivalent to collecting digital assets.

But when we talk about metaverse we quite instantly think of blockchain technology, and more precisely, about the already mentioned NFTs. Those assets are the central piece of the already started and promised revolution of the music industry. NFTs are philosopher’s stones of artists, who can sell and license their music using them and even promote or sell digital and exclusive merchandise and experiences – first row in a concert, exclusive livestreams for the collectors, etc.

But not only artists, the metaverse is also an opportunity for other kinds of artists and creators – visual artists, graphic designers, content creators, etc to interact with music. Music can be synched into all kinds of digital art, videos, digital merchandising, and creations created by the artists in the metaverse making it a space not only to connect with potential buyers – fans and/or collectors – but also network and collaborate with other creators to build new ways of art and content for users. At the end of the day, it could summarized as: “The metaverse is a much more level playing field than the real world, a connector, a network - a space for collaboration that opens up opportunities for musicians to team-up with digital artists to complete the audiovisual circle.”[1]

Aside from NFTs, the metaverse also has great plans for those players who are brave and promote of concerts and events in the metaverse, like Ariana Grande, Travis Scott or David Guetta did, among others. This is a new way to organize massive and big digital events for the whole globe, and not just a place, country or region and establish partnerships that have no precedent. A new way to look at the music industry.

As you can see, since we’ve got into the analysis, we’ve mentioned artists, creators but not labels or publishers. This was intentioned, because the metaverse offers a world where intermediaries and middleman(s), we could say, fade away. And this could benefit both, the artist, and the fans. The fans would see that artists would connect more deeply with then with the blockchain based ownership of limited-edition digital assets. At the same time, artists would see how they could be selling not only related assets to their music, but directly their music. Their demo’s, a percentage of their song, samples or even complete songs. If we think of independent artists, this could be a way to make of music their main (and only) source of income, because this would allow them to establish a partnership with their fans, even though for mainstream artists the label and/or publisher would still be needed, for some usages of the metaverse of their previously released songs. However, challenges surrounding the affirmation regarding independent artists from the metaverse still arise as, for now, and as we will see when we talk about the viability for business models in the metaverse, the successful stories in the metaverse have all been related to big artists, such as Snoop Dog, Drake & Damien Hirst, Justin Bieber, Grimes, etc.

To make a bit more understandable what we have just explained, we can look at some examples. In, 2022, Diplo dropped his song "Don’t Forget My Love" on Royal. “He allocated 20% of royalty ownership in the shape of 2110 NFTs in 3 tiers. Owners of the Gold token have access to the Royal collector Discord channel and get 0.004% of the streaming revenue from that song. Holders of the Diamond token get a guest list pass for a Diplo show, first dibs on all future Diplo drops, an Exclusive Diplo DJ mix, access to Discord, and 0.7% of the revenues generated through this song. He raised $398,000 from the token sale, which would’ve taken almost a hundred million streams on Spotify. Diplo retains all his rights to the song and only sold a percentage of the earnings generated via streaming.”[2] In addition, Grimes, “sold a whopping $6 million worth of original video NFTs, many of them with pieces of music, some even old demos, only adding more intrigue and worth to each piece.”[3] Finally, one last example, the Coachella NFT collection: “Coachella music festival has released 3 separate NFT collections in collaboration with FTX, offering different photos, soundscapes, and posters. Coachella has also recently launched its own NFT marketplace on Solana, selling “keys” NFTs, which can be redeemed for different experiences at the festival, ranging from lifetime tickets to allowing guests to go onstage.”[4]

Nonetheless, the effect of NFTs on the roles of publishers and labels in the metaverse, has also an impact on the streaming services platforms, the so-called Digital Services Providers (DSPs). As for now, DSPs account for 89% of the $12.2 billion the U.S. recorded music income.

If we look back in history, musicians that hand any hope of ever growing and audience required a label or publisher. They needed them to get the connection to broadcast on the radio and distribute CDs. Nowadays, they are needed in order to make their music to collect revenues and royalties when distributing it  through DSPs. “This is because all advertisements and subscription profits are concentrated in the hands of the record labels, who are majority shareholders at Spotify. Only with a scale of millions of hits can Spotify music rights holders turn any significant profit. As a consequence, recording artists only capture about 12% of the entire music industry. NFTs hold the promise of downsizing the magnitude of middlemen and rewarding artists as the chief earners for their music.[…]. Thanks to NFTs, artists could reap full profits from their craft barring a much smaller portion paid to the NFT marketplace relative to that required from DSPs. Effectively, one of the most important advantages NFTs offer in the music industry is to reward creators in such a way that mid and low-tier musicians can effectively make a living out of their craft.”[5]

Even so, with all the advantages the metaverse can have and that have been exposed, it is important to highlight that the horizon of DSPs being replaced by NFTs in the metaverse seems very far away. We see them coexisting, as those platforms are still a key player in the actual music industry ecosystem and essential for collecting royalties for streams, even if shared via NFTs like Diplo did. But the ultimate question is that NFTs would be offering appealing alternatives for artists to develop their own businesses and expand their brand and relation with fans using their music and independents to be able to live from music.

Lastly, before getting to the main challenge related to all the aspects that are being commented, we also wanted to explore and introduce to the equation the viability of the new business models based on NFTs and the metaverse. Currently, the music NFT landscape stands like this:

The reality of some of those companies, many of which could be categorized as startups is that many of them aren’t aware of the importance of copyright laws and that implication they have in their business. Vickie Nauman, CrossBorderWorks CEO, addressed this topic by saying “I’ve talked to quite a few startups who seem to think that copyright laws don’t apply to them, and their technology use case falls outside copyright laws. That they don’t need to think about these things… I have to say it: yes! You are still subject to copyright laws!” She also added that, in order to make David Guetta’s Roblox performance a reality in the digital world she had to clear the rights for 20 songs that had 143 different writer’s shares that needed to be cleared “It was extraordinarily challenging. It almost killed me! But I did it… This is what we need to do to clear these rights. The industry is not particularly set up for it, it’s not really scalable to do it as a sync. But those were the rights that needed to be cleared.”[6]

In a nutshell, seems like the business models based on the metaverse still have a long way to go. They have to develop in order to be comply with laws and at the same time be sustainable and viable in that particular “music-system”, because this, even if it changes, will be their daily-basis work. In that sense, that the music industry changes its paradigm, doesn’t mean laws will still be there, more or less developed, interpreted, but for sure with lots of key players vigilant that they’re applied.

Finally, the real challenge we identified within the metaverse and that is related to that last point we made, was how royalties were going to be collected. In order to give a proper response to that challenge, we wanted to analyze the actual collecting system and see whether if it fits or we need new solutions.

On the one hand, we have to keep in mind that there’s not only one metaverse, there’s and there will be millions and millions of metaverses. So, getting all those metaverses fully licensed – especially what we nowadays as performance rights - and fully legal, will be very challenging and difficult. Plus, the metaverse right now is demanding for exclusive and perpetuity licenses. “‘I would never outright sell a piece of music’, copyright attorney Cliff Fluet said in a Guardian story exploring “music’s problem with NFTs.” “You can ask for a period of exclusivity, but I don’t think ‘You can ask for a period of exclusivity, but I don’t think any publisher or songwriter would say’, ‘Yeah, absolutely, go and take that forever.’ […] Right now, most distributors and labels are simply not equipped to deal with [rights transfers and NFT contracts],” explained writer Julie Knibbe, “nor are the publishers or collecting societies. That is why thus far NFT sales have only involved newly-produced music, owned solely by the artists. An NFT auction for the previous catalog, where rights are already divvied up between several parties, is simply not possible, at least [not] yet.”[7]

On the other hand, just like in the 90s when hip-hop artists sampled songs and there wasn’t a legal coverage that allowed them to do it, which lead to the creation of a new licensing framework that could accommodate that more and more extended practice, Web3 is also struggling to find its place in the current licensing landscape. “Now, Web3, the metaverse, and NFTs are challenging these licensing definitions even further. In the metaverse, the vast majority of content is user-generated, and that should come into consideration. Also, NFTs can take many forms, from an exclusive track, which could fall under a mechanical license, or video/audio set to music, which would require a synchronization license. NFTs can also be resold, and rights-holders should be able to receive a portion of each sale.”[8]  In short, what NFTs are demanding is new ways of licensing and interpretation of those licenses to be able to collect and comply with the intellectual property based laws and system, along with a complex connection with other applicable laws that have an impact on the activities and revenues generated from it (consumer law and image rights, for instance). Multi-territorial agreements will also be demanded. It is important to have in mind that in the metaverse, unlike with DSPs, it may not be needed to license the whole catalogue from every rightsholder, but rather “a constellation of rights to light up web3 experiences, surrounding an artist” as stated by Nauman[9].

Because of this last point that we have just made, the solution or proposal for improvement or adequation of the metaverse to the music royalties’ collection could start by introducing new licensing terms for the licenses granted in the metaverse. In this regard, there have been proposal of new mechanical and synchronization licenses, that would allow musicians, artists and all kinds of creators to reproduce their work into any kind of art form or sync their music into any kind forms. This will allow the music copyright holders to collect their royalties and compensation from the metaverse, regardless of if music is being the primary art form or not.  Additionally, there would be an additional royalty that could be collected that would be the resale fee that would provide a portion of future revenue of ongoing resales of NFTs to the rights-holders in a pro-rated basis. There would also still be performance fees and royalties collected.

In conclusion to all what has been exposed, it’s a reality – even if it’s virtual or digital – that the metaverse will have a say in the music industry. Therefore, debating and trying to find challenges and potential solutions to that defiance within the industry will improve the way the industry approaches the changes the metaverse may introduce, without putting “into risk” the art and the players involved. Still, just like when Spotify and other music streaming services fought for the change of paradigm to pay for listening to music online, and not downloading it illegally, the new companies in the metaverse will have to show there’s also a seat for music in there.

[1] As stated in the article “Music in the metaverse: How NFTs are changing the industry” published on https://scenenoise.com/Features/Music-in-the-Metaverse-How-NFTs-Are-Changing-the-Industry

[2] Example reported and taken from the article “Royal is Selling Royalty Ownership as NFTs to Fans” published on https://www.one37pm.com/nft/royal-music-nfts

[3] Example reported and taken from article “Music in the metaverse: How NFTs are changing the industry” published on https://scenenoise.com/Features/Music-in-the-Metaverse-How-NFTs-Are-Changing-the-Industry

[4] Example reported and taken from article “Metaverse Music Licensing: We have a window to sort this out” published on https://musically.com/2022/06/30/metaverse-music-licensing-we-have-a-window-to-sort-this-out/

[5] As stated in the article “How NFTs can disrupt the music industry” published on https://www.nfttech.com/insights/how-nfts-can-disrupt-the-music-industry  

[6] Idem

[7] Extract from the article “How could musical NFTs affect my rights and royalties?” published on https://blog.songtrust.com/how-could-musical-nfts-affect-my-rights-and-royalties

[8] Extract from the article “Music in the metaverse: Redefining music Rights in the Web3 world” published on https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/music-in-the-metaverse-redefining-music-rights-in-the-web3-world/

[9] As stated in the article “Metaverse Music Licensing: We have a window to sort this out” published on https://musically.com/2022/06/30/metaverse-music-licensing-we-have-a-window-to-sort-this-out/

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relación remixx 

tú te pensaste que tú me tenía’ pero nunca me tuviste, soy la rosalía (mira)

si llevo tanta’ cadena’ no e’ pa’ que nadie me amarre (Nah)

no deja’ que nadie a mí el cora me desgarre

tú ‘tá jugando con la jugadora la que pisa fuerte, la mata'ora

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solana :)

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meh - playboy carti

i love the beat

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astroworld - travis scott 

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after hours (deluxe) 

s/o to scared to live - snl live, save your tears opn remix & blinding lights chromatics remix

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bts black swan