This is getting funny now.

Journalists are now reporting the “real reason” that Taylor Swift has opted to “window” her albums on Spotify.  That is, her public statements about “free” devaluing all music and hurting all artists are not good enough.  So the (mostly male) journalists have gone on quest for a male “self-interest” kind of truth.  Because after all Men are certainly making the real decisions here.

Business Insider (which is neither) seems to have first reported the “Real reason” that Ms. Swift chose not to put her albums on Spotify.  According to Business Insider it was Ms Swift’s record label “boss” who  pulled Ms Swift’s music from Spotify  (BTW a label she and her family own),  The article cited an unnamed  “industry source familiar with firsthand knowledge of why and how this happened, and who is most responsible.”   The article goes on to explain without attribution that the label “boss” is trying to sell the record label.  Increasing sales (a tacit admission that Spotify decreases sales) and hence the value of the label was cited as “his” motivation.  Business Insider did not explain why Big Machine’s other artists including megastars  Florida Georgia Line are still on Spotify.

You see it can’t possibly be

1) A female artist making  business decisions or….

2) Action altruistically  motivated by Ms. Swift’s previously stated feelings on the exploitative nature of free music.

Nope these dudes have to take the long way around the verifiable facts, and rest their entire story on anonymous sources and rumors.

Now virtually every major publication is repeating Business Insider’s anonymous unsourced claims.

“Real” indeed.

 

Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?

Who will be the First Fired Label Execs over Spotify Fiasco & Cannibalization?

Streaming Is the Future, Spotify Is Not. Let’s talk Solutions.

Here’s Taylor Swift a few months back in the Wall Street Journal on music:

Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album’s price point is. I hope they don’t underestimate themselves or undervalue their art.

Very eloquent.  Clearly she intended (as she has in the past) on “windowing” her album.  That is withholding her album from Spotify for a period of time.  Just like TV/Movie industry does with Netflix and Hulu.

So Spotify’s response is to treat her like a teenager and make her a mixtape playlist!!!???

Yikes. It is clearly “Bro-land” over at Spotify.

But that’s not the worst of it. Here are the mostly male music industry beat journalists responding to her decision to not release her new album on Spotify.  The very fact they say she “pulled” it from Spotify is in itself loaded.  It was never on Spotify. They don’t even get this basic fact right.

Look we get the jokes, but it’s doubtful that if a male artist had so clearly stated his feelings in regards to streaming and the value of music those comments would have been left out of the stories. Nor would he have been treated like a teenager.

And below is Joshua Brustein  “Mansplaining” that Taylor Swift is wrong when in fact her strategy makes perfect sense.
1) new album not on Spotify = 1.3 million sales.
2) New albums always generates interest in back catalogue.

Therefore also remove back catalogue album to generate additional sales.

Why isn’t bloomberg interviewing Swift for demonstrating such business savvy and showing the boys how to play the game?

On the other hand Brustein makes no sense whatsoever.

Hey Joshua you write for Bloomberg a money magazine.  This is about the money it’s not a “protest.”   Protest.. why the fuck would you assume she’s protesting?  Cause she’s a woman and emotional? Something like that?  Not thinking rationally? Is that what you are getting at?

And Gawker deserves special mention for being too stupid to notice that Spotify is owned by Billionaires. Oh but they are male!  That’s right men can be “rich as fuck” assholes like the SnapChat guy and that’s cool.  Darn I always forget how this works!

RELATED

Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?

Who will be the First Fired Label Execs over Spotify Fiasco & Cannibalization?

Streaming Is the Future, Spotify Is Not. Let’s talk Solutions.

“Streaming has won…”-Lefsetz commenting on Taylor Swift’s  1.3 million first week album sales, an album not released on Spotify or other streaming services. (Photo Christopher Harte CC)

This is just a quick note.  I try not give Bob Lefsetz any oxygen… but has anyone else noticed how much Lefsetz and the rest of the usual pro-streaming suspects have begun to resemble the former Iraqi Information Minister “Baghdad Bob?”   They can’t seem to face up to the obvious fact:

 Taylor Swift’s “windowing” of her album has increased sales and revenue!  First platinum record all year.

And should we be surprised? Windowing leads to increased revenue in the TV and Film business why wouldn’t it work for music?

This is actually a rather boring and mundane observation only made interesting by the current irrationality of the music business.  It’s only interesting because so many music business executives and journalists have completely drank the koolaid and refuse to believe that streaming cannibalizes sales. That streaming as it stands now (everything available for free) is really bad for the music revenue.   Reading the music business headlines in the wake of Swift’s feat is like watching some sort of religious cult have a mass nervous breakdown.

“Oh no  the spaceship did come! It whisked all the true believers away. It was right over there.  You just didn’t see it? That’s  because you didn’t believe!  Why am I still here? uh …”

Here’s Lefsetz in the face of Taylor Swift’s 1.3 million first weeks sales,  a feat not accomplished since Napster was around:

 Selling a million copies a week in a country of 300 million people is a blip on the radar screen, but owning the news cycle, even trumping the World Series, is priceless.

As for Spotify…

Acts come and go, institutions remain.

Hilarious stuff if you consider that Lefsetz declared her career pretty much over with during a well publicized spat he had with her in 2010.   Payback’s a bitch isn’t it Bob?

 

Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?

Who will be the First Fired Label Execs over Spotify Fiasco & Cannibalization?

Streaming Is the Future, Spotify Is Not. Let’s talk Solutions.

 

If streaming is so good for artists  why is it that artists that control their own recordings opt to “opt out” of streaming services?

Black Keys

Thom Yorke

David Byrne

Now Taylor Swift.  This story is blowing up big time.   Expect the streaming services and their record company allies to “activate” their shills against Taylor Swift in the next couple of days. This is what they do every time a prominent artist speaks out.

Watch this space here cause as that happens, this time we are gonna call them out.

The only reason that the major record labels and big indies supported streaming is because THEY ALL GOT EQUITY IN SPOTIFY.   Did other public advocates of streaming also accept monetary compensation?  As noted in previous articles on the Trichordist it is becoming apparent that there are a lot of folks posing as “disinterested” parties that had a financial interest in the success of Spotify.  That is why we can’t wait for the Spotify IPO.  It will reveal who got paid off.   Though it’s doubtful that commercial bribery statutes will apply in most cases, expect some artist lawsuits against their labels. The labels after all took something of monetary value (equity) against artists albums without counting these revenue produced by these albums.

On the bright side.  Maybe the idiots who couldn’t do simple math and got us into this mess will finally lose their jobs.  See article below

Why is $5 a month streaming good for artists?  Because 1/2 the record executives will lose their jobs! Yeah!

 

RELATED:

Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?

Who will be the First Fired Label Execs over Spotify Fiasco & Cannibalization?

Streaming Is the Future, Spotify Is Not. Let’s talk Solutions.

 

 

 

 

Label executives and many distributors including most indies have been out there trying to sell artists and small labels on $5 a month streaming!  Because at $5 a month many more people will subscribe to these streaming services!

1) No they won’t.  Why would they pay for what they already get for free?  It’s totally irrational you morons.

But Let’s ignore several hundred years of economic theory and proceed to #2.

2)Let’s say streaming gets as many subscribers as cable. Even round it up a bit to 100 million subscribers. Let’s do the math.  Everyone get out your calculators and follow along. YOU WILL BE TESTED!

$5 x 12 months is $60 x 100 million subscribers.  Spotify keeps 30%.  that’s a $4.2 billion dollar music industry.  About half what the industry is now.   And it’s highly doubtful they will reach 100 million subscribers. What does Netflix have now? 40 million? and Netflix isn’t stupid enough to compete with itself with an identical free version of it’s service. 

Either way at least half the money.  And with half the money you can only employee half as many executives.

Let’s hope that the first batch out on the street are the ones that sold everyone on these deals. If it were up to me I’d start with the head of digital and anyone who has ever uttered the phrase “data is the future.”

You DO know there’s not room for all of you executives to work at YouTube and Spotify right?

And here’s some career advice for all you future former record executives: sell t-shrits.

 

 

Do you trust your label to properly apply recoupable expenses against your SoundExchange royalties? Even at the best labels mistakes are consistently made.

Currently all SoundExchange royalties are spit between the performer and the labels regardless of whether the performer is “recouped” with his record label.  These royalties go DIRECTLY to the performer. The record label can not touch these royalties.   This is one of the reasons that these SoundExchage royalties are so important to Performers.  Performers do not have to rely upon the sometimes “creative” accounting practiced by their record labels.

The thing about the MERLIN PANDOLA deal is this gives Pandora and the Labels a “back door” to cutting the artists out of the equation.   That’s the point of direct deals.  Pandora and the labels can bypass SoundExchange.   Pandora’s ultimate goal is to weaken their opponent in the SoundExchange.  Right? By passing SoundExchange this weakens their finances and hence our collective bargaining positions.

Although SoundExchange so far has been able to continue paying the artist share of royalties on a nonrecoupment basis like a statutory license,  There’s nothing stopping Pandora from changing their minds and fighting SoundExchange later.  They can just start paying labels directly and their is really nothing that SoundExchange can do.  Look what Pandora did with Pre-1972 recordings?

We know that many labels are struggling with the bad deals they cut with Spotify would love to get their hands on the artists share of digital broadcast royalties.  The MERLIN deal gives them the perfect excuse.

Not only is MERLIN’s PANDOLA deal possibly illegal Payola, the decision to do a direct deal with Pandora was incredibly shortsighted. It will ultimately hurt indie labels by weakening their only ally in the government rate setting proceedings.  It potentially weakens SoundExchange by depriving them of revenue.    Thanks Merlin!  Thanks Caldas!

We’ve been hearing from Indie labels and musicians all day wanting to know what to do about this threat to our SoundExchange income.

I’ll give you more on this later this week but FIRST we need to back SoundExchange in this fight.  Since unlike MERLIN they really do have our interests at heart. They only make money if we make money. We need to let SoundExchange know that as performers MERLIN does not represent our interests.

Secondly we need to put pressure on Caldas and MERLIN.  They got us into this mess, they need to get us out.  They need to repudiate the PANDORA deal. Publicly and Loudly.

But first let me be honest here.  I’ve never been a fan of Caldas.  In my short career as an artists’ advocate one of the most blatant examples of the record business squandering an opportunity was Caldas’ “response” to my Letter to Emily in Gizmodo.    The whole piece is classic “Old Boss” music business condescension (maybe worse).  “Oh these temperamental artists they don’t know what they are talking about.”  Which in a way is true.  Because people like Charles Caldas cut secret NDA deals with Spotify on “our behalf.”  So yes, we have no idea what the terms of the Spotify deal are because of people like Caldas.  HOWEVER somehow the reporter at Gizmodo was “leaked” a confidential report of just how much Spotify pays the indies associated with MERLIN. (Gee who leaked that confidential report?)   So yes unlike reporters who happen to now work for Spotify we artists don’t know the details of these Spotify deals because of condescending and patronizing jerks like Caldas.

The whole Gizmodo piece was so clumsy and transparent I actually felt bad for the dude at the time. Even though it was clearly a hatchet job directed at me,  I couldn’t help feeling sadness for the reporter and Caldas.  There but for the Grace of God go I.  Without my music career I may have had to become a paid PR hack for some low grade industry trade organization or pretend to be a real music tech journalist (while secretly working for Spotify)  Can you imagine coming home at the end of the day if you did such dishonest work? It also made me sad that these guys didn’t even have half a lobe.  Someone with half a lobe would be smart enough to NOT emphasize that all those Spotify deals and information are confidential.

To civilians confidential=sleazy.  

“Why do they have to hide it from Artists?”

These guys weren’t even very good at being hacks. Sad.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

But that’s not even stupidest thing about Caldas’ rebuttal.  Look at the big picture.

Virtually no artist had dared to speak out against piracy and in defense of the recorded music industry since Lars.  Almost 13 years!  And when I finally did speak out the piece went viral. So what did the guy who represents those thousands of  long suffering indie record labels do?   He rebutted it.  On a tech blog.  WTF right?    And apparently like all these record business geniuses that know so much more than we ignorant artists, hIs rationale for doing so was truly and spectacularly myopic.

My read is he was riled up about one tiny little itsy bitsy thing.  Apparently one of the legal music choices I chose to recommend was MOG (it later became Beats).  Caldas had not cut a deal with MOG but had cut a deal with Spotify. Towards the end of this ludicrous and pathetic hatchet job he gets to what’s really bugging him. I quote:

“We won’t do a deal with any platform that doesn’t properly recognize the value of our repertoire, so we’re in business with Spotify and Rdio. We’re not in business with MOG [which Lowery recommends].”

Holy Shit!!!!  I picked the wrong streaming service!!!!!  That’s what this whole thing was about??!!  If I had just said Spotify instead of MOG none of this would have happened???

Right.  This is some serious long term strategic thinking going on here.  This is the guy negotiating on behalf of Indie labels.

So apparently Caldas and MERLIN think I”m wrong about streaming?  Fine.  But may I just remind you how fucking wrong these guys were  with the Pandora deal?  Pandora suckered them into giving them the deal they needed to lower performers SoundExchange royalties by nearly 50%.  This is almost exactly what Chris Harrison of Pandora did when he was at DMX.  The artist (myself) who Caldas implies doesn’t really understand this new fangled  world of digital technology (Funny since I have degree in Math, and am on the board of an angel fund) remembered this DMX deal.  Further we predicted that Pandora would use this deal to lower all our digital webcasting rates the way they did with it was done with the  DMX deal.  So who is it that doesn’t understand this new fangled digital music licensing world again?

Now all you UK artists, labels and managers better hope I’m wrong about what happens next.   Pandora will now take this deal to the PPL.  They will try to lower UK rates as well by citing the PANDOLA deal as evidence of a fair market rate.

Let’s hope I’m wrong.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

So in case you’ve been in a cave let me explain this again:

In a jaw-dropping bonehead move, Merlin cut a direct deal with Pandora to license songs at about 1/2 the rate proposed by Sound Exchange IF Pandora plays Merlin songs more often than everyone else. ( Isn’t that called payola?  Pandora is an FCC broadcaster after all!)  But what’s important here is that Pandora has now taken this deal to the Copyright Royalty Board and wants EVERYONE’S rate cut.  And it may very well work. Pandora’s lawyer did something similar when he worked at DMX and it worked.  You see if they present a “willing seller” rate to the board as evidence of the market value of songs,  the board can conclude that this is the market value of our songs. And MERLIN and Caldas just supplied them with a “willing seller” document. Instantly we all get our Sound Exchange Royalties slashed.  Thanks Merlin. Thanks Caldas.

Let em know how you feel:  http://www.merlinnetwork.org/contact

On Aug 6th this article  written by Glenn Peoples in Billboard Magazine  “Pandora Signs First Direct Label Deal With Merlin”

http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6207058/pandora-label-deal-merlin

Quote:

Caldas added the partnership will financially benefit Merlin’s artists and labels. Although no financial details were made available, he suggested the terms are no worse than the statutory rates previously received. “We wouldn’t do any deal where there was any risk we were going to get paid less.”

“No worse than statutory rates previously received”  which when used by normal  human beings means not lower rates.

But we now know from the Pandora filing (even with the redactions) that this is not true.

Read the pandora filing here:

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/10/28/pandora-now-steering-playlists-towards-lower-cost-music

Will Billboard call him out on this?  Did Billboard MisReport?

 

 

What is the point of “secret” deals like MERLIN’s “Pandola” pay-to-play deal with Pandora Radio?   I mean the terms are not secret to the label that signs the deal right?   And the terms are not secret to Pandora Radio right?   So who is not in on this secret?

Artists.

Sleazy.

I don’t care if you are an “independent” label. If you make secret deals involving artists recordings that’s sleazy.

Doesn’t this violate spirit and  principles of WIN Fair Trade Principles:

We saw this from MERLIN with the Spotify deal as well.  No one knows what equity and other terms the indie labels got from Spotify.  Here is Charles Caldas talking to a “reporter” (that later turns out to be a Spotify employee) about Spotify.  The reporter has received “leaked” documents from “someone”  that shows Spotify payments.  Caldas clearly knows the details. But Caldas is criticizing artists like myself for being misinformed. Well, yeah cause Caldas cut secret deals with Spotify.  It’s like 1984 here.

NO MORE SECRET DEALS.  WRITE MERLIN HERE: http://www.merlinnetwork.org/contact