The Penultimate Episode of The Biztape

It's almost the end....

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Indie musicians can now or maybe go against DSPs.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
And TikTok combats Ai. You're listening to the biz Tape.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome to the biz Tape. You're all Things music, business
and media podcast. I'm your host, Colin McKay with my
lovely host Coast to Coast. I'm running out of times
I can say that, Joseph Wazelski.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
It's true.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
I guess I could adopt it in regular US, but
I feel like it would be really weird if I
was like, oh, my host Coast to Coast is calling me.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
I feel like you should change my name and your
phone to host Coast to Coast.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Oh my god, you want to hear something funny? I
forgot to tell you this, speaking of our relationship as
a host to hosts like kind of thing. So I
was having coffee with some people, right, and I was I,
you know, you're my business partner. Correct you would say
that's a correct thing, but sometimes I like to say partner.

(01:10):
So I was talking to this person who is part
of the LGBT community and they were like, I was like, yeah,
me and my partner have the show we do, and
she was like, oh my god, congratulations and I was like, look,
we would make a great couple together. I'm sure we
could get some Pogue magazine cover kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Oh yeah, you can.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
I I could. I could clean the dishes, you could
make thirty dishes. We would have a very good relationship.
But it was like, I was like, I cannot. I
cannot hold a candle. I cannot hold a candle to
your partner. So you know, it's just I you know,
it was really funny, and I was like, oh no, no, no, no.

(01:49):
And I was like, I you know, I'm not I'm like,
I'm not a fake ally, I'm just just sadly straight.
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
I can just imagine you and in the middle of
Portland brew So.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
That was pretty close. Yeah, you're where I was. Yeah, right,
Oh god, folks, Now we're getting more unhinged and you're
gonna probably see it till the end of the show.
And if you haven't heard, this is our second to
last episode of the show, one forty nine, going into
one fifty. We're really at a higher number than that,

(02:24):
but fin my number says, but you're we're gonna get
a little off the cuff in the last episode. Just
to give you guys some uh stuff kind of maybe
just some stories kind of hit some week, get canceled
Mike as a fake ally yeah no, but like yeah,
it was just really funny and I was like, but

(02:45):
but seriously though, like you know I am and how
I So it was just like full circle. I was like,
you know, going with that, but yeah, it was it
was just it made me laugh so hard. I was
just like, yeah, my partner Joe, he like we worked
together all the time. Yeah, I love it. Anyway, Joe
intends to start with some of our last stories that

(03:06):
we're really going to cover on the show before we
get into our really crazy last episode.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
I feel like I can. I'll go first. Mine's pretty, uh,
pretty cut and dry, but I feel like has some
interesting elements to it. It might be dated, honestly, like
after it would be funny our last episode, like true
episode is TikTok that yeah, but TikTok has currently rolled

(03:34):
out some tools for labels when it comes to labeling
AI created content and more seal yeah and more specifically
in the music realm uh Ai created content that's like
sounds pretty much. So there's a lot that AI can

(03:54):
do at this at this point in the the our
generation are our current timeframe. We're at this culmination of
like AI could could forever change the way humans live
their lives. At least that's what Elon Musk is pushing

(04:14):
to some extent and a lot of these big tech people.
But whether or not that's going to be true is hearsay.
But what I feel like everybody can kind of get
around is that it is very true that AI can
create content that can mislead you into thinking that a
human made it in a lot of cases, especially if

(04:37):
it's not tagged on with created by AI. More recently, Colin,
did you see that crazy TikTok that was borderline racist
that a lot of people were seeing? It was this
creator who her whole thing is that she face maps

(04:58):
herself and she does a transition and she changes into
like a new character that she creates. Yeah, and she
she did a little TikTok swipe when it comes to
like the transition shot, and she turned into a black

(05:18):
woman who the creator is originally a white woman. And
so a lot of people had a lot of people
were making jokes. They were kind of like, is this
like the new era? Like is this the new era
of black face? Like it just keeps going.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
That's honestly, that is a major concern with you know,
with like AI and specifically with the strikes that are
going on in la is how AI could disrupt a
lot of diversity and casting, specifically on the actors but
also on the writers by being like, oh, we have
this AI that can you know, create a story or

(05:59):
create a character and it looks real and they're you know,
black or Hispanic or Asian or something like that. And
that's a real concern. So I don't think it's you know,
some people acting you know, rightfully concerned about it. It's true,
like this is a concern that unions are fighting over
right now, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
I think especially to like even you know, I've heard
a lot of talk about AI when when it pertains
to entertainment specifically. But I also think that there's a
lot of potential neglect being brought on when it comes
to political ads and like political statements and.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
Oh yeah for that, like you know, a fake you know,
if there was a really fake news your favorite politician.
Literally it's literally literally news.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, it's literally the fake news generator, like and which Colin,
I don't know if you heard this. There's like a
really interesting daily episode about like how there was this.
It was like two years ago they came out with
this episode. I think it was like during the election
craziness two or three years ago, and it was about

(07:09):
how this person gets like hired out to just cut
memes together. And now you don't even have to hire
that person as a political person. You could just get
an AI to cut a bunch of memes together for
you and then like spread it everywhere. And to be honest,
the way that social media is now, it's quantity over quality,

(07:31):
and people still consume it. So it's a lot of
like just post every day stuff that can be throwaway
and be terrible. It can be fake, it can look fake,
and people will still think it's real. It is kind
of the crazy thing behind it. But according to Billboard,
in July, President Biden's administration announced that seven leading AI

(07:54):
companies made voluntary commitments quote to help move toward a safe, secure,
and transparent development of AI technology, and one key point
quote the company's commitment to developing robust technical mechanisms to
ensure that users know when content is AI generated, such
as a water marking system, because that can't get this

(08:19):
action enables creatively with AI to flourish but reduce the
dangers of fraud and deception. And so they're basically kind
of like testing. There's a couple of things they're kind
of testing when it's like giving people the option to
put the stamp of like this is AI technology, which

(08:40):
I do think, like I feel like it's so buzzworthy
right now, and like it's getting so much attention online
that like people and creators are doing it any ways
to get that like hype bubble and to get a
lot of views. But once that kind of goes out
of fashion, like AI becomes normal and people are like

(09:00):
I don't care that you know, like telling if this
is AI, Yeah, it becomes like this unsafe territory of
like oh shit, we're gonna like think that this is
like a real thing. And so like there's like a
lot of research that's kind of being put in to
figure out if there's even a way to use AI,

(09:21):
to to find out if something was created with AI,
and to like kind of funnel that in and self
police in some ways which have been proven to be useful,
especially when it comes to people in schools, which if

(09:43):
you don't know if you have chat GPT write your
paper for you, unless you're very crafty in having chat
GPT write it. A lot of the time it's still
going to get caught with their own AI generated thing
because guess what that thing is using a shat GPT.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
So it's every time I hear that, it just reminds
me of like, what was it like turning in dot
com you know that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Well, that's what it is. I think. It's like it's
it's finding the percentage chance that like this was created
with AI.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
I mean, if you think about it, it's very similar
to the same technology where it's like where we're basically
it says, you know, hey, we found this other piece
of literature that you plagiarize, you know what I mean.
So it's it's not really that far I mean, it's
a new technology. AI is very new, but it's like

(10:37):
at the same time, it's like the concept is not
that far off. It's the same reason you would get
caught for plagiarizing, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, so yeah, exactly, yeah, but Billboard continues. Voluntary commitments
are of course voluntary, which is likely why TikTok also
announced that it will quote begin testing an AI generated
label that we eventually plan to apply automatically to content
that we detect was edited or created with AI. Sure

(11:04):
tools to determine whether an image has been crafted by
AI already exists and some are better than others. But
in the June version of The New York Times tested
five programs, finding that services are advancing rapidly but at
times falls short. So basically what's happening is like, because
it's started so late this because like we're already like

(11:29):
almost a year into AI, right, I think a year
like it's it's it's been out, it's been it's been
AI version one eight twenty eight thousand, you know, at
this point, and it's it's continuously getting smarter and smarter.
And so because of that, a lot of these programs

(11:49):
that are starting at the at the base ground or
having a hard time like catching up to its AI
competitors because there's so much information that it still has
to process through and it just hasn't had the time
to do it. And also of course people are shifty
and can get past it.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
Speaking which can I can I interrupt you for a second, Joe,
just to see something that I've been doing this whole
time while we're talking that you're gonna laugh at the
thumbnail of this podcast episode is going to be generated AI.
Hell yeah, because I got to lose anymore. I did it.
I generated, but I did music business podcasts and I

(12:28):
whatever the first one was. I was like, I'll do
it as long as it's not, you know, crazy offensive.
So I just think it'd be funny if you've been
wondering this whole time listening to the show, what the
hell is that? That's what it is? Anyway?

Speaker 2 (12:39):
Hell are you going? Hell yeah, I've I've actually, I
mean we got into here. You know what we're gonna
talk about it call it Colin. We almost got canceled
like weeks ago because I I stupidly made like I
threw in some of our video clips into like an
AI program and it chopped it up and like it

(13:02):
to its credit, it got us to go viral. Like
it found those like key moments and an hour of
footage that I didn't have time to cut together, and
I posted to TikTok and reels and on reels it
just exploded. We got to almost a million views. Yea,

(13:22):
within like I think what was it. It was like
a million views in like like three days or something,
and but we were getting the way the cut happened,
it made it seem like we were making fun of
gen Z, which in the context of watching it, it
does kind of seem like we are, like, we're just

(13:44):
two dudes like making fun of gen Z. It cut out. Yeah,
what it cut out was the context of like, oh,
we're actually like in agreement with like gen Z, like
not drinking as much like in these like bars and stuff.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
The entire time, I'm going like, oh man, I wish
I could drink. I'm so cool, and people are.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Like, yeah, people took it very People were like Colin
was bullying gen Z.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
They were like, Colin is a you know, like.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
You called them nerds ironically, and I've never heard anyone
called nerds. Anyone called anybody nerds un ironically, especially online.
But people believed it. And that's that is kind of
to to what we're talking about here, Uh, kind of

(14:37):
the toss up of like your voice can get diluted
when it comes to these AI technologies because they're so
I mean, they're making choices on your behalf right inside.
How they're editing something I'm.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Gonna put this, uh this ai this thing I just
generated into the chat, Joe, so you can see it,
so you can see what the audience is seeing. There's
a lot going on.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
So have you been doing this for like weeks?

Speaker 1 (15:04):
No, I just did this right now while we were talking.
Oh oh, this is you brought up thought this was
the funniest thing.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
I was like this, wait, why didn't we make this?
We're gonna art? Can we make this her?

Speaker 1 (15:19):
Yeah, I I are episode absolutely, I'm gonna do that.
I don't know what that thing is in the middle.
It looks like some sort of antenna or.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Like there's a lot of pop filters happening.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
There's a lot of pop filtering. There's clearly a guitar
that's been thrown in there. This is very like Eastern
European art.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Like, yeah, I love it, though, I would, honestly I
want this on a T shirt. This looks amazing.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Oh god, Joe, God, And this is the power of it?

Speaker 2 (15:50):
What is it? One one percentage or one half of dot?

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yeah? Right, no, get it? Like but seriously, we've been
talking about it the whole time, especially with TikTok. It
does take It's a lot easier to generate than it
is to find tools to you know, find what generation
is right, because you got to think about it. That's
like an extra step. It's like you have to understand
how this stuff is kind of generated, and then on

(16:18):
top of that, you have to understand how to identify
those things that are generated. So I'm really glad to
see that TikTok is taking some steps to try to
you know, filter the content and go this is AI generated,
this is AI generated, this is AI generated, because it's
seriously going to be a problem as the technology gets better.

(16:39):
Now I'm sure some of you are laughing at the
greatest thumbnail that's ever been made, but like it's you know,
a lot of this AI stuff, you know, they're like
it's made with AI, and like there's two things to
that one it's and this is honestly, if you one
of my favorite books, the Toyota Production Method is uh.

(17:00):
Automation with a human touch is a principle in that
book for efficiency, and that's very similar to AI, where
this is automate. This is automation, like it's automatically making
this thing right, and then with a human touch you
can make AI look incredibly realistic. Like I'm sure if
me and Joe went into this image and we you know,

(17:21):
fixed up the words and put the percentage and maybe
took the logos out and the you know, they'd be like, oh,
this is just like some art you know what I
mean that like they had made or commissioned or something,
But it's AI generated and the same thing. Obviously the
bar gets higher with video, but like the same thing
happens is that a lot of this AI stuff is
also you know, one it's getting to a point where

(17:44):
it's just it's good enough to be on its own.
And two it is like with a human touch, like
a lot of people because you think about it, like
people generate these AI content and they generate and they
generate and they generate, and then the human touch sometimes
is just as simple as that one's the best one,
you know what I mean. Like so that that's kind
of the thing with AIS. It's got a long way

(18:05):
to go, but with human touch, this can really be
used to deceive people. This can be used to literally
create fake news, as Joe was saying, and so like
it's definitely something that I think needs to have some
system to flag or filter, not in a negative way.
You know, it's like this is innovation at the end

(18:25):
of the day, but at least say, hey, this is AI,
you know what I mean. So people that use social
media as their primary news source, which a lot of
people do, don't get confused about something or worse, you know,
like we could have like you're saying political ramifications from
this because everybody thought, you know, the President said something

(18:45):
or like some other you know, legal officials said something
and it wasn't true, you know what I mean. So
and you have to think about it this too. It's
like AI is its own fledgling interests in like industry,
and everyone's excited about it, but the amount of experts
in it are few and far between. And just you

(19:08):
guys listening to the show and us having interest in
talking about AI has already put you ahead of so
many other people, you know what I mean, that don't
even think about that AI is out in the landscape.
So that's why it's really dangerous, is that there's a
lot of people that haven't even factored in AI as
a thing in the same way that like if you
look up, you know, everything goes back to school for

(19:30):
me today for some reason, like if you're looking up
sources on the internet for like a paper, you're like,
that's a non credible source, you know what I mean.
Like people you know, have just been looking at stuff
on TikTok regularly before AI and going, this is the gospel,
this is true, this is absolutely true. And now with AI,
it's like we can make that gospel say whatever it wants,

(19:51):
you know what I mean. So I think it's interesting.
I do think that we're gonna see people one who
are you know, trying to be maleficent with it, but
also people that maybe fearing that this will stifle kind
of AI content, you know, maybe go into suppression. But
I think that this is a tool that's extremely powerful.

(20:14):
So the you know, the question of how much or
how little we use needs to be answered, you know
what I mean. So yeah, and that's that's a question
for everybody, you know what I mean. Like then it
could come down to context, it could come down to
what's going on in life. You know, there's a lot
of things going on with that. So I don't know, right,
like it's.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's such a it's it's like
it reminds me so much to some extent on the
hype that was n FTS, and I feel like they
kind of bled into each other.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah a little bit.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Okay, Like with any tech thing, there's like, you know,
like the big tech things that happened in our lifetime
were streaming, and then it goes into bigcoin, and then
it goes into NFTs, and now it's going into AI.
But I think what's different about AI in terms of

(21:10):
those other ones, and what makes it more powerful is
because of the ramifications and the real ramifications that it
has on how it interprets mass data and like how
it like collectively shapes not only shapes, but can can
build on itself. It can like it has its own

(21:33):
I don't want to say personality, but brain right that
it can. It can stack up. And like I think,
I think like the hype behind those other things that
I just listed off, you know it did it definitely
seemed more like a fad, right, Like this is a fad.
This isn't actually going to like help the A lot

(21:53):
of people with crypto actually thought it would help like
a bunch of people, and like.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
It didn't have you know, it didn't have a really
innate value, you know what I mean, Like.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
It didn't have a it didn't have an everyday value.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Well in the sense that what created value for it
was that people believed it had value as opposed to
having something intrinsic at the end of the day like not.
And I don't believe in this whatsoever because this is
like the argument people used to go back to the
gold standard, which should never come back ever when it
comes to finance. But like at least at the end

(22:28):
of it, like gold, like you know, it could be
used in electronics a lot, you know what I mean,
Like it has a very high usage. And the crypto
it's like, yeah, there's nothing that this does except takeaway
resources and everything like that, and AI like you're saying,
has an intended use. So I think in suppression when
it comes to TikTok it, you know, it's we gotta

(22:49):
This is a very careful walk through a minefield that
I hope that we're prepared for as a society to walk,
you know what I mean. This isn't like we've solved it,
we're just gonna ban everything or like put a label
on everything immediately. It's just more of like, well, we
need to look at this and see how we walk
through this minefield and how we assess this kind of

(23:11):
information and like the systems that we have, and like
what as a kind of free market society we want
to put constraints on because it's a it's a very
dangerous you know, piece of technology in the wrong hands,
So we need to watch out for that explicitly at
the end of the day. So I think, yeah, it's

(23:31):
something that I love your point about technology kind of
blending together because there's things that we don't think about
that really like it all blends together. And then we're
here and we kind of have to take a step
to be like, no, we are at this step, right,
we have to take ourselves out of it and be like,
we're at this step with AI, so we have to
figure it out. Like one that came to mind when
you kind of went down that argument for me was

(23:53):
the dot com boom to like social media. Yeah, I
you know, Joe and I for this example, are blessed
to have older siblings, so like we understand what that
kind of was different. I mean, the dot com boom
was like websites are out there, you can use them
for services, you know what I mean, that's amazing and

(24:14):
it made the stock market go insane until it eventually
crashed because people were just getting websites to have websites
that didn't have a use or a service ie crypto,
So that happened, and then that was like around two
thousand and then like right around there is when social
media really started to come off. And if you talk
to people that are around our age that don't have

(24:36):
a lot of older siblings, that aren't, you know, very
historical about technology, they think all of that blends together, right,
that we had websites, social media, you know, and it's
all just happened at once, But that was one step
we took, and you know, the ramifications of having websites
that we could get services through and you know, good services,

(24:56):
vital services, right, good things like we hadn't even fully
exp war that yet. And then it goes, here's social
media that has the power to socially change how we
talk to each other and whatever we're and then I'm like, wait,
we're still talking about dot com. And then it's like
here is streaming music, media whatever, and it's like we're
not even on the dot com thing. Stop doing this,
and here is cryptocurrens and you're just like, we need

(25:19):
a minute to talk about this, right, So, I think
it's one of those things where you can't stop it.
And like anytime any of these social media companies or
the you know, the government are doing this, we're already behind.
So there kind of has to be some urgency to this, right,
There has to be some urgency to like, what are
we doing, how can we do it? Let's do it.

(25:40):
But at the same time, I did say it's a
careful minefield, which is what makes this all freaking crazy.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah, so, yeah, I mean it's it's truly the wild West.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
I'm gonna take my tinfoil hat off now, No.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
That's great, it's great, But yeah, I mean TikTok's like
the only company that's also rolling out plans. Streaming service
Deezer has also laid out their plans to develop some
tools to grab them. And according to Billboard, which is
also another quote a quote from an economic point of view,

(26:15):
what matters most is regulating the things that really go viral,
and usually those are the AI generated songs that use
fake voices or copied voices without approval. And that's a
quote from CEO of Deezer, Geronimo Bulgaria, and according to

(26:37):
Dennis like this is a crazy name. I'm just gonna say,
Dennis L who is the Believe co founder and CEO, quote,
you have technologies out there in the market today that
can detect an AI generated track with a ninety nine
point nine percent accuracy versus a human created track. So

(27:00):
he goes on, quote, we need to finalize the testing,
we need to deploy, but these technologies exist. And then
someone else pointed out that there's definitely, definitely like a
lot of kind of countering points. Especially Cynthia run In
from Duke University said that quote, every time somebody builds

(27:23):
a better generator, people build better discriminators, and then people
use the better discriminator to build a better generator. So
the generators are designed to be able to fool a detector.
So I'm gonna I don't know about you, Colin, I'm
going to listen to the Duke University person over the
Believe CEO.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
Again, it's all based on each other, right, I mean
this is why at the end of the day, like
it's very similar to the field and the questions that
cybersecurity deals with all the time, like where our passwords are,
where our data is. That's what they do is they
make systems to pretch data. Something breaks the system, and
guess what they do. They examine that thing that broke

(28:06):
their system, and then they adapt and it's better. That's
just how one life kind of works. But too specifically
technology works. The problem with technology, and especially digital technology
is it's insanely fast. So if you get a whole
you know, if TikTok or any of these social media
companies make this whole system where it's like this is

(28:26):
how we identify AI and this is how we label it,
and then like literally it's like by the time you
put the system out, it's already gone. Now people use
that in a bad way, Like people say, then it's
not even worth trying, and that's not true. Right, This
is a constant battle, and this is definitely something that

(28:46):
I think, you know, social media companies with the content
that you know, users create that is not exactly cultivated
by TikTok will have to have literally departments to deal with, right,
We'll have to. And I hope that you know all
of them are like we're making these investments now, but
every one of them is like we're making these investments now.

(29:06):
So we can make more content and make more money.
And it's like at the same time, it's like, well,
you need to be getting these people in there, and
so you guys can do it differentiate this content and
so you don't accidentally like sway people into you know,
crazy ideologies or thinking that the world's gonna end in
two days or something like that, Right, And that's kind
of the power. And to be honest, it can be

(29:27):
doomsday like that, or it could be something as little
as like you know, in our show with music business,
like imagine an artist you like and then they come
out as an AI and they say like something super
you know, kind of controversial to their fan base even
you know, and they're just like I didn't say that,
and AI said that, and there was nothing I could
do about it. Right, You basically lose the ability to

(29:48):
control your own pr which is kind of insane.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, it's it's just so crazy, honest, Like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
I don't know, that's beyond the scope for the show.
That's why we're that's where we're ending at. We were
just too busy thinking about AI all the time.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
So Colin, what do you have all right?

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Well, speaking sort of about AI, but not really. We're
talking about a proposed US bill which is very interesting
as this could allow indie artists to negotiate collectively with
streaming services, which I was like, hello, you know this
is casually going by my newsfeed. So this bill is
called the Protect Working Musicians Act of twenty twenty three.

(30:38):
It was introduced on September nineteenth, so that was where
we go from today. And basically the House wrap Deborah Ross,
a New North Carolina Democrat, updates an earlier bill that
was introduced by Representative Ted Duluth, a Florida Democrat, and
that bill basically focuses on the relationship between indie artists
and music streaming services. So basically what this allows them

(31:02):
to do, and like AI companies will get to in
a minute, but it allows these musicians to work together
as indie artists to collectively bargain against streaming services for
these rates.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
So the reason why that's important is because most indie
artists use like an independent distributor like a tune Core
or a distro Kid or CD baby for instance, and
those people negotiate licensing deals with the DSPs. Some even
do like you know, a digital Rights Music Licensing Network.
If you've ever heard of Merlin, it's a little bit different.

(31:39):
But the point is is, like there's another company that's
already made this agreement with Spotify, with Apple whatever, and
their rates are their rates are their rates right, and
so like they can't really do much here. And the
bonus of a label, and honestly, one of the biggest
bonuses of a label is they collectively bargain, you know,

(31:59):
and because labels, if you think about it, basically act
as a union of themselves, right they go. We have,
you know, hundreds of thousands of artists on our roster.
We have you know, we'll probably get the next big
people because that's what we do. We promote the next
big people. So give us a deal Spotify, give us

(32:20):
a deal, Apple Music, give us a deal Amazon. And
that can be in like promotion, actual payment, upfront payment,
you know what I mean. We've talked about on the show,
like Drake was the most streamed artist of last year,
Like the just straight payments he would get right that
were just like you're a big artist, here's like one
hundred thousand dollars, you know what I mean, Like not like, oh,
you're paid for it. Was just straight up from Spotify.

(32:42):
The point is is that this bill basically lets you
collectively argue on that together, and it creates an exemption
to the US anti trust laws that would allow them
to negotiate licensing deals with a quote dominant online music
distribution platform or a company engaged in development of generative

(33:05):
artificial intelligence. Isn't that interesting? So the bill basically defines
quote a dominant online music distribution platform as an entity
that operates an app, website, or other online service that
is used by members of the public to listen to
sound recordings via digital audio transmission and audio visual presentation

(33:25):
or any other means basically being like, there's no way
you can, you know, argue like Spotify tomorrow can't be
like we only do CDs now like it's like nope,
you're you're doing it. And the main caveat for these
online music distribution platform like what fits in it and
what does it is just revenue. Mostly, it's saying if
you make annual revenues of over one hundred million dollars

(33:50):
or more, then you can be you know, collectively bargained
with under these you know, artists, and these artists basically
can come together. And what what's pretty kind of cool
about it and I kind of interesting to me is
they can do it under one lawyer as like a
big class action lawsuit. Basically, so like imagine, if you will,

(34:15):
like we have like imagine like all these scenes of music,
like Nashville has a scene, Atlanta has a scene, La
has a scene, New York has a scene. You know,
I'm sure Oklahoma has a scene, right, Like imagine okay,
see okay scene yeah right, But like seriously, like imagine
like all of them, you know, they go to shows
together to do this. They're just all onside and they

(34:35):
were waiting for a record label and they just turn
to each other and be like, well, I know you,
you know me, we know each other, we know everybody
else in this town. Why don't we just go get
a lawyer together, and let's go get us some good
rates on Spotify.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
You know what I mean, You're going to recite the
Barney song.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
I Love you, you love me? You know, but like, yeah,
it's it's basically that's kind of what it is is
that they can collectively bargain again them as like one
big thing to try to get you know, basically better
rates and privileges that the labels usually use as their
like defining thing, you know what I mean. But yeah,

(35:15):
it's kind of it's kind of crazy, and so I
kind of wanted to talk about it a little bit.
Is like, with these kind of tools, do you think
this weekends labels in general? You know what I mean? Like,
this feels like what a label does collectively bark it.
So do you think this, you know, weakens people, you know,
wanting to maybe be on a label even more than

(35:35):
they have been in recent years.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
You know, I don't. I don't want to say yes
because I think I think that there's my gut is
telling me that, Like, honestly, the thing that labels have
up on pretty much everybody in the industry is their
grandfathered in in a lot of ways. They have long
standing relationships, They have long they have a lot of

(35:59):
money that is shaved and pooled to do a lot
of things, and a lot of brand awareness from not
only the general public but from the legal space as well.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
And industry relationships too.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
I do think that, Yeah, I do think that, like,
labels have been losing power in a lot of ways.
I think people have been saying no to label deals
a lot more recently because you know, a lot of
the stuff you can do yourself. There there are certain
areas like, especially when you get to be a certain

(36:37):
point as an artist, you do kind of want that
signing bonus. That's kind of like where people get like, Okay,
I'm ready to have this good signing bonus right now,
right to help out with life stuff. And I think
that that helps. And also having like a team of

(36:58):
people like you know, not not every label is the boogeyman,
you know, but the label system is changing, and I
will give you this, I do think that this will
change the ways labels operate. I don't know if it's

(37:20):
going to take power fully away from now.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
I think that's that's a very astute point because there's
one thing I also haven't mentioned here actually, So this
is at the same time that apparently major record companies
are trying to negotiate with streaming services for better payment
models aka collective bargaining. But one that's interesting here is
that they want this new model that I've seen. It's

(37:46):
called that they have like two groups of basically royalty groups,
and one is professional artists, and they're defined as having
a minimum of thousand streams per month or a minimum
of five hundred unique listeners. And so they want the
differential between professional and non professional, who are people that
don't fit that you know, catalyst of being over a

(38:08):
thousand streams a month and five unique whisteners. They want
a higher rate for the professional artists, and then they
want to lower the rate for the non professional basically,
which is interesting for a couple reasons. One, we we
had a whole story on the show one of when
I was talking about that, I think it's close to

(38:28):
it was like close to like eighty or ninety percent
of musicians have like less than like a thousand or
to one hundred, like or a thousand streams per month, right,
And so it makes sense that it's like in the
way that streaming is calculated, it's calculated as a pie.

(38:49):
Like basically it says like it's not just like you
get this money right away, it's calculated in big pie percentages.
So basically saying like, you know, if Spotify may five
hundred million dollars in revenue, they go to the labels first,
and they'll be like, okay, Universal Music Group, you were
five hundred, you know you were would say half even

(39:10):
though maybe that's not true. But they're the biggest label
in the world, Universal Music Group. You were half of
the streams from Spotify. We're gonna give you two hundred
and fifty million dollars, okay, and there you go. And
then it's like, now we're going to this. There's a
lot of computation and like different stuff in there. I
know I'm ignoring. And then Universal goes the same way

(39:30):
and they go, Okay, Drake was let's say something crazy
was forty percent or fifty percent of our basis. So
then it goes to like one twenty five million to Drake, right,
then they cut out based on his deal, they take
the ninety, they take it, Drake gets like the ten
to twenty. Then Drake makes like like ten million dollars, right,

(39:51):
So that's how that works. So it's interesting because it's
like if you take out the other ones, right, like
you're you're making the pie bigger from the beginning, right,
You're making like going like give us And they literally
call it a double boost to royalty payments. And one
thing that's beneficial for you know, professional kind of artists

(40:15):
quote unquote, is that you get these double boosts and
who's maybe gonna have continual streams, continual listeners, which you
notice it's not based on total it's based on like
a continual people that have teams who are probably signed
to labels. So like, I think that's kind of the idea,
is that in a way, it would, you know, take
this money and put it more towards people that have

(40:37):
this continuous career who are relying on it. But I
think it's gonna make it way, It would make it
way harder to come up, you know, via royal royalty payments.
Because we joke on the show all the time out
royalty payments are a joke. But at the same time,
I'm like, there's something after a while, there's something, you
know what I mean, And so it would just be interesting,

(40:57):
you know for these people that get just like a
couple bucks, you know what I mean. It's not crazy,
but yeah, that's I thought that was interesting that you
brought that up though, like the collectiveness of it and
kind of like how we could have incentives. And I
think that's why they, meaning basically the big three labels
are really campaigning for that kind of model because there's

(41:19):
kind of some complex math there and it doesn't make
it feel like like from a political standpoint, it doesn't
make it feel like, oh, we're taking money from other people.
It's like real artists get paid more. Are you against that?
You know what I mean? So yeah, I thought that
was very stute.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yeah, I man, we'd really just as like, collectively as
the music industry, we really just love cannibalizing ourselves. Oh
absolutely when it comes to like which I guess it's
not totally like streaming. I mean we could go back
to like the day one argument of streaming of like,

(41:57):
you know what you.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Could do instead of being like you get when you
get one, just raise the fucking rate.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, like that's kind of that today.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
To do that, we need a union and the music
industry doesn't.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Want you mean, you need to collectively bargain. Yeah, but
it could be interesting. I think this would be really
interesting if this gets through. Again, like it's notable because
I just thought it was a very interesting argument to make.
But I don't know if it's gonna get through. I mean,
one of the congressmen on this set. As you've seen
in Congress, lots of bills aren't passing, like the budget,

(42:30):
so it might be hard but basically, he says, this
has been a very bipartisan issue in the Judiciary Committee.
It's the perfect time to bring these issues up. So
maybe this could be like, you know, if Congress is
getting crapped on from like the American people because they're
not doing their job, they could be like, we did something.
Everybody's from paying more musicians, you know what I mean,
Like we did something. But uh, yeah, it's good. It'd

(42:53):
be interesting because I feel like there's some labels that
would probably be like, no, don't do this, because then
that deincentivizes labels, you know, to their Congress friends. But
like at the same time, it's interesting to see kind
of this argument be made, and I like, I just
imagine and I would just like to see it to
see it. Like imagine like one giant company decides like, hey,

(43:20):
everybody that's an independent musician, hit us up if you
want to be part of this collective thing, and like
thousands and thousands of musicians joined together under this like
being of like a lawyer or two, and they're going like,
now we will collectively bargain as the thousands and thousands,
you know what I mean. I would love to see
like the independence of that, though, I am worried about,

(43:42):
you know, like the business model of it, because being like,
we could just do it. It's like ten people, you
know what I mean, And you could pay me forty
thousand dollars as a lawyer, and then instead of making
two hundred dollars a year, you make four hundred, you
know what I mean, except you still owe me forty
thousand dollars. That's where I worry about this law. But anyway, Joe,

(44:04):
I guess I don't know what we'll do for the
last episode. This is maybe the last time. What have
you been listening to?

Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah, let's let's I feel like we could do it
for the last episode. But I haven't listened yet, but
I will. But Devendra Banhart just released a new record.
It is so beautiful. It's called Flying Wig. I have
actually listened to it because I've was honored enough to

(44:30):
work on this project and I am very proud with
a lot of the stuff that we've created, and such
an amazing team in such an amazing like songwriter and
just being Devendra is like super super sweet human. So

(44:50):
please check out his newest record. It's called Flying Wig,
available everywhere. But I've also been listening to. I listened
to that. You choice of von song, which please tell
me you listen to that?

Speaker 1 (45:04):
No, oh my god, yours right now and see what
I think.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
Dude. Okay, I'm not going to tell you anything, but
you have to listen to it purely for the sample.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Purely for this is the newest song.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
It's the newest one. It's called got Me started, got
me and started. Okay, well yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Somebody. Yeah, I'm gonna look at somebody is gonna be like,
are you kidding me? Colin? You don't know choice Evon's
whole catalog. I'm like, I'm sorry, man, all right, Oh
my god? Is this really a starstruck? Is that what
that is? Yeah, it's just it's it's the Yeah, I
can't remember what that is. It's like because it's god,

(45:50):
I know what this sample is.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
I mean, I can just add that new Google that
Google voice search thing.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Oh what's the sample?

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Yeah, hold on, let's see it.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
No, I gotta I got it. It's shooting stars that's
what it is. I was like, it's something like starship
or something. Yeah, that's so.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
Funny, Cobra Starship? Was that what you're It's what did
you say Cobra Starship.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
No, I was not thinking of Cobra Starship. God. I
might have been thinking of the band Jefferson Starship and
then later Starship. But oh nice, let's see thing of
old bands as I mean, that's half my thing on
the show. We've made one hundred and fifty episodes. I'm
sure if we averaged them out, it probably wouldn't be
later than like nineteen ninety ninety percent of the time.

(46:39):
But basically, we recorded yesterday a little bit for one episode,
and I for or two days ago, and then I
forgot that. I got to work the next day and
I was like, oh my god, today's the day and
it's the twenty first of September. Baby. So I've been
listening to that. Yeah, I mean that song holds up

(47:00):
and incredibly well, like like well all of earth Wind
and Virus Catalog does. I mean, it's like one of
the few that of like the disco era that like
really holds up. Like you can play this song at
like a wedding or like, you know, and with regular
people around and people aren't like, what the fuck is this?

(47:21):
You know what I mean? So I was listening to it.
It's like one of my favorites. I think I talked
on the show. I mean, we've been doing it for
three years, and I'm sure I made the September joke,
but like there was a guy I used to do
videos every year for the like song, and like his
whole like joke was like today's the day like kind

(47:42):
of joke, and he would do it literally every year,
and then he stopped doing it. So I was really
sad about it, but I did I did have some
interesting like song trivia about it, which was which was
fun to learn, is that like basically the song, like
the songwriter for it was like kind of approached by
like the lead singer Maurice and was like, hey, you

(48:02):
want to write the song? And uh, he wrote the song.
And it was really funny because apparently, like according to everyone,
everyone is always like what the hell is happening on
the twenty first of September And they literally were like
it just sounded the best, Like there's nothing going on
that day, There's not There wasn't like that's when I
was married, you know, Like.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
It was like they're just like that is it rolls
off the tongue.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
And weird part of the weird thing about the song
is the guy wrote like I think he wrote just
the like he wrote the lyrics. I don't know if
he wrote the chorus. I mean, I'll give him credit
if you did. But like the funniest part about it
was that he wrote the song apparently, and it's you know,
uh got you know, the regular lyrics, and then the

(48:48):
chorus starts and he goes, man, you know like that.
And first off, side note, this is one fight I've
gotten in with somebody pretty much every two years. It
is body Ah. It is not party on. It is
not any other It is just.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
Yeah that says party on.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
There. There are people I have had arguments with that
go that's not what it says. I go look it up,
look up what the lyrics are. And the amount of
times I've looked at the Google search results for this
song is too many because everyone's like, oh god, you
were right.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
I was like, I know, but basically like wait, Colin,
why are you so upset over this? And You're like,
it's just it's my thing, Okay, Yeah, it's my thing.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
One thing that's really funny with this is that apparently
when the when the lead writer like wrote the song,
he didn't have that part in there, and apparently he
hated that partly, like.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
Yeah, it's kind of it doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
It's yeah, it's uh, I'm sorry what I've been misgendering
this person the whole time. It's like, uh, Ali Williams
writes the song, so like, uh, they they wrote the song.
I'm just gonna say they let's just go with that.
They wrote the song, and and like it was so
funny because they have this quote that I love that
it says, quote, I just said, what the fuck does

(50:06):
body ah mean? And he and Maurice essentially said, quote,
who the fuck cares? And they said I learned my
greatest lesson in songwriting from him that not every lyric, uh,
that not a lyric should get away in the groove,
you know what I mean? Basically being like, yeah, it's
just fun you know what I mean? Like, honestly, if

(50:27):
I asked you to like sing that song, that's probably
the part you remember, you know what I mean? Other
than do you remember? But yeah, it's so funny. Like
I was just I was just dying at that is.
I was just like, what the fuck is body? Yeah, anyway,
we're gonna leave you.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
With that question audience, What the fuck is body? What
the fuck is body? Yeah,