July 19, 2023 • 56 mins
The boys talk about AI as UMG begs Congress to make legislation to combat the rise of AI copycat artists. Can the US Legal system make a proactive move for music for once? While, one of the biggest booms in tech for concerts brings in huge demand: high quality cell service. Don’t pick up the phone, this and more on the Biztape!
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UMG Ask Congress for AI legislation:
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https://www.billboard.com/pro/cell-phone-service-music-festivals-better-why/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The cell phone coverage of concerts is getting better, and
Congress talks music and AI with Universal. You're listening to
the biz tape. Welcome to the biz tape. You're all
(00:24):
things of music, business and media podcasts. I'm Hero's con O,
kay My lovely co host Coast to Coast Joseph Waizewski
joining me via the interwebs.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yes, I'm ready barefoot. I just thought that I should
disclose that information to you and our audience members.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
How okay, I just want you to think in your head,
how would that add to the show and not take
because there's definitely somebody that's much value.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
There's so much value in being barefoot on a podcast.
First thing, let me tell you. Have you ever a class?
The bill? Your hands like together? Like you like class?
You like interlock them?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Am I a human being?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yes? I can going do that with my toes.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I'm gonna repeat the question. How do you think this
was gonna help the show today? This fact?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I don't know what you're talking about. I'm giving gold
content right now.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
This is over here doing like chimpanzee tricks over there,
being like I could use a pin with my toes,
you know. And you were like, I'm gonna bring this
out for Colin. He's gonna love this content here today.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I've been thinking about I've also been thinking about getting
a toe ring, just to try it out.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
No way, said the audience, who is super intrigued in
Joe's toe facts. Didn't think this show could go to
more Low's. But here we are, gentlemen. Man, Well, welcome
to the show. I have to admit, in full transparency,
I am also bare for.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Oh yeah, let's go.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
This is like a well, I'm not gonna say that.
I'm gonna stop myself. We try to be g rated
and then I'm saying the S and the F word
all the time. But we'll move on from that.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Is that San Francisco? Is that attorney work?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, that's it unspeakable place they the city that shall
not be named. But yeah, it's uh definitely, you're really
throwing me off of this food thing. I'm sorry now,
I'm just I had I had a moment momentum. I
(02:32):
really did. I did not think that was what we
were adding to today's Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
It's important to dispose these facts to people. It's okay,
you know what I've learned from mountains and mountains and
years of therapy, is uh that you really have to
be in the moment. You really want to be centered.
You want to center yourself, and one of the best
ways to do that is to acknowledge whether you have
shoes or not, and you can if you don't, it's
(03:00):
even better because then you can like feel around on
the ground and sell yourself and like be in the
moment with feet on the ground.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I'm just gonna let you do that. I guess you
got to put your best foot forward and keep on
going with that one. So anyway, let's let's keep on
moving here.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
For those of you who didn't catch that quite hear
that colle just played a boom boom sound.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
They can't hear that. I'm only gonna have maybe I will,
who knows, anyway, So let's just again this started with
this week. I thought I would start off with my
thing as we had a very universal pole, very non
polarizing pole for once, actually, because I honestly wanted a
good answer to see if somebody would give me a
(03:48):
rebuttle against it, and everybody was like, nope, calling you
right on this one. So I was like, sick, Thanks everybody,
Thanks for aerfirming everything. I'll call you if I get
in a fight with Joe, and I'll need you to
do that again. But anyway, so let's talk about Universal
Music Group is at Congress trying to pass a lot
of new regulation involving AI. We've talked about it on
(04:11):
the show before a while with AI and a lot
of questions, and you know, I'm one of the first
proponents to say that, you know, the laws notorious Lee
slow with trying to catch up with technology, but we're
finally kind of seeing big business try to talk to
Congress about growing the unregulated scene that is music and AI.
Long time coming, We've been waiting for it, but UMG
(04:32):
is coming in swinging quote at a hearing of the
Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, you know, just
like what we talk about all the time in our
daily lives. This was last Wednesday on the twelfth. Jeffrey Harrelston,
who's the General counsel and Executive vice president for Business
and Legal Affairs, that is a very grown up title
(04:54):
at UMG, basically was trying to shoot his shot and
laid out three specific laws UNG would like to enact
to help with all this AI stuff right. Hell yeah,
we had talked a little bit about the show. There
was a big petition going around about seven kind of
principles of AI. You can find that, I believe three
(05:14):
episodes back, four episodes back. But this is kind of
just like the general proving ground for congressional AI. Let's
get some stuff into law, and UMG, being one of
the biggest copyright holders of music in the world, is
very interested in making these things law. So let's just
go one by one by one by one. I must
(05:36):
say one by two, like that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
One by two, Actually.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Let's go by one by three, so one by three.
Starting with number one, UMG wants the nationwide right of
publicity law. Number two they want the labeling of AI
generated content, and number three the ability for copyright owners
to see what has gone into training of AI models.
So I'm gonna walk us through each one of these points.
(06:02):
The first point, the nationwide right of publicity law has
literally been being debated for literal decades. I remember Joe
and I sitting in class back in school and Max
school days. Vine still prevalent any still, yeah, still prevalent.
(06:26):
The probably there's still a company, but yeah, they probably
getting mad at that, they probably would say yeah, uh. Anyway,
So the right of publicity, let's just get right into that, folks.
The right of publicity uh is defined by Music Worldwide
pretty well and basically it says they say it refers
to an intellectual property right that protects against the unauthorized
(06:46):
use of a person's likeness, voice, or other aspects of
their identity. So this is kind of the laws when
it comes down to, you know, the pinnacle example is
like a sports star and a weedy bo Wheaty's box
right where you know, maybe like Serena Williams or Michael
Jordan or you know, another sports star gets on the
front of the Wheatie's box. They use their personality and
(07:09):
likeness on the front of the box that sells more cereal.
They are compensated for their likeness, right, And so there's
a lot of laws around that that have historically been
a nightmare to deal with. Why each state has their
own rules when it comes to these laws. I remember
Joe and I had a very long conversation because we
(07:30):
were just looking through it when we were in college
about it. But a lot of these laws change very
heavily state to state to state to state, and you
can guess it. The more industry like entertainment industry heavy
states like New York or California have very stringent rules
about how likeness and publicity should be used, usually more
(07:53):
towards you know, hey, pay the person if you use
their likeness. Da da da da. But if you go
to more states that are not known for energyment or
you know, are not as hustling and bustling as New
York or California, their laws are pretty bare bones. Why
does this matter because in a digital age, everything is
connected now and so what's happened is that you have
(08:15):
a lot of issues of jurisdiction, meaning like what laws
count for what. So for instance, like you know, there's
the in my wheedies example, you could have an example
of like oh, well we're selling this cereal in Montana
or something like that, and in Montana says we're allowed
to use your likeness to this extent that we can
(08:36):
do it. And then it would be like maybe Michael
Jordan being like in California, well, in my state, you know,
we have a lot more laws about that, and you
know I'm here, so the lawsuit should be here in
California so you can see how this can get really bad,
really fast, especially when it comes to money and likeness
specifically since it's literally people's faces ninety percent of the time,
(08:58):
or just what constitution, it's what you think of that
person almost a lot of the time. Right, So this
has historically made the legal system a nightmare for a
lot of this stuff. And guess what, I didn't even
get to the internet yet. I'm just talking about Wheatie's boxes,
a physical product whatever. The Internet makes this even more
(09:18):
of a nightmare. And Harleston was kind of talking a
lot about this is specifically AI generation of these figures, right,
because a lot of them are innately trying to be
and have the likeness of these celebrities to the point
where when it comes to trademark, which is what right
(09:40):
of publicity is under, it basically makes it their domain
to be like, hey, stop confusing consumers that you are
me right, this AI, for example, and we saw that
a lot with the Drake AI, where when we talked
about that a couple weeks ago, people were confused and
thought maybe it was a Drake song or it was.
(10:01):
And this AI is not getting worse, right, it's getting better.
All the time. I've actually been surprised about a lot
of the ai've seen recently with especially voice modulation and
how fast it's getting better and everything. So the point is,
let's say you have somebody in a different state who
made this Drake AI and then it got really big,
and you know, it's confused a shit a ton of people. Well,
(10:24):
Universal wants the right to go, hey, don't do that.
You know, we have the likeness for Drake and instead
of getting all up in the legal system and all,
you know, everybody spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in
lawyers just to decide where we're having the trial. First,
they were like, let's make a national law for this.
And from what I've talked to, like some different entertainment
(10:47):
lawyers and stuff like that, this seems to be a long, long,
long time coming. And even before the Internet, this has
been debated with, especially with artists of states where it's like, oh,
this artist died here and there's dates here, but then
their likeness is being used here. It's a nightmare. It's
the point of it. So Universe is really trying to
push for that, especially in the Internet age. Let's go
(11:09):
to number two, Number two is pretty clear, which is
labeling AI as AI, basically saying this that you have
to label AI as an AI as like Harrelson from
from UMG said, quote, deep fakes and or unauthorized recordings
or visuals of artists generated by AI can lead to
(11:30):
consumer confusion, unfair competition against the artists that was actually
the original creator, market dilution, and damage to the artist's reputation,
potentially irreplably harming their career. Now, come on, This was
the question I asked to the poll. Should we have
all AI labeled as AI? Because to be fair and
(11:53):
I'm Joe. I don't know if you voted on the poll,
but feel free in case you're one of the few dissenters.
Most of almost one hundred percent of the poll agreed
that we should label AI as AI every time. Yeah, right, yeah,
because voted for that just so because like I honestly
was trying to come up for a reason not to
(12:14):
you know what I mean, Like, what could we not
you know, why should we not do this? So I
was trying to play devil really.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
A reason because it's like it is just providing more
transparency in the market and allowing consumers to make the
decision whether or not they want to to accept AI
into their ears pretty much, right.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I mean we remember like the huge I remember the
huge like speaking of college deep fake scandals where people thought, oh,
this celebrity is doing this thing or whatever, right, and
like how celebrities had to be like no, that's not me,
that's not who I am, you know, all that kind
of stuff. And I think with music, as it gets
even better, we're getting to that point, you know, Like
(12:55):
I said, with that Drake AI, people were confused. Well,
I think that's proper way.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
There's a lot of factors too, even like on the
political like end of this last election cycle, there was
a lot of talks and debates about deep fix because
in a lot of cases, each well like one particular
side was using a lot more deep fake campaigns than
(13:21):
the other side side, and there was like a big
mass amount of like accounts that were like like it
was like tweeting out like fake videos, like edited videos
as well as like just purely not like real footage
of stuff happening, yeah, which like then kind of feeds
(13:44):
into this like disinformation campaign in propaganda campaign that like
a lot of I would say, like a lot of
Americans understand exist, but there's also a lot of Americans
that do not understand that what they're seeing on the internet.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
And as these tools get stronger, right, like it, it's
gonna be harder for a human eye to perceive them, right.
I mean, we're getting to the point with some different
tools of AI where we literally have to develop other
aimin it's AI.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, there was a great Daily episode about like teachers
right grading papers and stuff and they had to plug
it in. And there there are like especially like chat,
GPT and stuff. There's there's like already other AI like
technology that detects whether it's written by a robot pretty much,
(14:35):
but there's a lot that's like you know, like if
you're able to write it in your voice and like
able to feed the algorithm some form of like personality,
it's able to kind of like seek past a lot
of those things, and so like having some sort of
(14:56):
gait way of like, oh this is like we're allowed
to share the public in a responsible way could really
impact not only the music industry and entertainment industry, but
like every industry as a whole, because it could provide
some sort of like backing or even value to people
(15:19):
that might be taken away, which like even people in
the writer Striker like talking about this situation, like similar
situation of like you have to hear, yeah, you have
to provide like clarity that you were using these things.
And I mean the WGA one was so crazy, which
(15:40):
like I'm sure everyone has seen this story at this point,
but their proposal, the studious proposal to the WGA was
literally like, oh, we're going to scan an extra's body.
We're going to hire them three hundred which is like
the minimal amount of money for like a day's work,
and we're going to scan their body, and we're going
to be able to have their the rights to their
(16:02):
face for eternity, and we get to bank them a
massive server. Yeah yeah, and it's we can use to.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Have an extra. We'll put her in the back, you.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Know, yeah, exactly, and what they wanted to do. You
don't get paid for any usage of your name or likeness.
Ironically enough, a lot of people are calling it black
Mirror esque because there's literally a uh like an episode
off the new season about that called Shona is Afraid.
(16:34):
So I mean this this technology is very real, real
and it's very he like it's here these studios and
these companies are already like using them and trying to
figure out ways to cut costs, and so it is
important that like these topics are debated now rather than
later as well.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, and I completely agree on that. And to hit
back on our point number one a little bit too,
like there is a big you know, a lot of
different states have a lot of different laws when it
comes to that kind of publicity compensation too, So it's
kind of crazy when it comes to and the rights
that you have. Yeah, to have that you you know,
(17:16):
especially like the writers example, is great, but also like
let's think of a you know, one of the funny
facts I remember saying was justin Bieber Baby, Drake is
in the background of that music video, right, Like, imagine
now if Drake accidentally, you know, like they're like, oh,
we're gonna film this, and this is honestly not to
(17:37):
you know, try to roll it out of proportion, but
this is kind of where some of this technology is going.
Imagine if they had him in the background, they like
scanned him, you know what I mean, and they're like, oh,
we just owned Drake's likeness perpetually right now. But he's
not Drake yet, you know, then no one knows that yet,
right because it's baby it's like twenty eleven, right. And
then he gets big and the studio has a yeah, yeah,
(17:58):
this studio has likeness of them, and then it's like,
what are the hell you know?
Speaker 2 (18:04):
All of his profits essentially.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Right, we can dilute which is a very important quote
here is this says we can have market delution, which
I feel like is kind of insane to think about, which,
to be honest, makes sense. It reminds me of like
when a when an artist or an album is like
super super super big, and then like for a while,
(18:27):
like there's streams like obviously like pitter patter out, but
there's almost like the opposite words like ah, we just
listen to Taylor Swift, or like we just listened to
Harry Styles, you know what I mean. Imagine if your
music could be so diluted by all these bots hitting
all the time, and then it's just annoying and bad
quality and you're just like I don't want to listen
(18:48):
to Yeah. It would be like I listen to a
thousand of the bots.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
It would be like if you turn on every movie
and like every movie is like the same thing pretty much.
It's like the same structure, the same whatever, and it's
it we're kind of already to some level, like but
like it is, like it is scary though, because it's
like when you're taking away the humanity of art and
(19:15):
creation and like entertainment, because entertainment is an art medium,
Like there's no doubt about it. There's it can be
very mechanical in some facets, but it's it's very much
still an art form at least in my opinion. And
I do think that when you take that human aspect
out of it, where where it's like it's almost like
(19:39):
just these studio executives like making decisions and like pulling
trigger on projects that are just easy and cheap to make.
Those are gonna, like you said, dilute everything because it's
just gonna flood the market with a bunch of useless
crap that then it just becomes bad content. It's gonna
like Netflix is gonna start looking like like a Facebook
(20:00):
mom's page, you know of just like poorly made, horrible looking.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
It's gonna be that Shiloh aboff song. Yeah, and then
your eye you spot Shiloh abuff.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I feel like it's like, who at that point are
you relating to because you're you start not relating to
an actual human emotion, but instead you're just relating to money,
and it becomes ads at that point, it's just a.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Glorified shiloh abuff. Anyway, Yeah, I just uh no, I
agree with that completely, and especially with music, because to
be honest, it's just hard to get people, you know,
pumped up to listen to new music all the time.
So if you're berating them constantly with you know, all
these things that they think are real artists and they're not,
(20:48):
then they're gonna get sick of it, you know, and
go to the next quote.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
It's hard to get people to to get pumped up
for anything nowadays. I feel like even like you know,
strong movie industry where it's like I've seen you know
how many times they've seen a fucking Oppenheimer like description
of like, oh, he shot it one seventy millimeter film.
This is why you have to see this movie instead
of just being like it's a movie and it's out
(21:13):
and I want to see it.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, there's like if you started diluting it, and consumers
are increasingly smarter and smarter, you know, if you start
really diluting the market with that, and it's just becomes
again like as as theg rep here says, he goes
damage to the artist's reputation and potentially irrepulably harming their career,
(21:35):
you know, because people just get sick of it. Let's
go to the third point so we don't miss out
on that one. The third point is quote copyright holder
is knowing if their music is used to generate AI,
which is honestly really interesting because at the end of
the day, what does AI do. It takes a giant
vat of information, whatever that be. If it's chat, GBT,
(21:58):
it's text, if it's you know, like a singing model
like the Drake one, it's a bunch of Drake songs
and stuff. But it basically puts it through the machine,
consumes it analyzes, it sees the patterns, puts it all together.
And my question to a lot of these AI people,
and a question that legally hasn't been answered, is is
(22:18):
that derivative? Innately? Is it so different enough because of
the technology that it's not derivative of the copyrighted material
or is it derivative? And the reason why I use
the word derivative is because that's the important legal term
for it. It's the reason that Marvin Gay was able
to sue you know, Robin Thick for blurred lines. He said,
(22:39):
this song is derivative. It comes from my song. I
really I was about to say that, sorry Marvin Gay estate,
but it raises up to scorn. But like, yeah, it's
like that, and that's important question here is is it derivative?
(23:00):
And obviously, I feel like that's a very loaded question.
I don't feel like there's a lot of people on
any side, either if you're an AI maker or a musician,
that have enough of the entire model to really come
up with an answer for that. Yet it's definitely one
that needs to be answered. And I think that UMG
obviously is definitely definitely like shooting their shot here because
(23:26):
they're one of the biggest copyright holders in the world. Right,
that means so much more money for them. Right if
every song that is derivative from AI, they get a
cut of if their artist is used in it, and
that goes for publishers, that goes for artists, that goes
for songwriters and stuff like that. But it's gonna be
really interesting to see how that argument plays out, and
(23:50):
to be honest, out of the three points, is probably
the most legally interesting one. I mean, I ask about
point number two in our poll, should we label all
the ais clearly because I just wanted to see if
anybody else had another answer, you know what I mean.
And you guys are smart, intelligent people that listen tots
to you. No, I'm checking, but you guys are cool
(24:13):
and so anyway, like the point is, you guys are
intelligent out there. So I was like, maybe they'll come
up with another answer for this. I couldn't come up
with them. It seems like you guys couldn't either. And
then the right of publicity law has honestly been being
screamed at for literally seventy years since literally the silver
age screen literally has been getting screamed at by lawyers
(24:34):
for years. But this last point is honestly one of
the most interesting points in the entire thing, and honestly
has probably the most arguments to be made. Is that
how much of this is derivative and how nitty gritty
are we going to have to make the law to
determine what different AI models are derivative? And what aren't
(24:58):
you know, because not all all of these AI models
are the same thing. It's you know, I very much
simplified it. I said, you'd throw all these songs in
a machine, it analyzes it and it comes out as
a drake AI. Right. That's way oversimplifying, right, So it's
going to be interesting to see how that works from
proving that. And the other thing that was really interesting
(25:22):
was that Congress actually pushed back about this answer and
they and they asked Haraldston if he could like kind
of talk about how they would put all of these
markers everywhere, you know, to say like hello, UMG, I
am a drake AI. And he said, quote, it absolutely
could be done. As the digital platforms that exist today
(25:45):
license millions and millions of songs every week, so it's
not a problem in that retrospect. There's metadata that we
could license and we could absolutely do that. But there
has to be an initiative on the side of AI
companies to reach out basically saying we have the technology,
you guys can bill us, you know what I mean.
(26:06):
So my question to you, Joe is what do we
think about that? Point number three? I think this is
honestly one of the most interesting points in the in
their entire argument and probably the most argumentative is where
does you know the differential of technology start and music begin?
You know, as we've separated that a lot in our
(26:28):
studio culture for instance.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I think that well to the point of like the
whole entire thing, like all three, I think that UMG
is kind of asking for the world here, and they're
expecting to the moon. Yeah, they're shooting for the moon.
They're they're kind of hoping to land somewhere in between.
And I think, honestly the biggest thing that they want,
like number one is the labeling of AI generated content.
(26:53):
I think would would argue minimal like it would it
would be like the most like fail safe, like okay,
well even if they steal my ship, we could get
this point, yeah exactly, And there's there's a level of
uh build upon that at that point, like that's past.
Maybe we can push for these other things later. When
(27:14):
it comes to number three, the ability of copyright owners
to see what's like like if their shit has been
like AI modeled essentially, I think that that is a
very important thing. I would agree. I think that that
should be uh something that happens and but the issue
(27:37):
that I'm running into is the police ability of that
because a lot of these AI models do not have
boundaries put into place when it comes to like data mining,
So it's like they're scouring.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
The don't boundaries.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah exactly, They're like just getting into everyone's ships like essentially,
And the fact of the matter is the bots, because
you know, they're bots. Pretty much, these bots can like
get into everything in such a short amount of time,
whereas like a human minor data minor can't. Right, So
(28:17):
it's something of like we could have like another AI
that like basically finds the other AI and like kind
of keeps it in the boundaries, but I think it
would be extremely difficult to police and to actually have
that happened. I think the only instance of that being
a thing is like if in litigation something happened and
(28:40):
like they brought up the fact that they were you know,
mined for data essentially. But when it comes to number
one as well, my opinion on that is, I think
that there are a lot of states that just are
in refusal of publicity laws, especially like the Middle territories.
(29:03):
I think that the ohios, uh no, but that is
like that's that's a hard bargain because because of the
fact that like a lot of these UH suits and
a lot of these possible laws that are brought up
(29:26):
have not successfully been able to turn that uh and
and get that to a place of like, oh, we
can actually have some safety for some of these celebrities.
I don't know, Like my personal opinion on that is like,
I don't really know. I think like I think, yes,
I think the right of publicity of like when it
(29:47):
comes to obviously, like if you're using an ad for somebody,
like and you're using Johnny Depp's face and an ad
in Ohio, like, yeah, he needs to be paid for
that right. But when it comes to like publicity of
like when it dipping into like the privacy laws effect
of like can you take photos of people on a street?
(30:08):
That's where it gets a little murky, because it's like,
in some level it's our it's our right to be
able to be able like to photograph or videotape a
public street even without a film permit in a lot
of cases, And one of the biggest ways of that
(30:29):
is like public safety right if like a police officer
such as an example like steps out of line, and
is violating your human rights, then you're able to get
that on film and not be reprimanded for that, right,
Like there there's a level there of like this is
a public servant and that is like there is a
(30:50):
level too.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Kind of saying about like the we want to obviously
make this succinct when it comes to publicity, but at
the same time, we don't want this right of publicity
to be overbearing. Yeah in a lot of ways. Yeah, exactly,
especially with right of publicity because right of publicity I basically,
from what I've been explained about it, right of publicity
(31:13):
and right of privacy almost do like a one eighty
on each other. Like the more famous you get, you
kind of go into righte a publicity territory, and then
the less famous you are, you're more in the right
of privacy and you kind of gain one more and
lose the other. So the idea, like Joe's saying, is like,
you know, if it doesn't seem well that random individuals,
(31:36):
for instance, on a public street could have so much
right of publicity if that is strengthened nationwide that nobody
could film them, nobody could document anything, right, Like if
somebody was literally you know, doing something heinous in the streets.
It's like, yeah, you should be able to document that, right.
You can't be like they're too famous to right. But
the point that I'm trying to say is that, like
(31:58):
we're I agree with all your points. I definitely think
number two is probably the easiest one. Most people seem
to be in agreeance on that. And in the same way,
I think number three is an interesting question but has
the same flaws number two, which is that there's gonna
be a lot of them that try to hide in
(32:20):
plane sight ye, meaning that, like you're saying the policing,
I think that there's gonna be a lot of people.
And this is really interesting because I think it's one
of the in the digital age. And we talked about
that Rick Astley case a while ago where he was
suing for his likeness on a recording which was unheard of.
(32:41):
I think that might have been one of the for
that Young Grady song, Betty. I think that that might
have been an interesting conversation to open up with because
I think this AI stuff is getting into that territory
where you're seeing how much likeness actually goes into sound recording,
for instance, Then you also have the ability of how
(33:02):
they market it, right, Because like, at the same time
that if I put a you know, a figure silhouette
like the air Jordan's logo everywhere and said this famous
basketball player was on this song or something, most people
would think, who is it Michael Jordan, Right, But you
could be misled easily in the same way like that,
(33:22):
you could say, like, oh my god, you know him
as the biggest Spotify artists of all time and a rapper.
We all know here he is on this song, and
you see what I'm doing. I'm like getting away from
saying who it is, but you can kind of put
together who I'm talking about, right, And so that's what
I think is going to be interesting is a lot
(33:43):
of that. I think, to be honest, Number one and
number three are kind of locked together in the way
that I think if these labels want the ability to
secure like revenue streams from these as companies, because like
they said, we want AI companies to reach out and
(34:03):
they're not right now, right an initiative is what he said, right.
I think what this is going to be is a
handhold of the you get to market this as a
Drake like song, and that will get it more publicity,
as we saw a couple of weeks ago with that
Drake song that blew up, right, But we get a
(34:25):
cut of the money and you get to keep it
up because we could take it down. And I think
that's what's going to maybe start happening. But legally, right
now it's just no man's land. There's no precedent for
that at all. These are all handshakes and emails under
the table right now, so it definitely needs to be
(34:45):
hammered out and everything like that. Lastly, I'll end up
on Joe's point. The right of publicity is one of
the most interesting legal cases that has arised in the
twentieth century. And where that starts him where that ends,
especially now have we got it's infinitely gotten worse. It
was a problem in the fifties with the Marilynd Montroe
(35:06):
a state and stuff. It's been a problem for decades.
And I think that in the same way that we
do need a unified law about it, how we go
about that law is going to be insane because no
one is debating how much this clogs up courts and
time with what's the jurisdiction of this DA DA DA
da DA, But at the same time, to get a
(35:28):
unified law, it takes a lot of work and a
lot of forethought to think how far is too far,
how far is too little? You know, would a California
state kind of publicity law going into effect be great
across the entire United States? Or should we look at Nebraska?
You know what I mean? Like this is the difference
in what we're looking at. So all of these points
(35:50):
are going to be heavily debated. Although I do agree
with Joe. I think number two is going to be
probably the one that Congresses go, Okay, we're going to
start this talk. Here's your bone. We're going to say
that if you're an AI, you gotta label yourself right,
you can impersonate other people, and we'll talk about the
other two points. Yeah, Joe, what do you got Because
(36:14):
I actually have a bone in this argument with what
you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
I think everybody does what I do. Everybody has a
bone or a brick, if you know what I mean.
That sounded that sounded more sexual than Yeah, wait for
the content.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Another wait, I'm putting another drum beat in there. That'll
make it fine, It won't make it weird.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Keep going, uh, cell service is getting better at festivals. Finally,
when you're in the middle of nowhere at Banou, you
might be able to use your phone. I'm saying might
because it's not quite there yet, but it's kind of
getting there. So this might seem a bit of a
mild article in comparison to what we've talked about in
(36:56):
the past, But as Billboard points out, quote, while cell
phones used to be just a way of connecting with
or trying to connect with friends at shows, they're now
seen as posts of part of the concert and festival experience,
with mobile ticketing, venue apps, and digital payment systems demanding
fully functional coverage.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
And as the age always on their damn phone.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah I know, but I mean as the age of
social media dona as the concert experience. Maybe to the
dismay of Miranda Lambert this past week, promoters and venue
operators are looking up to up the ante with some
fancy new technology from a company called Matt Singh, which
is a California based tech company founded in two thousand
(37:43):
and five. According to the company's executive VP, quote, festivals
are the hardest things to create coverage capacity for, alluding
to the terabytes of data usage that companies like Verizon
AT and T, T Mobile and more have to battle against.
In order to solve this high volume problem in the
(38:04):
demand of it, the company builds antennas that, instead of
reflecting signals like traditional antennas do, it refracts them, which
creates multiple independent signals beamed in directions. Yeah. It's it's crazy. Shit.
It's like have you ever seen Scooby Doo cyberspace?
Speaker 1 (38:26):
I have?
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Okay, good, it's like that Colin where like a monster
comes out of your phone and takes your signal and
then the horrible joke, but.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
It came out of a computer and it was okay.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
But Colin, instant way for century, we have computers in
our pants now, hence the brick joke. Alright, another job, okay, yeah,
all right, And as Billboard points out, quote, instead of
implementing ten individual antennas at an event, uh you, you
(39:00):
can now employe one Matt sing lens antenna that creates
ten separate coverage sectors and allows multiple carriers to utilize it.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
So oh my god.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, they're able to just pretty much condense their coverage
units to like one unit, whereas before you'd have to
get like a unit per like AT and T, Verizin,
T Mobile, blah blah blah. So how does it work
well according to the company, or actually we already did
that does it work according to the company. Twenty fourteen
(39:32):
Coachella AT and T users had data coverage and they
quote actually got coverage that year, whereas Verizon T Mobile
people did not. And afterwards Verizin and T Mobile started
hitting their lines, hiring them for future work and covering
their sites. But why are companies so worried about coverage,
(39:54):
especially when it comes to festivals and concerts. Well, in
high demand settings such as a festival or concert, a
loss in signal is also a loss in subscribers, as
people tend to remember those moments more and especially in
a mass gathering event, people have the expectation of coverage,
(40:14):
especially like if you're in the middle of like downtown Nashville,
right You're at Bridgetone Arena, You're in the middle of
a major metropolitan city and you're not getting cell coverage.
That can be very frustrating, especially like when you leave
the venue, you're trying to figure out a ride home situation,
You're trying to get safe, you're trying to find your people.
It can be very very taxing mentally physically, and also
(40:38):
a scary situation, especially if you need it for an
emergency situation. But as Billboard points out, business is booming.
As Matt Singh has held has sold more than one
hundred and fifty plus antenna models directly to carriers and
are now permanently installed at thirty two US Stadium's, arena's raceway,
(41:00):
and venues including the Hollywood Bowl. And now they're working
on festivals such as Austin City Limits, Lollapalooza, Outside Lands,
New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and our favorite Burning Man.
So Colin, my biggest question is, first, does this distract
(41:22):
from the concert experience? And what I mean by that
is like, especially in Burning Man, I feel like the
whole point of that festival is to get away from
technology and to like figure it out, and it's like
a survivalist.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
I mean, it was so like the Mark Zuckerberg types
of the world were like we could pitch here. But
I don't think so. I think that that question in
two thousand and one might have been does it distract?
But we've had close to twenty years of you know,
the iPhone revolution of phones, and that is the way
(42:01):
that people are used to concerts. Now, it's something that
I think doesn't necessarily distract. I think it has created
a new form for sure, do I okay, well, let
me hear the question in nately. Is it a distraction? Yes?
Is it a distraction in our modern world that we
(42:22):
have to deal with? Yes? And so in that same way,
there's a number of answers why a lot of these
venues are dealing with it? Specifically company I work at,
that's one of our biggest things in business is putting
these networks all across and so there's continual network coverage
across an entire space for not only you know, the vendors,
(42:46):
but also for the patrons, right because like you said,
it's expected. Right if you're somewhere like a metropolitan area
or even a festival, you think, oh, I'll have internet coverage, right.
I mean, people last year took a bunch of videos
and stuff and posted them the same you know, minute
that this performance happened. I should be able to do
(43:07):
the same thing too. So it feels almost like a
rolling stone that keeps getting pushed down the line. And
I think it's amazing if you've never seen this before,
but like in a lot of RF scanners and stuff,
and I've talked to a bunch of people who do this,
who do RF coordination, do all the wireless mics and
the ims and stuff like that. You can see it
(43:28):
on those scanners. Like they'll go into a venue eight am.
It's just the crew, you know, maybe it is like
fifty sixty people whatever, right, and they pick their frequencies
like and so they can broadcast these microphones wirelessly to
a transmitter and then you could hear let's say, Taylor
Swiss voice even though there's no wire right. So that's
(43:50):
how it's supposed to work. And I've heard so many times.
What they do is they coordinate. They make it good.
They look at like you know, TV signals, all this
kind of stuff that's going around in the air, and
then all the people come in with their cell phones
and everything changes. Yep, because there's if you think about it,
seventy thousand people there. Most of them have a cell phone.
(44:10):
Even if I round down and say somehow ten thousand
of them don't have and sixty thousand cell phones with
signals going everywhere, it's gonna change the space, right, it's
kind of crazy. I mean it's it's almost hilarious because
if you think about it, like a live concert in
terms of signal is so much smaller. Right, It's like,
(44:33):
you know, if you even in big shows, it's like
one hundred two hundred microphones, right, You're not coming close
to sixty thousand phones that all need to connect to
the internet and take photos and do all this stuff. Right.
It's an insanely complicated business and it helps out the
you know, venues in a number of ways. I mean,
the most obvious ones are you can't even print a
(44:55):
paper ticket anymore from half the time, you know what
I mean, So it's just ticketing now, right, Yeah, Like
if you bring a paper ticket a lot of time,
you're like that guy, right.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
I'm that that's one airplane. I will say, I'll get
to the airport early, and I will I will pay.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
I'm gonna admit we're both that guy because for some reason,
I love having that paper. It's just throwing up to
him and being like this is mine.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Here's thinking the side note. Here's the thing that's the
best about that is because like when your flight innately
gets changed, like your gate gets changed. It's it's on
your ticket, it's right there when it's on your phone,
doesn't populate, doesn't happen, doesn't tell you. So you're just
kind of rolling through the airport trying to figure it out.
(45:45):
But anyways, continue calling.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Sorry anyway, Yes, there is the there is the power balance.
I mean, like, yeah, I got a ticket, but most
people will do it with the keyr code on their phone.
So that's one thing for the venues. The other obvious
thing is safety. I mean, I mean, let's be honest,
there's not always a security guard around, right, and especially
in these bigger kind of campuses of festival and thinking
(46:08):
of a bonaru, right, like you could call like the
volunteer stand from your phone and say, hey, someone's having
an overdose over here. You know what I mean. You
need to get somebody down here, right, So you need
cell service, not to mention, if there's some catastrophic event
that happens. People need to be able to contact the
(46:28):
outside world, right, So that's another reason. The third reason
I would say also is just it is a benefit
to the festival as well as outside as inside, meaning
that you have the inside, like to be honest, the
demand to be like, get these people on stage is
(46:51):
a little bit less. You can just they can chill
out on their phone, you know what I mean. Like
you can advertise to people in the middle of the
show before you know the show starts arts right and
go hey if you want, if you like Ariana Grande,
here's all the Live Nations concerts that are coming up
that are like Ariana Grande with a QR code on
the side of the led right, So like you can
(47:13):
do that and do cross advertisements that way. Obviously you
have social media posts that advertise the tour by itself
and then yeah, and that's more like you know, entertaining
inside and entertaining outside, right, because it's for a lot
of people, and some people would think this is very sad,
but it is what it is now. I mean, part
(47:33):
of the concert is getting the footage and being like
I was there and reminiscing on it and stuff like that.
So I think that this is a great effort to
modernize this experience that for a lot of live experiences
in recent years has felt very stagnant, like what can
(47:55):
we do to improve on it? And this is a
great way to improve on it. Right, I'd be very
interested to see you know, more basis in the space,
because I think it's highly important. I think that it
also just helps on, you know, overall use of the
network and being able to handle all of these signals.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
You know.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Imagine, imagine you are in Manchester, Tennessee, right where Bona
Rue is, and like there's so many people with phones
and you're like got a farm three houses down that
like you can't get signal anymore, you know what I mean, Like,
that's that's that's ridiculous, right. So I think that this
is a step for the future and for adding just
(48:38):
so many benefits. And I don't the only negative I
see from this is more, in my opinion made up,
Like I think it's more of that anti phone kind
of thing where it's like kids on their damn phone,
you know what I mean, We got to live with it, yeah, yeah,
if it like you could make all the arguments if
you want about like oh, you shouldn't hold your phone
(49:01):
up the entirety of the concert all that kind of
stuff or whatever, But at the same time, it's like
I need my phone to find my friends. If I
got lost at a festival, I need my phone to
get into the venue. I need my phone just for
added security and maybe, like you were saying in the
earlier example, like being able to just film maybe if
something it was happening it was bad and you were like,
(49:23):
I'm you know, something bad is happening to me. I'm
going to hit record and so I have evidence of this. Right,
These are all important things that need to be able
to be seen on a phone, right, and be able
to be used with an internet connection to immediately, Like
if something did bad happen to you, or you had
exceptionally bad service or something like that and you recorded
it and they were like, hey, give me your phone. Sorry,
(49:45):
I just uploaded to a cloud backup. You can't do
anything now, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Yeah, And even to go on the production side of
things as well, like a strong internet.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Oh my god, it's so good.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Yeah, Like it's it's very very important because like a
lot of the times, if you're on a content team
for a festival such as like Boundery or Coachella, you're
getting past like files left and right that you have
to post immediately, and if you don't have a strong connection,
it can make your life a living hell.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Well, you should hopefully be with like you know, the
house internet or whatever. But it is funny.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
Honestly, sometimes the house internet is garbage. I'll be like,
I'll be honest.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
That's true. And sometimes it's just better to go with
what the consumers are getting. But like you want to
hear something really really funny. You know. It's something that
people who do production stuff, who do big shows love,
They love it. They will pay money to have it,
to have a little mobile network that lets them do
(50:45):
it air drop. No printer, oh yeah, a printer that
works always. Yes, I am one of my many skills
other than the audio is printer guru. And and that
is a big thing. Is like that kind of stuff
where you have a printer that is always on network
(51:07):
and always works. So I think we're going to see
like more of the I mean going back to the cellular,
We're going to see more of this kind of modernization
when it comes to cellular. I think that, honestly, there's
not enough companies and people that do this kind of work.
So if you were looking to potentially come into the
(51:28):
industry or even diversify in the industry in a different way,
this is a very underutilized market in my opinion, and
there's very few people that are capable of doing it
at the scale that is necessary for these festivals. So
I would encourage you if you're like, I don't know
where to go. All I want is to work, you know,
(51:51):
in music business adjacent job and make money. This is
a really good place to do it.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
All right. Our favorite part of the show Colin, what
are you listening to?
Speaker 1 (52:05):
Oh god, oh god, I wasn't ready. So I've been
listening to It's been a little bit all over the place,
I'll be honest with you. For some reason, I was
laughing so hard because I was listening to I don't
know who's doing this, but it's the same kind of
nerd I am. Because somebody is doing like n sixty
(52:29):
four sound fonts of obscure Steely Dan and Donald Fagan songs,
and I don't know who's doing it, but I want
to salute you. It's exactly what it sounds like. It's
literally like all the sounds from Mario sixty four doing
Asia and stuff like that. But anyway, yeah, so that's
one of my joke things I've been listening to. I
(52:51):
was watching Righteous Gemstones and one of the characters on
the show is is Jennifer Nettles who and they sing
this song and it's called Misbehavin. That was a little
big on TikTok for a while, but I didn't know
what it was from, and I didn't know what it was,
and then I started watching the show and it's like
one of the greatest like satires of that kind of
(53:14):
there's this special kind of like sixties music because all
music cyclical, and Joe and I have talked about this
twenty year theory, but they do this really great job
of saturnizing it where they talk about like that they
had a song in the sixties that was called like
misbehavin and then they redo it in like nineteen eighty
nine and it's like way more popped up and like
(53:36):
fast and full band and stuff, which was like always
everything from sixties to eighties. So I think it's a
really good example of that. There's a lot of like
random examples of sixties bands and they'll like re record
in the eighties and it'll just be the song three
times faster. Like the one I think about is there's
a There's a Life in the Fast Laying cover of
(53:56):
Joe Walsh from about the middle of the eighties and
literally it's him doing life in the fast lane by himself,
not with the Eagles, and it's him playing it. And
you know, usually the songs do do Do Do Do
Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do
do do, but his version is do do do Do
Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do
Do do doo. It's like three times faster, and like,
(54:16):
I don't know why, it just this song Misbehavin hits
that niche for me where it's just very obscure like
saturnization of that kind of like hey, let's take the
sixty song and make it three times faster with a
full band. So I don't know what it is, but
it's very well sung and it's like great satire of
the kind of like gospel genre that's you know, poking
(54:38):
fun out. So, Joe, what have you been listening to?
Speaker 2 (54:41):
I've been listening a lot to the new Japanese House record.
In the end it always does, it's pretty great. It's
honestly their best record in my opinion. One thing you
don't know why, Uh, that's pretty much Japanese House right there.
Incarnate and then you know, wow, I'm really letting my
(55:01):
Indie Boys show today, but in Rainbows by Radiohead listened
a lot to that record this week as well. Wow,
but yeah, that's about it.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
Silence, silence anyway. Oh wow, Tom?
Speaker 2 (55:17):
Is that you Tom? I wasn't prepared for this interview.
What's it like? What's what's it like?
Speaker 1 (55:30):
And that's it. That's all the time we have for folks.
Thank you for Tom for being on the show.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1 (55:38):
Guys, thanks for listening to the biz tape. You're all
things music, business and name media podcasts. We sure do
appreciate you out there. If you want to go one
step further, follow us at the biz Tape pretty much
everywhere now newly on Threads. If you're into that, we
also have the show. Feel free to share it to
a friend or rate us good, bad, the ugly. We
don't care a ratings or rating anyways. Guys, thank you
(56:00):
again and as always, I have to see you next time.
Speaker 2 (56:15):
M
The cell phone coverage of concerts is getting better, and
Congress talks music and AI with Universal. You're listening to
the biz tape. Welcome to the biz tape. You're all
(00:24):
things of music, business and media podcasts. I'm Hero's con O,
kay My lovely co host Coast to Coast Joseph Waizewski
joining me via the interwebs.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yes, I'm ready barefoot. I just thought that I should
disclose that information to you and our audience members.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
How okay, I just want you to think in your head,
how would that add to the show and not take
because there's definitely somebody that's much value.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
There's so much value in being barefoot on a podcast.
First thing, let me tell you. Have you ever a class?
The bill? Your hands like together? Like you like class?
You like interlock them?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Am I a human being?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yes? I can going do that with my toes.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I'm gonna repeat the question. How do you think this
was gonna help the show today? This fact?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I don't know what you're talking about. I'm giving gold
content right now.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
This is over here doing like chimpanzee tricks over there,
being like I could use a pin with my toes,
you know. And you were like, I'm gonna bring this
out for Colin. He's gonna love this content here today.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I've been thinking about I've also been thinking about getting
a toe ring, just to try it out.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
No way, said the audience, who is super intrigued in
Joe's toe facts. Didn't think this show could go to
more Low's. But here we are, gentlemen. Man, Well, welcome
to the show. I have to admit, in full transparency,
I am also bare for.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Oh yeah, let's go.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
This is like a well, I'm not gonna say that.
I'm gonna stop myself. We try to be g rated
and then I'm saying the S and the F word
all the time. But we'll move on from that.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Is that San Francisco? Is that attorney work?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, that's it unspeakable place they the city that shall
not be named. But yeah, it's uh definitely, you're really
throwing me off of this food thing. I'm sorry now,
I'm just I had I had a moment momentum. I
(02:32):
really did. I did not think that was what we
were adding to today's Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
It's important to dispose these facts to people. It's okay,
you know what I've learned from mountains and mountains and
years of therapy, is uh that you really have to
be in the moment. You really want to be centered.
You want to center yourself, and one of the best
ways to do that is to acknowledge whether you have
shoes or not, and you can if you don't, it's
(03:00):
even better because then you can like feel around on
the ground and sell yourself and like be in the
moment with feet on the ground.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I'm just gonna let you do that. I guess you
got to put your best foot forward and keep on
going with that one. So anyway, let's let's keep on
moving here.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
For those of you who didn't catch that quite hear
that colle just played a boom boom sound.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
They can't hear that. I'm only gonna have maybe I will,
who knows, anyway, So let's just again this started with
this week. I thought I would start off with my
thing as we had a very universal pole, very non
polarizing pole for once, actually, because I honestly wanted a
good answer to see if somebody would give me a
(03:48):
rebuttle against it, and everybody was like, nope, calling you
right on this one. So I was like, sick, Thanks everybody,
Thanks for aerfirming everything. I'll call you if I get
in a fight with Joe, and I'll need you to
do that again. But anyway, so let's talk about Universal
Music Group is at Congress trying to pass a lot
of new regulation involving AI. We've talked about it on
(04:11):
the show before a while with AI and a lot
of questions, and you know, I'm one of the first
proponents to say that, you know, the laws notorious Lee
slow with trying to catch up with technology, but we're
finally kind of seeing big business try to talk to
Congress about growing the unregulated scene that is music and AI.
Long time coming, We've been waiting for it, but UMG
(04:32):
is coming in swinging quote at a hearing of the
Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, you know, just
like what we talk about all the time in our
daily lives. This was last Wednesday on the twelfth. Jeffrey Harrelston,
who's the General counsel and Executive vice president for Business
and Legal Affairs, that is a very grown up title
(04:54):
at UMG, basically was trying to shoot his shot and
laid out three specific laws UNG would like to enact
to help with all this AI stuff right. Hell yeah,
we had talked a little bit about the show. There
was a big petition going around about seven kind of
principles of AI. You can find that, I believe three
(05:14):
episodes back, four episodes back. But this is kind of
just like the general proving ground for congressional AI. Let's
get some stuff into law, and UMG, being one of
the biggest copyright holders of music in the world, is
very interested in making these things law. So let's just
go one by one by one by one. I must
(05:36):
say one by two, like that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
One by two, Actually.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Let's go by one by three, so one by three.
Starting with number one, UMG wants the nationwide right of
publicity law. Number two they want the labeling of AI
generated content, and number three the ability for copyright owners
to see what has gone into training of AI models.
So I'm gonna walk us through each one of these points.
(06:02):
The first point, the nationwide right of publicity law has
literally been being debated for literal decades. I remember Joe
and I sitting in class back in school and Max
school days. Vine still prevalent any still, yeah, still prevalent.
(06:26):
The probably there's still a company, but yeah, they probably
getting mad at that, they probably would say yeah, uh. Anyway,
So the right of publicity, let's just get right into that, folks.
The right of publicity uh is defined by Music Worldwide
pretty well and basically it says they say it refers
to an intellectual property right that protects against the unauthorized
(06:46):
use of a person's likeness, voice, or other aspects of
their identity. So this is kind of the laws when
it comes down to, you know, the pinnacle example is
like a sports star and a weedy bo Wheaty's box
right where you know, maybe like Serena Williams or Michael
Jordan or you know, another sports star gets on the
front of the Wheatie's box. They use their personality and
(07:09):
likeness on the front of the box that sells more cereal.
They are compensated for their likeness, right, And so there's
a lot of laws around that that have historically been
a nightmare to deal with. Why each state has their
own rules when it comes to these laws. I remember
Joe and I had a very long conversation because we
(07:30):
were just looking through it when we were in college
about it. But a lot of these laws change very
heavily state to state to state to state, and you
can guess it. The more industry like entertainment industry heavy
states like New York or California have very stringent rules
about how likeness and publicity should be used, usually more
(07:53):
towards you know, hey, pay the person if you use
their likeness. Da da da da. But if you go
to more states that are not known for energyment or
you know, are not as hustling and bustling as New
York or California, their laws are pretty bare bones. Why
does this matter because in a digital age, everything is
connected now and so what's happened is that you have
(08:15):
a lot of issues of jurisdiction, meaning like what laws
count for what. So for instance, like you know, there's
the in my wheedies example, you could have an example
of like oh, well we're selling this cereal in Montana
or something like that, and in Montana says we're allowed
to use your likeness to this extent that we can
(08:36):
do it. And then it would be like maybe Michael
Jordan being like in California, well, in my state, you know,
we have a lot more laws about that, and you
know I'm here, so the lawsuit should be here in
California so you can see how this can get really bad,
really fast, especially when it comes to money and likeness
specifically since it's literally people's faces ninety percent of the time,
(08:58):
or just what constitution, it's what you think of that
person almost a lot of the time. Right, So this
has historically made the legal system a nightmare for a
lot of this stuff. And guess what, I didn't even
get to the internet yet. I'm just talking about Wheatie's boxes,
a physical product whatever. The Internet makes this even more
(09:18):
of a nightmare. And Harleston was kind of talking a
lot about this is specifically AI generation of these figures, right,
because a lot of them are innately trying to be
and have the likeness of these celebrities to the point
where when it comes to trademark, which is what right
(09:40):
of publicity is under, it basically makes it their domain
to be like, hey, stop confusing consumers that you are
me right, this AI, for example, and we saw that
a lot with the Drake AI, where when we talked
about that a couple weeks ago, people were confused and
thought maybe it was a Drake song or it was.
(10:01):
And this AI is not getting worse, right, it's getting better.
All the time. I've actually been surprised about a lot
of the ai've seen recently with especially voice modulation and
how fast it's getting better and everything. So the point is,
let's say you have somebody in a different state who
made this Drake AI and then it got really big,
and you know, it's confused a shit a ton of people. Well,
(10:24):
Universal wants the right to go, hey, don't do that.
You know, we have the likeness for Drake and instead
of getting all up in the legal system and all,
you know, everybody spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in
lawyers just to decide where we're having the trial. First,
they were like, let's make a national law for this.
And from what I've talked to, like some different entertainment
(10:47):
lawyers and stuff like that, this seems to be a long, long,
long time coming. And even before the Internet, this has
been debated with, especially with artists of states where it's like, oh,
this artist died here and there's dates here, but then
their likeness is being used here. It's a nightmare. It's
the point of it. So Universe is really trying to
push for that, especially in the Internet age. Let's go
(11:09):
to number two, Number two is pretty clear, which is
labeling AI as AI, basically saying this that you have
to label AI as an AI as like Harrelson from
from UMG said, quote, deep fakes and or unauthorized recordings
or visuals of artists generated by AI can lead to
(11:30):
consumer confusion, unfair competition against the artists that was actually
the original creator, market dilution, and damage to the artist's reputation,
potentially irreplably harming their career. Now, come on, This was
the question I asked to the poll. Should we have
all AI labeled as AI? Because to be fair and
(11:53):
I'm Joe. I don't know if you voted on the poll,
but feel free in case you're one of the few dissenters.
Most of almost one hundred percent of the poll agreed
that we should label AI as AI every time. Yeah, right, yeah,
because voted for that just so because like I honestly
was trying to come up for a reason not to
(12:14):
you know what I mean, Like, what could we not
you know, why should we not do this? So I
was trying to play devil really.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
A reason because it's like it is just providing more
transparency in the market and allowing consumers to make the
decision whether or not they want to to accept AI
into their ears pretty much, right.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I mean we remember like the huge I remember the
huge like speaking of college deep fake scandals where people thought, oh,
this celebrity is doing this thing or whatever, right, and
like how celebrities had to be like no, that's not me,
that's not who I am, you know, all that kind
of stuff. And I think with music, as it gets
even better, we're getting to that point, you know, Like
(12:55):
I said, with that Drake AI, people were confused. Well,
I think that's proper way.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
There's a lot of factors too, even like on the
political like end of this last election cycle, there was
a lot of talks and debates about deep fix because
in a lot of cases, each well like one particular
side was using a lot more deep fake campaigns than
(13:21):
the other side side, and there was like a big
mass amount of like accounts that were like like it
was like tweeting out like fake videos, like edited videos
as well as like just purely not like real footage
of stuff happening, yeah, which like then kind of feeds
(13:44):
into this like disinformation campaign in propaganda campaign that like
a lot of I would say, like a lot of
Americans understand exist, but there's also a lot of Americans
that do not understand that what they're seeing on the internet.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
And as these tools get stronger, right, like it, it's
gonna be harder for a human eye to perceive them, right.
I mean, we're getting to the point with some different
tools of AI where we literally have to develop other
aimin it's AI.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, there was a great Daily episode about like teachers
right grading papers and stuff and they had to plug
it in. And there there are like especially like chat,
GPT and stuff. There's there's like already other AI like
technology that detects whether it's written by a robot pretty much,
(14:35):
but there's a lot that's like you know, like if
you're able to write it in your voice and like
able to feed the algorithm some form of like personality,
it's able to kind of like seek past a lot
of those things, and so like having some sort of
(14:56):
gait way of like, oh this is like we're allowed
to share the public in a responsible way could really
impact not only the music industry and entertainment industry, but
like every industry as a whole, because it could provide
some sort of like backing or even value to people
(15:19):
that might be taken away, which like even people in
the writer Striker like talking about this situation, like similar
situation of like you have to hear, yeah, you have
to provide like clarity that you were using these things.
And I mean the WGA one was so crazy, which
(15:40):
like I'm sure everyone has seen this story at this point,
but their proposal, the studious proposal to the WGA was
literally like, oh, we're going to scan an extra's body.
We're going to hire them three hundred which is like
the minimal amount of money for like a day's work,
and we're going to scan their body, and we're going
to be able to have their the rights to their
(16:02):
face for eternity, and we get to bank them a
massive server. Yeah yeah, and it's we can use to.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Have an extra. We'll put her in the back, you.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Know, yeah, exactly, and what they wanted to do. You
don't get paid for any usage of your name or likeness.
Ironically enough, a lot of people are calling it black
Mirror esque because there's literally a uh like an episode
off the new season about that called Shona is Afraid.
(16:34):
So I mean this this technology is very real, real
and it's very he like it's here these studios and
these companies are already like using them and trying to
figure out ways to cut costs, and so it is
important that like these topics are debated now rather than
later as well.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, and I completely agree on that. And to hit
back on our point number one a little bit too,
like there is a big you know, a lot of
different states have a lot of different laws when it
comes to that kind of publicity compensation too, So it's
kind of crazy when it comes to and the rights
that you have. Yeah, to have that you you know,
(17:16):
especially like the writers example, is great, but also like
let's think of a you know, one of the funny
facts I remember saying was justin Bieber Baby, Drake is
in the background of that music video, right, Like, imagine
now if Drake accidentally, you know, like they're like, oh,
we're gonna film this, and this is honestly not to
(17:37):
you know, try to roll it out of proportion, but
this is kind of where some of this technology is going.
Imagine if they had him in the background, they like
scanned him, you know what I mean, and they're like, oh,
we just owned Drake's likeness perpetually right now. But he's
not Drake yet, you know, then no one knows that yet,
right because it's baby it's like twenty eleven, right. And
then he gets big and the studio has a yeah, yeah,
(17:58):
this studio has likeness of them, and then it's like,
what are the hell you know?
Speaker 2 (18:04):
All of his profits essentially.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Right, we can dilute which is a very important quote
here is this says we can have market delution, which
I feel like is kind of insane to think about, which,
to be honest, makes sense. It reminds me of like
when a when an artist or an album is like
super super super big, and then like for a while,
(18:27):
like there's streams like obviously like pitter patter out, but
there's almost like the opposite words like ah, we just
listen to Taylor Swift, or like we just listened to
Harry Styles, you know what I mean. Imagine if your
music could be so diluted by all these bots hitting
all the time, and then it's just annoying and bad
quality and you're just like I don't want to listen
(18:48):
to Yeah. It would be like I listen to a
thousand of the bots.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
It would be like if you turn on every movie
and like every movie is like the same thing pretty much.
It's like the same structure, the same whatever, and it's
it we're kind of already to some level, like but
like it is, like it is scary though, because it's
like when you're taking away the humanity of art and
(19:15):
creation and like entertainment, because entertainment is an art medium,
Like there's no doubt about it. There's it can be
very mechanical in some facets, but it's it's very much
still an art form at least in my opinion. And
I do think that when you take that human aspect
out of it, where where it's like it's almost like
(19:39):
just these studio executives like making decisions and like pulling
trigger on projects that are just easy and cheap to make.
Those are gonna, like you said, dilute everything because it's
just gonna flood the market with a bunch of useless
crap that then it just becomes bad content. It's gonna
like Netflix is gonna start looking like like a Facebook
(20:00):
mom's page, you know of just like poorly made, horrible looking.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
It's gonna be that Shiloh aboff song. Yeah, and then
your eye you spot Shiloh abuff.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I feel like it's like, who at that point are
you relating to because you're you start not relating to
an actual human emotion, but instead you're just relating to money,
and it becomes ads at that point, it's just a.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Glorified shiloh abuff. Anyway, Yeah, I just uh no, I
agree with that completely, and especially with music, because to
be honest, it's just hard to get people, you know,
pumped up to listen to new music all the time.
So if you're berating them constantly with you know, all
these things that they think are real artists and they're not,
(20:48):
then they're gonna get sick of it, you know, and
go to the next quote.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
It's hard to get people to to get pumped up
for anything nowadays. I feel like even like you know,
strong movie industry where it's like I've seen you know
how many times they've seen a fucking Oppenheimer like description
of like, oh, he shot it one seventy millimeter film.
This is why you have to see this movie instead
of just being like it's a movie and it's out
(21:13):
and I want to see it.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, there's like if you started diluting it, and consumers
are increasingly smarter and smarter, you know, if you start
really diluting the market with that, and it's just becomes
again like as as theg rep here says, he goes
damage to the artist's reputation and potentially irrepulably harming their career,
(21:35):
you know, because people just get sick of it. Let's
go to the third point so we don't miss out
on that one. The third point is quote copyright holder
is knowing if their music is used to generate AI,
which is honestly really interesting because at the end of
the day, what does AI do. It takes a giant
vat of information, whatever that be. If it's chat, GBT,
(21:58):
it's text, if it's you know, like a singing model
like the Drake one, it's a bunch of Drake songs
and stuff. But it basically puts it through the machine,
consumes it analyzes, it sees the patterns, puts it all together.
And my question to a lot of these AI people,
and a question that legally hasn't been answered, is is
(22:18):
that derivative? Innately? Is it so different enough because of
the technology that it's not derivative of the copyrighted material
or is it derivative? And the reason why I use
the word derivative is because that's the important legal term
for it. It's the reason that Marvin Gay was able
to sue you know, Robin Thick for blurred lines. He said,
(22:39):
this song is derivative. It comes from my song. I
really I was about to say that, sorry Marvin Gay estate,
but it raises up to scorn. But like, yeah, it's
like that, and that's important question here is is it derivative?
(23:00):
And obviously, I feel like that's a very loaded question.
I don't feel like there's a lot of people on
any side, either if you're an AI maker or a musician,
that have enough of the entire model to really come
up with an answer for that. Yet it's definitely one
that needs to be answered. And I think that UMG
obviously is definitely definitely like shooting their shot here because
(23:26):
they're one of the biggest copyright holders in the world. Right,
that means so much more money for them. Right if
every song that is derivative from AI, they get a
cut of if their artist is used in it, and
that goes for publishers, that goes for artists, that goes
for songwriters and stuff like that. But it's gonna be
really interesting to see how that argument plays out, and
(23:50):
to be honest, out of the three points, is probably
the most legally interesting one. I mean, I ask about
point number two in our poll, should we label all
the ais clearly because I just wanted to see if
anybody else had another answer, you know what I mean.
And you guys are smart, intelligent people that listen tots
to you. No, I'm checking, but you guys are cool
(24:13):
and so anyway, like the point is, you guys are
intelligent out there. So I was like, maybe they'll come
up with another answer for this. I couldn't come up
with them. It seems like you guys couldn't either. And
then the right of publicity law has honestly been being
screamed at for literally seventy years since literally the silver
age screen literally has been getting screamed at by lawyers
(24:34):
for years. But this last point is honestly one of
the most interesting points in the entire thing, and honestly
has probably the most arguments to be made. Is that
how much of this is derivative and how nitty gritty
are we going to have to make the law to
determine what different AI models are derivative? And what aren't
(24:58):
you know, because not all all of these AI models
are the same thing. It's you know, I very much
simplified it. I said, you'd throw all these songs in
a machine, it analyzes it and it comes out as
a drake AI. Right. That's way oversimplifying, right, So it's
going to be interesting to see how that works from
proving that. And the other thing that was really interesting
(25:22):
was that Congress actually pushed back about this answer and
they and they asked Haraldston if he could like kind
of talk about how they would put all of these
markers everywhere, you know, to say like hello, UMG, I
am a drake AI. And he said, quote, it absolutely
could be done. As the digital platforms that exist today
(25:45):
license millions and millions of songs every week, so it's
not a problem in that retrospect. There's metadata that we
could license and we could absolutely do that. But there
has to be an initiative on the side of AI
companies to reach out basically saying we have the technology,
you guys can bill us, you know what I mean.
(26:06):
So my question to you, Joe is what do we
think about that? Point number three? I think this is
honestly one of the most interesting points in the in
their entire argument and probably the most argumentative is where
does you know the differential of technology start and music begin?
You know, as we've separated that a lot in our
(26:28):
studio culture for instance.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I think that well to the point of like the
whole entire thing, like all three, I think that UMG
is kind of asking for the world here, and they're
expecting to the moon. Yeah, they're shooting for the moon.
They're they're kind of hoping to land somewhere in between.
And I think, honestly the biggest thing that they want,
like number one is the labeling of AI generated content.
(26:53):
I think would would argue minimal like it would it
would be like the most like fail safe, like okay,
well even if they steal my ship, we could get
this point, yeah exactly, And there's there's a level of
uh build upon that at that point, like that's past.
Maybe we can push for these other things later. When
(27:14):
it comes to number three, the ability of copyright owners
to see what's like like if their shit has been
like AI modeled essentially, I think that that is a
very important thing. I would agree. I think that that
should be uh something that happens and but the issue
(27:37):
that I'm running into is the police ability of that
because a lot of these AI models do not have
boundaries put into place when it comes to like data mining,
So it's like they're scouring.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
The don't boundaries.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah exactly, They're like just getting into everyone's ships like essentially,
And the fact of the matter is the bots, because
you know, they're bots. Pretty much, these bots can like
get into everything in such a short amount of time,
whereas like a human minor data minor can't. Right, So
(28:17):
it's something of like we could have like another AI
that like basically finds the other AI and like kind
of keeps it in the boundaries, but I think it
would be extremely difficult to police and to actually have
that happened. I think the only instance of that being
a thing is like if in litigation something happened and
(28:40):
like they brought up the fact that they were you know,
mined for data essentially. But when it comes to number
one as well, my opinion on that is, I think
that there are a lot of states that just are
in refusal of publicity laws, especially like the Middle territories.
(29:03):
I think that the ohios, uh no, but that is
like that's that's a hard bargain because because of the
fact that like a lot of these UH suits and
a lot of these possible laws that are brought up
(29:26):
have not successfully been able to turn that uh and
and get that to a place of like, oh, we
can actually have some safety for some of these celebrities.
I don't know, Like my personal opinion on that is like,
I don't really know. I think like I think, yes,
I think the right of publicity of like when it
(29:47):
comes to obviously, like if you're using an ad for somebody,
like and you're using Johnny Depp's face and an ad
in Ohio, like, yeah, he needs to be paid for
that right. But when it comes to like publicity of
like when it dipping into like the privacy laws effect
of like can you take photos of people on a street?
(30:08):
That's where it gets a little murky, because it's like,
in some level it's our it's our right to be
able to be able like to photograph or videotape a
public street even without a film permit in a lot
of cases, And one of the biggest ways of that
(30:29):
is like public safety right if like a police officer
such as an example like steps out of line, and
is violating your human rights, then you're able to get
that on film and not be reprimanded for that, right,
Like there there's a level there of like this is
a public servant and that is like there is a
(30:50):
level too.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Kind of saying about like the we want to obviously
make this succinct when it comes to publicity, but at
the same time, we don't want this right of publicity
to be overbearing. Yeah in a lot of ways. Yeah, exactly,
especially with right of publicity because right of publicity I basically,
from what I've been explained about it, right of publicity
(31:13):
and right of privacy almost do like a one eighty
on each other. Like the more famous you get, you
kind of go into righte a publicity territory, and then
the less famous you are, you're more in the right
of privacy and you kind of gain one more and
lose the other. So the idea, like Joe's saying, is like,
you know, if it doesn't seem well that random individuals,
(31:36):
for instance, on a public street could have so much
right of publicity if that is strengthened nationwide that nobody
could film them, nobody could document anything, right, Like if
somebody was literally you know, doing something heinous in the streets.
It's like, yeah, you should be able to document that, right.
You can't be like they're too famous to right. But
the point that I'm trying to say is that, like
(31:58):
we're I agree with all your points. I definitely think
number two is probably the easiest one. Most people seem
to be in agreeance on that. And in the same way,
I think number three is an interesting question but has
the same flaws number two, which is that there's gonna
be a lot of them that try to hide in
(32:20):
plane sight ye, meaning that, like you're saying the policing,
I think that there's gonna be a lot of people.
And this is really interesting because I think it's one
of the in the digital age. And we talked about
that Rick Astley case a while ago where he was
suing for his likeness on a recording which was unheard of.
(32:41):
I think that might have been one of the for
that Young Grady song, Betty. I think that that might
have been an interesting conversation to open up with because
I think this AI stuff is getting into that territory
where you're seeing how much likeness actually goes into sound recording,
for instance, Then you also have the ability of how
(33:02):
they market it, right, Because like, at the same time
that if I put a you know, a figure silhouette
like the air Jordan's logo everywhere and said this famous
basketball player was on this song or something, most people
would think, who is it Michael Jordan, Right, But you
could be misled easily in the same way like that,
(33:22):
you could say, like, oh my god, you know him
as the biggest Spotify artists of all time and a rapper.
We all know here he is on this song, and
you see what I'm doing. I'm like getting away from
saying who it is, but you can kind of put
together who I'm talking about, right, And so that's what
I think is going to be interesting is a lot
(33:43):
of that. I think, to be honest, Number one and
number three are kind of locked together in the way
that I think if these labels want the ability to
secure like revenue streams from these as companies, because like
they said, we want AI companies to reach out and
(34:03):
they're not right now, right an initiative is what he said, right.
I think what this is going to be is a
handhold of the you get to market this as a
Drake like song, and that will get it more publicity,
as we saw a couple of weeks ago with that
Drake song that blew up, right, But we get a
(34:25):
cut of the money and you get to keep it
up because we could take it down. And I think
that's what's going to maybe start happening. But legally, right
now it's just no man's land. There's no precedent for
that at all. These are all handshakes and emails under
the table right now, so it definitely needs to be
(34:45):
hammered out and everything like that. Lastly, I'll end up
on Joe's point. The right of publicity is one of
the most interesting legal cases that has arised in the
twentieth century. And where that starts him where that ends,
especially now have we got it's infinitely gotten worse. It
was a problem in the fifties with the Marilynd Montroe
(35:06):
a state and stuff. It's been a problem for decades.
And I think that in the same way that we
do need a unified law about it, how we go
about that law is going to be insane because no
one is debating how much this clogs up courts and
time with what's the jurisdiction of this DA DA DA
da DA, But at the same time, to get a
(35:28):
unified law, it takes a lot of work and a
lot of forethought to think how far is too far,
how far is too little? You know, would a California
state kind of publicity law going into effect be great
across the entire United States? Or should we look at Nebraska?
You know what I mean? Like this is the difference
in what we're looking at. So all of these points
(35:50):
are going to be heavily debated. Although I do agree
with Joe. I think number two is going to be
probably the one that Congresses go, Okay, we're going to
start this talk. Here's your bone. We're going to say
that if you're an AI, you gotta label yourself right,
you can impersonate other people, and we'll talk about the
other two points. Yeah, Joe, what do you got Because
(36:14):
I actually have a bone in this argument with what
you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
I think everybody does what I do. Everybody has a
bone or a brick, if you know what I mean.
That sounded that sounded more sexual than Yeah, wait for
the content.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Another wait, I'm putting another drum beat in there. That'll
make it fine, It won't make it weird.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Keep going, uh, cell service is getting better at festivals. Finally,
when you're in the middle of nowhere at Banou, you
might be able to use your phone. I'm saying might
because it's not quite there yet, but it's kind of
getting there. So this might seem a bit of a
mild article in comparison to what we've talked about in
(36:56):
the past, But as Billboard points out, quote, while cell
phones used to be just a way of connecting with
or trying to connect with friends at shows, they're now
seen as posts of part of the concert and festival experience,
with mobile ticketing, venue apps, and digital payment systems demanding
fully functional coverage.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
And as the age always on their damn phone.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah I know, but I mean as the age of
social media dona as the concert experience. Maybe to the
dismay of Miranda Lambert this past week, promoters and venue
operators are looking up to up the ante with some
fancy new technology from a company called Matt Singh, which
is a California based tech company founded in two thousand
(37:43):
and five. According to the company's executive VP, quote, festivals
are the hardest things to create coverage capacity for, alluding
to the terabytes of data usage that companies like Verizon
AT and T, T Mobile and more have to battle against.
In order to solve this high volume problem in the
(38:04):
demand of it, the company builds antennas that, instead of
reflecting signals like traditional antennas do, it refracts them, which
creates multiple independent signals beamed in directions. Yeah. It's it's crazy. Shit.
It's like have you ever seen Scooby Doo cyberspace?
Speaker 1 (38:26):
I have?
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Okay, good, it's like that Colin where like a monster
comes out of your phone and takes your signal and
then the horrible joke, but.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
It came out of a computer and it was okay.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
But Colin, instant way for century, we have computers in
our pants now, hence the brick joke. Alright, another job, okay, yeah,
all right, And as Billboard points out, quote, instead of
implementing ten individual antennas at an event, uh you, you
(39:00):
can now employe one Matt sing lens antenna that creates
ten separate coverage sectors and allows multiple carriers to utilize it.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
So oh my god.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, they're able to just pretty much condense their coverage
units to like one unit, whereas before you'd have to
get like a unit per like AT and T, Verizin,
T Mobile, blah blah blah. So how does it work
well according to the company, or actually we already did
that does it work according to the company. Twenty fourteen
(39:32):
Coachella AT and T users had data coverage and they
quote actually got coverage that year, whereas Verizon T Mobile
people did not. And afterwards Verizin and T Mobile started
hitting their lines, hiring them for future work and covering
their sites. But why are companies so worried about coverage,
(39:54):
especially when it comes to festivals and concerts. Well, in
high demand settings such as a festival or concert, a
loss in signal is also a loss in subscribers, as
people tend to remember those moments more and especially in
a mass gathering event, people have the expectation of coverage,
(40:14):
especially like if you're in the middle of like downtown Nashville,
right You're at Bridgetone Arena, You're in the middle of
a major metropolitan city and you're not getting cell coverage.
That can be very frustrating, especially like when you leave
the venue, you're trying to figure out a ride home situation,
You're trying to get safe, you're trying to find your people.
It can be very very taxing mentally physically, and also
(40:38):
a scary situation, especially if you need it for an
emergency situation. But as Billboard points out, business is booming.
As Matt Singh has held has sold more than one
hundred and fifty plus antenna models directly to carriers and
are now permanently installed at thirty two US Stadium's, arena's raceway,
(41:00):
and venues including the Hollywood Bowl. And now they're working
on festivals such as Austin City Limits, Lollapalooza, Outside Lands,
New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and our favorite Burning Man.
So Colin, my biggest question is, first, does this distract
(41:22):
from the concert experience? And what I mean by that
is like, especially in Burning Man, I feel like the
whole point of that festival is to get away from
technology and to like figure it out, and it's like
a survivalist.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
I mean, it was so like the Mark Zuckerberg types
of the world were like we could pitch here. But
I don't think so. I think that that question in
two thousand and one might have been does it distract?
But we've had close to twenty years of you know,
the iPhone revolution of phones, and that is the way
(42:01):
that people are used to concerts. Now, it's something that
I think doesn't necessarily distract. I think it has created
a new form for sure, do I okay, well, let
me hear the question in nately. Is it a distraction? Yes?
Is it a distraction in our modern world that we
(42:22):
have to deal with? Yes? And so in that same way,
there's a number of answers why a lot of these
venues are dealing with it? Specifically company I work at,
that's one of our biggest things in business is putting
these networks all across and so there's continual network coverage
across an entire space for not only you know, the vendors,
(42:46):
but also for the patrons, right because like you said,
it's expected. Right if you're somewhere like a metropolitan area
or even a festival, you think, oh, I'll have internet coverage, right.
I mean, people last year took a bunch of videos
and stuff and posted them the same you know, minute
that this performance happened. I should be able to do
(43:07):
the same thing too. So it feels almost like a
rolling stone that keeps getting pushed down the line. And
I think it's amazing if you've never seen this before,
but like in a lot of RF scanners and stuff,
and I've talked to a bunch of people who do this,
who do RF coordination, do all the wireless mics and
the ims and stuff like that. You can see it
(43:28):
on those scanners. Like they'll go into a venue eight am.
It's just the crew, you know, maybe it is like
fifty sixty people whatever, right, and they pick their frequencies
like and so they can broadcast these microphones wirelessly to
a transmitter and then you could hear let's say, Taylor
Swiss voice even though there's no wire right. So that's
(43:50):
how it's supposed to work. And I've heard so many times.
What they do is they coordinate. They make it good.
They look at like you know, TV signals, all this
kind of stuff that's going around in the air, and
then all the people come in with their cell phones
and everything changes. Yep, because there's if you think about it,
seventy thousand people there. Most of them have a cell phone.
(44:10):
Even if I round down and say somehow ten thousand
of them don't have and sixty thousand cell phones with
signals going everywhere, it's gonna change the space, right, it's
kind of crazy. I mean it's it's almost hilarious because
if you think about it, like a live concert in
terms of signal is so much smaller. Right, It's like,
(44:33):
you know, if you even in big shows, it's like
one hundred two hundred microphones, right, You're not coming close
to sixty thousand phones that all need to connect to
the internet and take photos and do all this stuff. Right.
It's an insanely complicated business and it helps out the
you know, venues in a number of ways. I mean,
the most obvious ones are you can't even print a
(44:55):
paper ticket anymore from half the time, you know what
I mean, So it's just ticketing now, right, Yeah, Like
if you bring a paper ticket a lot of time,
you're like that guy, right.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
I'm that that's one airplane. I will say, I'll get
to the airport early, and I will I will pay.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
I'm gonna admit we're both that guy because for some reason,
I love having that paper. It's just throwing up to
him and being like this is mine.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Here's thinking the side note. Here's the thing that's the
best about that is because like when your flight innately
gets changed, like your gate gets changed. It's it's on
your ticket, it's right there when it's on your phone,
doesn't populate, doesn't happen, doesn't tell you. So you're just
kind of rolling through the airport trying to figure it out.
(45:45):
But anyways, continue calling.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Sorry anyway, Yes, there is the there is the power balance.
I mean, like, yeah, I got a ticket, but most
people will do it with the keyr code on their phone.
So that's one thing for the venues. The other obvious
thing is safety. I mean, I mean, let's be honest,
there's not always a security guard around, right, and especially
in these bigger kind of campuses of festival and thinking
(46:08):
of a bonaru, right, like you could call like the
volunteer stand from your phone and say, hey, someone's having
an overdose over here. You know what I mean. You
need to get somebody down here, right, So you need
cell service, not to mention, if there's some catastrophic event
that happens. People need to be able to contact the
(46:28):
outside world, right, So that's another reason. The third reason
I would say also is just it is a benefit
to the festival as well as outside as inside, meaning
that you have the inside, like to be honest, the
demand to be like, get these people on stage is
(46:51):
a little bit less. You can just they can chill
out on their phone, you know what I mean. Like
you can advertise to people in the middle of the
show before you know the show starts arts right and
go hey if you want, if you like Ariana Grande,
here's all the Live Nations concerts that are coming up
that are like Ariana Grande with a QR code on
the side of the led right, So like you can
(47:13):
do that and do cross advertisements that way. Obviously you
have social media posts that advertise the tour by itself
and then yeah, and that's more like you know, entertaining
inside and entertaining outside, right, because it's for a lot
of people, and some people would think this is very sad,
but it is what it is now. I mean, part
(47:33):
of the concert is getting the footage and being like
I was there and reminiscing on it and stuff like that.
So I think that this is a great effort to
modernize this experience that for a lot of live experiences
in recent years has felt very stagnant, like what can
(47:55):
we do to improve on it? And this is a
great way to improve on it. Right, I'd be very
interested to see you know, more basis in the space,
because I think it's highly important. I think that it
also just helps on, you know, overall use of the
network and being able to handle all of these signals.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
You know.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Imagine, imagine you are in Manchester, Tennessee, right where Bona
Rue is, and like there's so many people with phones
and you're like got a farm three houses down that
like you can't get signal anymore, you know what I mean, Like,
that's that's that's ridiculous, right. So I think that this
is a step for the future and for adding just
(48:38):
so many benefits. And I don't the only negative I
see from this is more, in my opinion made up,
Like I think it's more of that anti phone kind
of thing where it's like kids on their damn phone,
you know what I mean, We got to live with it, yeah, yeah,
if it like you could make all the arguments if
you want about like oh, you shouldn't hold your phone
(49:01):
up the entirety of the concert all that kind of
stuff or whatever, But at the same time, it's like
I need my phone to find my friends. If I
got lost at a festival, I need my phone to
get into the venue. I need my phone just for
added security and maybe, like you were saying in the
earlier example, like being able to just film maybe if
something it was happening it was bad and you were like,
(49:23):
I'm you know, something bad is happening to me. I'm
going to hit record and so I have evidence of this. Right,
These are all important things that need to be able
to be seen on a phone, right, and be able
to be used with an internet connection to immediately, Like
if something did bad happen to you, or you had
exceptionally bad service or something like that and you recorded
it and they were like, hey, give me your phone. Sorry,
(49:45):
I just uploaded to a cloud backup. You can't do
anything now, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Yeah, And even to go on the production side of
things as well, like a strong internet.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Oh my god, it's so good.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Yeah, Like it's it's very very important because like a
lot of the times, if you're on a content team
for a festival such as like Boundery or Coachella, you're
getting past like files left and right that you have
to post immediately, and if you don't have a strong connection,
it can make your life a living hell.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Well, you should hopefully be with like you know, the
house internet or whatever. But it is funny.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
Honestly, sometimes the house internet is garbage. I'll be like,
I'll be honest.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
That's true. And sometimes it's just better to go with
what the consumers are getting. But like you want to
hear something really really funny. You know. It's something that
people who do production stuff, who do big shows love,
They love it. They will pay money to have it,
to have a little mobile network that lets them do
(50:45):
it air drop. No printer, oh yeah, a printer that
works always. Yes, I am one of my many skills
other than the audio is printer guru. And and that
is a big thing. Is like that kind of stuff
where you have a printer that is always on network
(51:07):
and always works. So I think we're going to see
like more of the I mean going back to the cellular,
We're going to see more of this kind of modernization
when it comes to cellular. I think that, honestly, there's
not enough companies and people that do this kind of work.
So if you were looking to potentially come into the
(51:28):
industry or even diversify in the industry in a different way,
this is a very underutilized market in my opinion, and
there's very few people that are capable of doing it
at the scale that is necessary for these festivals. So
I would encourage you if you're like, I don't know
where to go. All I want is to work, you know,
(51:51):
in music business adjacent job and make money. This is
a really good place to do it.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
All right. Our favorite part of the show Colin, what
are you listening to?
Speaker 1 (52:05):
Oh god, oh god, I wasn't ready. So I've been
listening to It's been a little bit all over the place,
I'll be honest with you. For some reason, I was
laughing so hard because I was listening to I don't
know who's doing this, but it's the same kind of
nerd I am. Because somebody is doing like n sixty
(52:29):
four sound fonts of obscure Steely Dan and Donald Fagan songs,
and I don't know who's doing it, but I want
to salute you. It's exactly what it sounds like. It's
literally like all the sounds from Mario sixty four doing
Asia and stuff like that. But anyway, yeah, so that's
one of my joke things I've been listening to. I
(52:51):
was watching Righteous Gemstones and one of the characters on
the show is is Jennifer Nettles who and they sing
this song and it's called Misbehavin. That was a little
big on TikTok for a while, but I didn't know
what it was from, and I didn't know what it was,
and then I started watching the show and it's like
one of the greatest like satires of that kind of
(53:14):
there's this special kind of like sixties music because all
music cyclical, and Joe and I have talked about this
twenty year theory, but they do this really great job
of saturnizing it where they talk about like that they
had a song in the sixties that was called like
misbehavin and then they redo it in like nineteen eighty
nine and it's like way more popped up and like
(53:36):
fast and full band and stuff, which was like always
everything from sixties to eighties. So I think it's a
really good example of that. There's a lot of like
random examples of sixties bands and they'll like re record
in the eighties and it'll just be the song three
times faster. Like the one I think about is there's
a There's a Life in the Fast Laying cover of
(53:56):
Joe Walsh from about the middle of the eighties and
literally it's him doing life in the fast lane by himself,
not with the Eagles, and it's him playing it. And
you know, usually the songs do do Do Do Do
Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do
do do, but his version is do do do Do
Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do
Do do doo. It's like three times faster, and like,
(54:16):
I don't know why, it just this song Misbehavin hits
that niche for me where it's just very obscure like
saturnization of that kind of like hey, let's take the
sixty song and make it three times faster with a
full band. So I don't know what it is, but
it's very well sung and it's like great satire of
the kind of like gospel genre that's you know, poking
(54:38):
fun out. So, Joe, what have you been listening to?
Speaker 2 (54:41):
I've been listening a lot to the new Japanese House record.
In the end it always does, it's pretty great. It's
honestly their best record in my opinion. One thing you
don't know why, Uh, that's pretty much Japanese House right there.
Incarnate and then you know, wow, I'm really letting my
(55:01):
Indie Boys show today, but in Rainbows by Radiohead listened
a lot to that record this week as well. Wow,
but yeah, that's about it.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
Silence, silence anyway. Oh wow, Tom?
Speaker 2 (55:17):
Is that you Tom? I wasn't prepared for this interview.
What's it like? What's what's it like?
Speaker 1 (55:30):
And that's it. That's all the time we have for folks.
Thank you for Tom for being on the show.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1 (55:38):
Guys, thanks for listening to the biz tape. You're all
things music, business and name media podcasts. We sure do
appreciate you out there. If you want to go one
step further, follow us at the biz Tape pretty much
everywhere now newly on Threads. If you're into that, we
also have the show. Feel free to share it to
a friend or rate us good, bad, the ugly. We
don't care a ratings or rating anyways. Guys, thank you
(56:00):
again and as always, I have to see you next time.
Speaker 2 (56:15):
M
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