 It's the mat work. Wow, what's up, everybody? Once again, it's Brandon and Sean, and welcome to Music News That Matters. We're on the first of each month. We hope you sift through the noise to bring you the most important industry news. Hi, guys. Josh here. Yeah, we're back. We know there's so much information out there, but we're going to focus on topics that matter most to you guys and give you our perspective as well. In this episode, we're going to be bringing you up to speed on the latest with TikTok's Basel against US government. I'm also going to talk about Kanye and his Twitter rant and his new recording publishing deal guidelines. Before we start, of course, these videos are only once a month. Make sure you sign up to our newsletter to get notified to our latest news and why it matters in between episodes. You can also listen to the podcast on the go, along with this episode and all the previous ones. It's going to be on Spotify, Apple Music, wherever you get your podcasts. Awesome. So here we are, Sean. It's been a while. Yeah, man. Have we skipped a month, or has this month just seemed impossibly long to me? I feel like it's a little bit. I think we missed last month, yeah. We did. Man. Yeah, we did, yeah. Yeah. OK. I think, yeah, we've both been very busy. But the last time we were talking, we were talking about the prospect of a TikTok ban. And a lot's happened since then, but not a lot at the same time, because we're still not much clearer on the final outcome. It looked like it was going to be resolved early this month when Oracle stepped in to buy TikTok. Obviously, there was Microsoft on the table before, and they rejected that. But I don't know how much you've been following about it, but obviously, it's all set in agreement. Like Walmart and Oracle were going to buy 20% stake in TikTok. So that had all gone through. So Oracle would have a 12.5% stake. And Walmart, 7.5% stake in TikTok Global. But when, so this was all agreed, and obviously, and Trump sanctioned it. So it was all set to go through. But then Oracle then came out and said that when TikTok Global has been created, we're going to own most of it. It's going to be American-owned. And BiteDance will no longer own TikTok Global. But then BiteDance came back and said that we're not going to be losing control of TikTok and TikTok Global is 100% owned by us. And it's a subsidiary of BiteDance. So there's a clear conflict here in terms of like, people are on the same page. Right, right. So that's still very much a mess. And then it was supposed to be banned on the app stores in the US last weekend. And that's what Trump wanted to do. But then TikTok filed for an injunction which is granted to stop it being banned because they were going to take it off the app store so you couldn't download it anymore if you're a new user. And there'd be no further updates to the application. But you still had the app download, you could use it. But that never happened. So it's still on the app store and still all working fine. But there's a lot to sort out clearly between BiteDance and Oracle. Because originally we thought it was going to be a proper buyout, but really all this is really is Oracle investing in the company. So it's not really what Trump the administration had in mind. So it's all just a massive mess again, it seems. And clearly these agreements have been done but they don't know who owns what and BiteDance still clearly want to have full control and that would never be allowed by Trump. So it's all pointing back towards it being banned again after all this. That's what I always understand, like thinking when I first heard about the Oracle deal I was like, this isn't what Trump asked for. No, no. This is in no way blocking them from any of their other presence. They really just added another American stakeholder and hope to leverage the fact that there's somebody who else will benefit from it in terms of American corporation to I guess increase their lobbying ability. But I don't know, man. I mean, because there's also that aspect of China changing their laws to prevent or enable them to be able to withhold the algorithm whether TikTok tries to or not or BiteDance tries to or not. Hey, yeah, you can take the TikTok name but we can keep the algorithm itself from being sold. So now you have the brand and maybe the users of the platform but you no longer have the algorithm which is the sauce that's the primary IP which really makes a company like this worth buying. So I don't know, man. I mean, I'm at a loss in terms of predictions. Yeah, yeah. You know, like ultimately, like the one thing that I said at the beginning is gonna be true, right? Something major is gonna happen. I feel like there's already been multiple major things that have happened but at the where it ends at the end of the road and how long this is gonna be going, I don't know. We'll see. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I thought it was all resolved when they announced the Oracle coming in. I was like, oh, great. So it's gonna be fine. And then I saw, well, actually it's only an investment but that must have been sanctioned. So I must have been fine. I must have agreed to that. But now going back through again the latest news, it's clearly not been discussed. And I don't, so I can see why the Trump administration are still trying to get it banned because not what they agree to and it's, and this TikTok global idea is nice and principle but not if no one's not on the same page. So this could run and run and run because if they're refusing, if their firm starts buying dancers that we're not giving it up, then they're just trying to take the money and run from Oracle, it seems. True, because if this issue started because of access, privacy, and ownership, it can only be resolved through access, privacy, and ownership, right? One of those that creates the other. And the privacy is never gonna be the trust. Hey, yeah, you have the methods to do, to create privacy measures, but to trust you, to report everything to us, that's never gonna happen. So it has to be resolved through the ownership and access part of it. And man, I think that it was so, it's interesting that so many people have used this moment, right? If you look at Triller using it to input themselves in a conversation and got PR moments out of it and they've really been trying to run up with it. They've been the best out of any of the secondary companies in that market space, in terms of leveraging the moment for PR. And, but I haven't seen anything personally that significant from even that end of things. So, I mean, TikTok is still king as we speak, but yeah, man. I don't know, man, it's so interesting because of the timing of it as well, where you have a situation where the Googles, the YouTubes, the Apples would probably wouldn't do it as just outside of their business anyway, but the Amazons, people who have that money and even the brand and social capital that we would expect to see involved in something like this, they got there being caught in this time when they're all being convicted, well, not convicted, that's too official. When they're all being, what's the word? They're just being analyzed within public for this whole monopoly aspect of their business. I don't know if you saw the hearing where all the CEOs were on Capitol Hill through a Zoom call, but even stuff like that, as a moment, it prevents a company like that from being able to come in and really making a strong arm argument. It's kind of like, yeah, we need to just maintain, nobody wants to see us involved in this right now, especially the conversation that's already around TikTok. It's like, yeah, we couldn't really touch this, so you leave this opportunity for these other companies that in any no normal circumstance would necessarily have that, like Walmart, you know what I mean? Like things that don't even make sense, and even Oracle, a tech company, it's so legacy that people don't think of it in that way. So it creates these opportunities, but it also, from an overall American aspect of things, it lessens the opportunity for that buyout to happen if it ever was gonna be a thing that happens. So, yeah, man, I've just been watching. This is just another part of the good year of 2020. I know, I mean, if you asked me right now what's gonna happen, then I would say that it's gonna end up with it being banned because it's clearly not gonna be fully owned by the US, they're not gonna give it up by dance because there's too much involvement, there's too much of their tech ingrained in the platform. Obviously the election is imminent, and if power changes hands, this might be dropped in altogether anyway. So who knows, like maybe they're trying to just ride the storm a bit. If they can put, the longer they can push this, the more it benefits by dance anyway. You know what, you say that. They talk about the abilities of TikTok and controlling the feed the way it does, and really can make things pop up. One of the fears is propaganda. I don't know, man. I wonder if TikTok will try to sway people to vote against Trump. Well, have you seen that they've launched a new election feature on TikTok on my Discover page? I actually haven't seen that feature yet, but I have, this morning, I saw a lot of Biden shit on my feet. I can't say that. They're launching some election advice and guidelines and spotting fake news and stuff, they're launching a whole campaign on the election on TikTok. So it's... You know, they can do it as their platform, it's clearly some ulterior motives there, but they are launching this new feature on the platform to educate and inform, that's the top line, to educate and inform the public on going out to vote. So that's already in the works. So imagine that would keep getting more and more developed as we get closer and closer to the time. Also, I also saw early this month that TikTok also partnered with Teespring to launch some e-commerce on the platform. We've talked about loads before about this eventually happening, you know, how it's gonna be integrated in the platform, but it's actually making the proper steps now, it's out of beta now, it's actually going into the platform. So this is just one of many partnerships I feel are coming through. Yeah, that's gonna keep coming. They're gonna do that way faster than a YouTube has, because YouTube has been surprisingly lagging behind in terms of that integrated aspect of their business. For whatever reason, TikTok is, I mean, the fact that they're doing it already, it shows how much faster they're moving. But Teespring itself as a company is, there's reservations, right? There's ups and downs in terms of the quality control. Yeah, and they've done partnerships with everyone as well, haven't they? You know, all the social media platforms, so. Hey, I haven't taken the time to research, but you know, somebody knows somebody, right? Somebody is used to working in industries and they have all these relationships or somebody's married to somebody, whoever it, like whatever it is, because it's like Teespring is where they are in the tier of just that quality and that whole experience on the back end, like for them to still, and for them to have the partnerships in those level of deals and still have such a poor customer experience on the back end is like they must feel non-threatened, right? Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, why do you feel non-threatened? Maybe they were just, since maybe they were the first to really, really try to take that angle and win those deals, which I don't know, and that allowed them a little bit of room where, and then they say, hey, we just keep focusing on big partners and these kind of monopolistic deals or at least first mover deals, we won't have to worry about serving the customers because it'll be their only option because that is kind of how they've, right? You too, they're the only option for the longest, only viable option. Teespring is still kind of the only viable, like easy option for the general consumer who wants to sell merch and now it looks like it's gonna be like that on TikTok, but that's just a semi-side rant because of the experience I've had with Teespring, which I was warned about it and mine is even that bad because unfortunately I'm not relying on it for like a core business or any, really, I don't do anything except for, hey, the shirts are there under the videos and I literally don't think about it, but just a little bit of time I spent paying attention to it. It was, it was just like, man, this is, this sucks. Yeah, it is positive to see they're still, obviously they've still been moving TikTok despite all of this, they've just been going about and continuing to grow and doing their thing and it makes me wonder about, I don't know if you've seen and don't know how well sort of, Triller have come out from all this, obviously people were starting to make accounts when the users first circling and they even came in with a bit of their own to try and, you know, buy TikTok. So I don't know like where they're gonna sit when they come out of all of this, whether they're gonna come out better or worse. Yeah, we'll see, because they made the deals. They probably did find some, they probably ended up, I'm sure they got some investment on people who were banking on TikTok leaving. Like just that alone was able to raise some more money, but just the difficulty, the difficulty of doing what TikTok has done can't be understated. So most people don't really respect the fact that it's not just, oh, well, we leave TikTok, now who's number two in this? And then we, that number two becomes number one. It's really not that simple. No, no. You know, the highest likely user behavior is, all right, we just consolidate onto the platforms that we were already on and then wait for the next TikTok to pop up. And the next TikTok might not look exactly like TikTok, but the next very popular app that has some kind of quirk that makes us get on in masses. So we'll see, all right, we'll see. But Triller, I haven't seen anything in particular yet that makes me believe that they're doing something different or it's worth it in a way that it was not worth it before. Yeah, and the same can be said for the big players, like Instagram Reels haven't really heard too much, you know, buzz about that. And YouTube started trying their own one in Indonesia. I think that was announced last week. They've started trying in their one out now. Wait, what do you mean by YouTube is trying one? Because I've seen obviously the stories on YouTube for a while, but YouTube is doing a... They're on TikTok, yeah. Yeah, they're on short form TikTok, yeah. Wow, as a separate app or within an integrated experience? I believe it's a separate app, they're just trying it in Indonesia right now. Just experimenting, I guess, testing the waters, but that's what seems to be really right now is like, you know, it's a very, very small part. They're just obviously, you know, experimenting with it, but I can't really see it becoming, you know, the equivalence of TikTok and Twitter at this point. Yeah, the best they can do is slowly but surely cut at its legs, where it's just so integrated in multiple platforms in terms of that level of experience that it takes away the novelty or the monopoly on that particular type of video. Kind of like Snapchat. Like the Instagram was first, but then obviously Instagram was just still the same company. I mean, Facebook was just still the same company put it on Facebook. And then YouTube basically has stories that disappear. And then TikTok itself is, you know, it's not Snapchat, but in terms of a lot of that visual aspect and full screen video, it's an iteration off of that user experience. So, you know, once you have all of that in all of these other places, it just makes Snapchat feel like a why, you know? Like Instagram, of course it did what it did, but now when it's just a norm and your app is built off of what could be seen as a novelty, then, yeah, man, it just dilutes it. The problem with TikTok, again, is the strength of community, which is different, right? I mean, you have that ability to have that strong community and way of being and interacting. You have a zeitgeist of your own that can't be replicated. And that's how they've built this strong position to the point that it's so hard to get off and to the point of even getting attention where people want to get rid of it, you know? Yeah, yeah. That's what it is. So, yeah, we'll see, man. This does link quite nicely to another app that we were talking about off-air, which you hadn't heard of before, an app called Voizi, which is a mobile music creation app and community for creators. So, you can make your own beats on the platform and then you sing your own original lyrics over the top using your iPhone microphone. The most common thing is just artists putting up their own songs, very DIYs, or very, very lo-fi, just recording, singing into their iPhone microphone. And that's been getting a lot of traction. There's over 200 million downloads for the app and over 11 million songs on the platform. And there was a story come out this month about the first artist who's been signed to a major label deal, having been discovered on that platform. The girl named Olivia Knight, who's better known as Pouty Face. She gained a lot of profile on that platform and then Warner ended up signing her into a record deal based on being discovered on this platform. And it's got a lot of investment from some artists and big investors. And it's sort of getting a lot of ground now. So, this is another platform to explore if you write us out there, if you're looking to try out new applications, serve TikTok and things like another fun one for songwriters, which I know some people have called the future of songwriting, just having a beat and just free styling over the top. And it's clearly getting some traction. So, it's definitely worth checking out. Yeah, I'm looking at it now. Just like some videos just get a vibe of the UI and what people are doing. Can you give a walkthrough of what it's like to use Boise? And what that experience is like for people. Why is even possibly becoming a thing? I think I haven't looked at it like massively closely, but I think the main thing about it is that it's just very sort of off the cuff. You might just discover a beat going through the app and hear something you like. I like some instrumental. And be like, I can picture myself doing something with this and then you'll use that instrumental and then do your own sort of singing or rapping off the back of that just straight into your microphone, recording it straight on the app using the beat and then posting the video. So it's all very sort of like natural and all very instantaneous. And I think that is the main appeal of it is that it is just very, very quick and it's not the pressure of making something from scratch necessarily. Obviously, there is some quite intuitive like functions on the app to make your own beats as well if you want to and record over that. But it is just another platform for stuff expression essentially, which is why it's becoming quite popular. So essentially, we're training the kids before we're training them to now make shorter and shorter music and things of that nature. But now, this app will train a generation to make music faster. Yeah, I think another big marketing platform about it, like another angle is that it's really honing in on that being a songwriter. So you'll just hear something that you like and you'll go in and just improvise vocally or rap over the top of it in the moment and then building it from there. It might lead to a full blown summer project from there. It's encouraging you to just go back to basics and just trust your instincts on things. Yeah, but I just still look at it so much as a training space because there's not 11 million people that I think really identify as songwriters, artists, yes, but I think this will force more artists who obviously songwrite to pay more attention to songwriting and those technical aspects of it. You know what I mean? Because of course we know there's those people who identify as songwriters and they do the songwriting. Many of them obviously want to be artists or used to be artists, but once you get into that bag and you are doing that as an art form, they pay attention to the music and the formulas and hearing it here so differently. So this is actually something that I'm seeing where I say for the first time we talk about the ease, the amount of ease it is for people to create and then we look at the other platforms and we talk about the ease it is to get your creation seen. We go from dolls where now you can make your music digitally and fake instruments and all that stuff. It's like, all right, cool, it's easier for you to create. It doesn't necessarily make you better especially if you have the main general habits. Now you add the Instagrams and all those things and then you eventually get to TikTok. It makes it easier and easier to make your music get seen, make you get seen. But now this is something that would actually show promise of people becoming better, all right? So it's easier or it's gamifying with real world benefits, you getting better at the process of song creation in a way. Even if it's just tricking you into doing it because at some point it's like if you create easier creation, easier awareness, oh, that just means a promise of more shitty music into the world, right? But now if you force them at that front end to at least get more of that practice, whatever that looks like, I haven't been all the way into the detail. It seems like now we might generally, we might truly be getting to that optimistic ideal of more good music faster, a world with far more good music because you have the ability for indies to get through into the rest of the world without as many gatekeepers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, so I don't know man, it's cool because every part of the assembly line is being attacked slowly but surely through technology or attack is a skeptical pessimistic word to use but every part of it is getting technology integrated into it. I wonder what part of the process we haven't really thought heavily about next that hasn't done it but could use that innovation. Well, where this has been clever, I think, Boise is that it's clearly in the past on Instagram stories and on posts and on TikTok, we know bounce ideas and sing demos and just freestyle on these videos and post on the platform. So Boise has taken that idea but put it in a purely music focused setting. So all the people on there are gonna be music fans and potential songwriters and collaborators. So it's purely a music platform and you can do exactly the same things you would do on other social media platforms but in Boise and then potentially get advice from people in the same community, in the same space as you and build from there and grow from there and keep throwing out ideas and building on that and maybe working with other people. So it's taking a very small part of a larger companies like work and put it into a very concentrated app which is what you need to do if you're a niche startup. Like don't try and copy and reinvent TikTok or Instagram, take your little subsection of it and really hone it in and that's what I've done really well, I feel. True, that's very well said man. And it's legitimate artist development in its way and I think that even goes back to getting better, faster and higher quality because if you're focused and if you're in an environment of just artists. Yep, yep. That judgment goes way up. Exactly, yeah. In terms of what that looks like. So that's gonna, if you decide to thrive on that platform it's gonna force you to get better. And you said that, I forgot her name but she got signed, you know, the Warner Chapel or whatever after building a good following on there. So that makes me think, what does that following look like? You know, what really makes people follow is it collaboration almost from a set incentive of, hey, I'm following this person because that's a part of getting to collaborate with them and I wanna collaborate with them because their skill set is so high or they, I mean, they're just that good or they match or am I literally following them from a purely admiration standpoint which is a pretty high praise coming from other artists. But I wonder what the user psychology is for following on that platform versus other platforms because of the professional skew. Yeah, I think a lot of people have bought into her sort of personality and aesthetic as well as, you know, and obviously her singing as well. I think they've bought into more of her as a brand like being called pouty face as opposed to going in there with her, you know, her own name, she was sort of going in there with an upper sonar person, you know, per se. And I think she really had market herself as a brand. So just working as a, I think she's working in a supermarket alongside her at the time. Not thinking too much of it, you know, just, you know, using the app as other users would do and just doing her thing and ended up taking off from, you know, growing and following from there, but. That's interesting. Yeah, I would have to get, I'm gonna, I definitely want to talk about this again because I want to be able to have more context with the app myself. But if with the app being more of a professional thing it's interesting that you noted that she came in with a brand in the pouty face, not her regular name. So it could be one of those things or spaces where bringing a more social, a general social media type character into that environment where it doesn't sit as much because it's more professional could get you attention faster. Which ultimately, you know, unfortunately, you know, it still works. And not that she did it in a bad way, but, and it makes it very hard for apps to remain what they said they were. All right, like LinkedIn has become a different type of social network than, you know, professional looking for jobs and all that stuff and certain content. It can, it's more of a, it's a professional work Facebook or it's like a Facebook for work, right? That you would send to your other people like other people that you work with, enough political correct, but it's still interesting and y'all are still like shooting the shit or it's all water cooler. It's a water cooler, that's what it is. Versus, you know, obviously the rest of social media can go anywhere, but that still is very different than where it started and it's core intention. So I wonder if this will face some of that same thing over time where, you know, you'll have those people like, ah, this isn't about music anymore or songwriting or whatever that is. But it's just the nature of humans and trying to scale these type of platforms that requires attention and group by and... Yeah, I don't think necessarily it's not professional in a sense of how, you know, how the app is perceived. In the PR marketing, it's, you know, market that way is being for songwriters and for being a bit more, you know, for the, not for the casuals, but in terms of the actual people who download it and the way they use it and do music on there, it is very, very social media casual, like, you know, but like you would see on our TikTok feed, it is that way. So I feel that the company will face a decision in which direction to lean towards, you know, at some point, but I don't think it is like a really professional thing and it's not trying to be saying that it's not. It's just very carefully taken bits of other apps that work well. And so if you're an artist, you know, if you're watching now, you wanna check it out. If you're someone who does like to, you know, post demos on Instagram and on TikTok, you know, and just, you know, sing and improvise and have fun with it, then it's a perfect platform to do so because it's targeted at people who wanna listen to your music, not everything else as well at the same time. Right. See, so when I say professional, I know what you mean. It's not that uptight professional, a certain template and way of doing things. What I mean is it seems like a platform like that that markets towards songwriters, right? Even when using that term, people who identify with that type of stuff typically have their own rules of what that culture means and what you acknowledge and pay attention to, just like regular artists versus, oh yeah, you're commercial and your music's blah, blah, blah. Right. So I'm just thinking that one, once you get that culture of people who think that way to look who likely will be early movers, they'll create that culture in a lot of ways that it's own version of whatever people consider professional or maybe another word is whatever the subjective version of high quality is. It will be their version of it. Then people start blowing up on there, right? And then why are those people blowing up? Are they doing some stuff that's vastly different that got attention? People copycat that. And then just in general, people who hear that other people are blowing up on this thing and I'm just an artist or somebody looking for opportunity and I'm not on the app because I wasn't attracted to a songwriter or that type of thinking in that process, but I am seeing somebody has what I want by using it. Now I'm gonna come in with less care for that culture that other people care about on the platform, it isn't. And so it's more of a human nature, early mover, maturation argument that I'm looking at more than, yeah, what the general or traditional version of professional might've looked like. I think that's the wrong word, but I see I'm on YouTube looking and when you look it up, there's all kind of people that this culture of how to use the platform and how to grow fast on voicey. People are taking it seriously already, which is interesting because I hadn't heard about it until you told me about it today. So I wanna look into it for sure. Yeah, it certainly feels like it'll be, its direction will be dictated purely by the users at this point. It's been clear, it's been launched as one thing, but I don't think they, I'm not sure the developers will keep it honed in on that one thing. I think it'll let naturally go and do its own thing. It's because it's a very community-based app in the first place. So I feel interesting to see. Yeah. Let me see, voicey. They've made that mistake that so many YouTubers make. They, it says, new videos every day on the voicey YouTube channel. They only have two videos up. Have from me. There we go. From me. It's a hard thing to do, man. So many companies try. You know it well, yeah. It's a hard thing. And I think these corporate companies think it's a easy thing and then you see. It's like, oh yeah, we're just gonna start a YouTube channel. And yep, if it's not your core model, you probably want to wait till y'all just have money to hire some kids to run it. If you guys are watching, listening, why check it out? Voicey is spelled V-O-I-S-E-Y. So definitely recommend looking at it. If you know, if you're looking to find a new audience or just explore a new platform to, you know, special, special art, then definitely look at it. It makes me wonder how, what's the app's name? They're doing. What is the app? They, you can, man, I can't even start to think of their name. Describe it. You said what? Describe it. What's it like? It's a combination of streaming services and like streaming and social media. I don't know why it's, I've done videos on them and everything. I don't know why they're leaving my name. I'm in my mind. Biddle was on it. I don't know if that helps you. He was on it. You want to leave? Loom, there we go. Yeah. Yeah, it makes me wonder how Loom is doing. I don't know. Good Lord. Yeah, we haven't talked about it in a while, yeah. Yeah, so you need to check on them. Yeah, because their USP really is the crowdfunding virtual currency side is what I particularly like about that. So it would be good to see how that has, whether that has thrived during the pandemic period. And you can't go out and watch your artists. Can you, yeah, are you looking to spend your money elsewhere in terms of support? Exactly. Exactly. We'll definitely come back to that next time for sure. Both of them, you know, we'll have a look at the sort of alt music platforms for indie artists. Yeah, that's a good term for it. Another thing we've got to talk about, just quickly before we leave that topic, I know that Spotify are working on their own sort of karaoke feature. Really? Yeah, piggybacking off, you know, the whole lip-syncing idea. Yeah, they're working on a patent for that. So they're looking at the whole concept of like bedroom renditions of tracks. And you can use autotune or no autotune for this and that is in the works right now. That is interesting. Spotify keeps trying, man. I never trust them to do any core feature though. The amount of change that the platform is going through is so little compared to other tech platforms that you're used to. And that's streaming in general, right? That just the lack of innovation and the speed of change is so slow, almost traditional, right? And in comparison to other internet platforms that require a lot of people, it's crazy. Like what has Spotify done significant from a front-end user experience? No, they've regressed Sean, anti-social, I would say. Exactly. All the features have been and gone and all tried, you know, promise and never materialized. Like, and yeah, I think it's all, I think it has gone backwards in that regard. It's not any interesting social really. So this would be a very big surprise if this came off, if it's actually cut in the public's hands. I think so too. I'm still waiting on the full-blown video functionality that we had promised. Because obviously they did the Joe Rogan deal and they were gonna have the video ones on there and they're gonna look more into music videos and hosting video content, but I don't see it right now on the app too much. Yeah, because Joe's already on there, right? Yeah, yeah. And there's been a lot of controversy around that with some style-threatening strikes. But that is a very interesting story. How that's progressed and then I disagree with them trying to take, you know, full creative license or control over his podcast because they knew what they signed up to and it's his podcast at the end of the day. They, you know, they just bought the rights to host it exclusively. They did not like, you know, get any control over it in terms of like, you know, editorial really. So I think that whole incident of the staff trying to lobby Spotify into changing that which won't work anyway, because Joe will just walk away. Because he'll have, you know, he's a very smart guy. He'll have stuff in the contract about not interfering. So he's gonna come and try and do that. I hope he has to terminate. Yeah. Yeah, I think that it's weird that they're even trying to do that. But I guess it's a sign of the times that we're in. It's like, it's, I mean, y'all for one, if anything, he's probably reaching a smaller audience being locked in to Spotify than YouTube. So if you're just hearing about his message, I mean, y'all are, y'all are actually reducing the amount of people that are hearing his message and y'all are trying to censor him. And, oh man, I said sign of the times in Princess, sign of the times cover is right on my screen. That's some creepy shit. That is weird. Yo, that was creepy. So yeah, I don't know, man. I mean, that just brings me into this whole sensitivity of what everybody's saying and knowing it, you know, being able to hear different opinions than their own. And even if somebody is an asshole and it is true that what they're saying is wrong, you have to be able to live with that shit too. Like that's what I feel like. Like particularly in this type of form, there's one thing if he's the president, you know what I mean? Yeah. But people saying stuff that we don't like has always existed. And that's never really been too much of the issue. It's been people's reaction to that that's been the issue, meaning, hey, we might freaking quarantine all of y'all and get rid of y'all as a race or at least try or then you have the other end of just the weaker minded people who get persuaded. There is a legitimate danger there, but I don't know, man. It's like we talk about it a lot with comedians, which Joe Rogan is partially a comedian in the censorship because so much of it is about truth, whether it's individual truth or not. But that still brings me back to creators and artists and their expression. And I wonder where that's going to limit them at some point if this isn't handled. Because comedians and talk show hosts are at the front lines, since at least artists, their messages get skewed or diluted through music, this musical experience. And people take it less seriously. But in terms of like the Joe Rogan thing, without getting too harsh on the people, because I haven't looked at all the details of why they say he shouldn't be able to have a platform, but just a general idea of it, I think, is poorly used energy. Yeah, I think, you know, obviously, some people, some of the staff, you know, they find some of the content offensive, you know, which is front of their entire to feel that way. But also, there is artistic license at the same time. And they have already uploaded certain episodes that were so controversial, but there's some of them on Spotify. The whole collection is not on Spotify. I've carefully not included some. So there has already been some sort of censorship anyway on Spotify's end. And it's this story, it's got a lot of news coverage, because obviously it's juicy about staff, potential strikes and walkouts. But it's not really going to bother Spotify until it becomes more of a PR problem, unless they start losing certain investment from certain companies. Until it becomes a financial thing, this is not really going to change anything. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, they've reached, it's funny, as much as they're struggling as a company, they've reached a level of monopoly within that marketplace and just a place to go listen to things, right? Whether that's podcasts or music, that it's not giving many options to other people, right? And some of the people that are offended or some of the messages that are offended, they have the type of people who would be offended by those messages signed to podcasts, right? Or artists that are on the platform, they have their music on the platform. So it's one of those things where I think Spotify is at the end of the day Teflon in this type of scenario, because what is the alternative? If they just say, all right, employees, we're going to keep Joe Rogan, we really don't care what you say. If they say in that nice little PR way of doing it, all right, and then maybe those employees do walk out, what next? They have a lot of employees, a lot of people are looking for jobs, bam, bam, bam, hire them, and then how long does this last? People are still buying clothes from H&M and they had a controversy buying clothes from Gigi. People are still eating Chick-fil-A. It's just kind of a part of it at this point. Exactly. Don't get me wrong, they're entitled to obviously, voice their opinion on it, and they'll see all the more power to them for speaking out and potentially walking out. But I feel like, yeah, there's not really a line they can really cross or force Spotify's hand on with regards to this, so. Yeah, not at all. There's probably other people, maybe you can say that, attribute that to the size of Joe Rogan, but I'm sure there's some other opinions similar to whatever the ones they're disagreeing with on smaller platforms, on Spotify that they didn't speak on before, you know? Yeah, and the podcast Empire is interesting in their building because I know that Joe Budden has taken his, ended his exclusive partnership with them, now he's walking away from Spotify and that deal. Yeah. And I also saw this morning that, this one's more of a flex from Spotify, I feel, but the line was that the Michelle Obama podcast, which they had obviously launched exclusive, is going to be available elsewhere now. But I kind of feel like that's them probably, they'll run it for a few weeks exclusive and then they'll go to another platform. That's really more of a flex rather than anything else, I feel, that's quite clever from them just to, we'll have it for a month or so, we'll run it all the episodes first and then people can hear it afterwards and then they like it and they can come to us early next time, subscribe and get it. Right. It's a podcast version of what they tried to do with music in like, what was it, 16, 2017, when they were due to the exclusives on Apple? Yeah, I'm not entitled, yeah. All that stuff is that same game. The game really doesn't change, the players and the content that does, but I think that Michelle Obama podcast, man, I'm not a fan, not necessarily of the actual what they're talking about, the things they're saying, the production. I feel like it was a pie, it's kind of like what Joe Boat, but it was saying when they were talking about Amy Schumer or whatever getting a deal as well, just taking these other figures and creating a podcast is not as easy as it seems, right? Like, podcasters' podcasts and that's a different format to have and taking another celebrity or well-known person, giving them a podcast, if you listen to it, there's so much production throughout it, like being made conversation and then all of a sudden going into music. That's, it'll be nice if you told me this is an audio book and those are just chapter transitions, but if you're telling me I'm listening to a podcast, those kind of things prevent it sounding like it's uncensored, valuable, just straight from, what somebody truly thinks conversation, which is why I listen to the type of podcast that I be and I've seen so many other people, I mean, so many other types of podcasts, even if I'm not one of their primary demographics and it seems that core tenet is the consistency, right? Like, just like this is, we're just talking going back and forth, of course we'll make snippets, but if, like the moment I said, oh man, yeah, that's a Michelle Obama podcast, all of a sudden it went to this nice music and the next thing that picks up is not Michelle Obama, they're like, oh man, he must have went somewhere that, yeah, exactly, yeah. Pick up and if you do that five times throughout one podcast experience, you're like, is this a podcast, especially because of the presidential nature of, you know, them or is this? Best bits, you know, the highlights. Yeah, you're like, what is this? And I understand too, right? If there's certain things in certain ways that you have to filter out content because of what you're representing where you're, you know, the whole presidential thing. However, in that case, don't do this format. You know, I agree. Yeah, yeah, it's like trying to, all these deals are doing, it's like trying to force squares into round holes, like one module fits all, we'll follow this formula and it'll work. And I think sort of Joe Budden was saying that he just felt like there was no real direction of what they were doing with him, there was no game plan, he just feels like it's all, he's just forgotten about and there was no, yeah, no clear strategy for anything, so. Yep, yeah, man. Another coconut machine, yeah. Record label, man, that's all it's turning to. So, now we're just gonna go with numbers and big names and then whatever lasts and hits, then that's what it'll hit. Whether it's you or you or, yes, you're the best, we don't care if you're the best, like you only have with so much leverage because we're going for numbers and who and where does that success come from? So that'll be interesting to watch as it goes, but podcasts is that market, outside of just being tied to Spotify, obviously, but also just being creators, artists should watch that a lot more closely than they probably think. Yep, I agree, I agree. Finally, we have to talk about Kanye quickly. We're gonna bring up the tweets. The main bit I wanna highlight, can you see this? Yep, I see it. I'll read this out as well for those listening as well, but the main thing I wanna focus on is his new recording and publishing deal guidelines that he proposed. So, he went on a massive rant about, you know, he leaked all the contracts he signed with Universal and not being in control of his masters and I just wanted to get some of your thoughts Sean on his ideas about the future and what, and they know what he's gonna try and, you know, negotiate for an artist in an ideal world. So the first one is that the artist owns the copyright in the recordings and the songs and leases them to a record label slash publisher for a limited term one year deal. Have you seen any of this before Sean, these ones, this like outline he's... I haven't, I haven't seen the one year deal thing. Which, I mean, in this way, it just sounds like we're gonna follow basketball, right? Which evolved to the one year deal models for more leverage and all that stuff. But then there's this deaf, this tone deaf nature of that because who did that in basketball? Well, the one who really had the power to do that was LeBron, Kanye could have the power to do that but you also have to acknowledge that everybody doesn't have that power to do that, right? Like I can say, yo, Josh, I'm only doing one year deals for you with you. And if you and everybody like you say, well, that's fine. You have all the power to do that but I'm not gonna do it with you because you're just not worth my time, right? Or you're not worth that risk because of it then it's not realistic at scale. So this is gonna have to become more of a nuanced conversation than this, right? Those nice ideals. Exactly, yeah. And there, like, so we can start there. Like there has to be more nuance to it but as a conversation starter because of his platform, even though it's been a conversation for a long time, you know that people won't listen until they hear somebody like this say it for whatever reason. And I'm not even talking about like people on the other side, just even artists. There's a lot of artists that still are unfamiliar with this conversation, crazy enough. So for that aspect and purpose, I'm with it, I'm with it. So I think where this all thing is interesting is obviously Kanye went on the massive roundabout trying to control his masters and trying to get them back but Universal really got him tied down to all these contracts gonna be very, very difficult for him to get them back. And obviously one of the ideas that I like about this is that obviously we know that Kanye could afford to buy back his masters from Universal. However, Universal are not gonna put a price on the masters for him to buy back because this value is gonna keep increasing over time. So there's no way for him to put a price on his masters because it's gonna, if they do it now, 10 years from now, they may have messed up because it might be worth even more. So there's no, I don't really see any way of him getting out of this or getting what he wants. Yeah, I mean, that's my thing. When you're talking about an artist like him, it's so hard to really evaluate that. I mean, if anything, everything that Kanye is doing outside of the music itself at this point makes his music even more valuable too. So- Exactly, yeah. Like where do we stop? Where does this end? And that's also the difference between a $5 billion man on paper versus actually having $5 billion whether I don't know whether those valuations are true but I know Kanye said he's like worth a 5 billion last thing I heard. So, and you know, cause I'm sure if he had a billion to throw at it, people might go ahead and jump. Maybe, maybe, I don't know. But yes, it's hard to analyze. A guy like him. But when we see the conversation that he's having, we also have to acknowledge that everybody isn't, you know, the entrepreneur type, the ownership type, like the, or understanding. When we're talking about, you have to understand the business you're in. One, this is a business that seems to be built around making sure people don't understand the business, right? And staying ahead of the curve in that way. So the next thing you understand, there's a whole lot of stuff you don't. Even now, general entrepreneur wise, most people mentality, tallies are ahead of where they were in the 90s. Right? Yes, yeah. But, you know, you have all these people that just are popular entrepreneur advice people and things like that. You have people who, popular with musical advice and all these things. However, you still have, you know, that same layer of a lot of people going through people. Cause it's like the game keeps changing and the knowledge gets out there, the conversation gets out there. But oftentimes that feedback loop is still too slow to truly stay ahead of the game. So even if people have the deals in this exact same setup, I still foresee somebody having the power, you know, in a different type of way where they're being a different game. Just like now, YouTube and Google and Amazon and Facebook, like they are Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, JP Morgan, right? Looks completely different, different industry, but it's something that connects and everybody's connected to and have to run through. The media is owned by those same companies. So now how do you understand whatever game evolves in that way? I know I'm getting like a little, little deep and I don't know if it sounds like conspiracy. It's not like a conspiracy thing. It's really just a straightforward. Most people, right? There's a reason that there's hierarchies and things at the end of the day, right? Everybody's better than somebody in something. And there's a lot of people that don't, that are truly are not, they don't have the power to do what Kanye is talking about. And then some people don't, you don't need as much power. Like even if you look at a Nipsey hustle, the power that he generated because his willingness to go a certain route and do it in a certain way was far beyond artists, a many artists that had bigger platforms than he had, right? And higher bigger platforms musically than he had, but there's not that many Nipsey hustles, you know? Yeah, yeah. Not even like, yeah, just, when we're talking about the world at large, yes, there's a lot more than one, but there's a very small percentage of the population. So just in a negative or in a pessimistic voice, I will have to say, I have trouble seeing this stuff change. I don't have trouble seeing what we want to change change, but I think the principles of will be the same where whatever the hell we change it to, give it to generations and they're gonna see all the holes in the shit that we created because the people before us thought they improved the model too. Yeah, my other point on that is that we have point number three here about dependence. So artists must be dependent on no one but themselves to manage their catalog. You should need no one else to understand the business you're in. And this makes me wonder like, you know, where does the education, what age does the education start on this? If this is the way it has to be, because you never know when you're gonna blow up and you could be in your early teens or a teen, like when are you gonna have the time or be educating on all this stuff to have all this noise? That's why there are music managers and lawyers and that's where there are so many positions in the industry because you can't be in and out everything. You can have an idea, but if you're spending all your time educating yourself on this instead of actually doing anything, you're never really gonna get anywhere. You're gonna come to consume and overwhelm by it all because there's just so much to learn and understand and you're not gonna wanna go into it once you've seen too much behind the curtain. Yeah, and there's a reason Kaiz in his trouble. He didn't know all this stuff. Exactly, yeah. He signed deals in, so he signed deals in his 20s and 30s for albums that he won't see any revenue from till he's in his 50s and 60s because he signed those long-term rights away, so. Yeah, but it is. Yeah, it's lots of people. The practice Cali of it, right? It's easy to cast these grandiose visions, but the practice Cali make it very difficult to execute. Absolutely, I look forward to seeing how this does develop and whether he does go to war with them. I mean, obviously he claims he is. He's got the lawyers, he wants to go to bat, but yeah, we're interested to see, and obviously his big grand ideas for the future, again, whether he can even take any implementations to do it, building anything on that. We know, obviously Taylor Swift had it in the past with the Scooter Braun big machine, sort of fiasco, and there were some positives to come out from her from naturally to get out of some certain contracts. So there are case studies there to say that he will benefit from this, but we're interested to see. One thing that rings true within this is, I mean, just talking about the licenses and equity. Of course that, at the very least, you want to figure out how to maintain. Now, does it make sense for your dealer where you are in life? I don't know, but because of content and the increase in content from so many different businesses and the fact that so many of these businesses are, they have to do things in the right way, right? The most legal way. And you're getting these copyright technologies, being able to track all this stuff, right? There's gonna be a time where it's gonna be very hard to post on any social network, anything, or it's a website, anything that isn't licensed, right? Without the software picking it up and something going to do that, all right? So because of that, that creates a vast market opportunity outside of the general, I want fans type of perspective. It becomes a vast opportunity of sync licensing, whatever that looks like. And if you have the equity and you're able to license, then that's going to make it so much easier to have a livable wage because you're gonna have NBA has its social media, NFL has its social media, Coca-Cola has its social media and all these official companies that need to use music and they need to create content because the game has become content. So they're just following, they're still gonna have to cross the T's and dot the I's and all that stuff. So yes, figure out how to maintain equity and be in position of license because that's gonna be a whole game where I think more people, more talented artists are going to pursue that far more seriously than streams. Yeah, just finally, what I do implore kind of for doing, obviously this wasn't obviously his why he did it. He's obviously just wanted to speak out and be, you know, to his kind of canyon. But what he has done is put this issue in front of more people. Like I've had friends last week ask me about like they didn't know that artists don't own their own songs or masters. That level of awareness has been, you think about it, I'll say it seems obvious if you're in the space, but if you're not, you know, you would assume because most creative spaces you own what you create. So people don't know this. So what he has done is really bringing it to a larger audience. And that may filter down and lead in the future to people and fans thinking more about supporting artists in the future with knowledge that they don't earn as much as they think they do or perceive them to do if they don't own their own songs. I agree. So that is one positive from this, regardless of what, you know, why did it or you know anything, yeah. Yeah, because along those lines, there's more managers and people like that who are involved in the business because of education and things like this, they're becoming aware in a way of, they actually care. So they're trying not to be these characters that Kanye is talking about. Let's say that some people were complicit, but in ways where they just thought they were doing what happens in music and thinking this is just how you're supposed to do it versus seeing the other perspective and understanding that way. So a lot of people who want to be defined or see themselves as good people in a certain ideal will, I mean, I know managers who are like, yo, I'm only doing, I don't want, I'm not going to do any crazy deal. I'm going to go to the extreme of only doing handshake deals with my artists and they can fire me anytime and hold me accountable. I know those managers, right? So there's, yeah, this might at the very least to your point make it better for future generations all off of strictly social capital, if anything. Yeah, because while everyone obviously is talking about the rant and pissing on the Grammy and stuff, there is that has clearly asked forward some people who are asking questions about well, I didn't know that they, I didn't know this was the problem. So yeah, that is one positive kind of have to say. There we go, there we go. But yeah, on that note, that's it from me in terms of my news updates and my insights, yeah. That's what's up, man. Thanks again, Josh always comes with it and everybody, you are listening to another episode of Music News that matters. Thanks for tuning in. Monthly, y'all have a great one. Thanks guys, take care. It's the mat work.