 What's up, everybody? It's Brandon Shawn. And it's Lady J Bookums. And we're back with another episode of Music Mavericks podcast. Ooh, you missed it. I know, I did. Ooh, you missed it too slow. We got to practice that some more. We're going to get it. But we got some special topics, because a lot of people have been asking me to talk about Copa, or Copa I've never said to acronym before. And I definitely have been dealing with it, but I didn't even think to actually do a video on it. So I appreciate you for mentioning it. And what I'm talking about is a huge implication for creators in general, not just artists. If any of y'all have heard about it, you'll see. But essentially, it's this huge regulation that YouTube has been facing. Essentially, they've violated a lot of things over the years. And back in 2017, the Federal Trade Commission came at them for basically collecting data on people who are under 13. So it's against the law to be collecting certain data on the people who are under 13 years old. That was in 2017, these big companies take slow to move. So in the last two or three weeks, if you haven't noticed, then it's essentially asking you, is your content for kids or not? Now, what I want to make sure I mentioned before I even get into that part of things, the violation for this failure to act and comply with doing the things we're about to talk about, you will result in, let me see, what did they say? All right, so your channel could be deleted and you could receive a fine for $42,530, awfully specific. That's a college fund. Per video, right, for violating this fine on YouTube. So it matters, it matters to everybody, but we'll hopefully talk about why it matters to artists. So before you even talk about how, this is the thing that it said though. It said, because YouTube got fined or they've been like slapped on the wrist for it. So now YouTube is putting it on us. They're saying it's not gonna be our fault anymore. What we're gonna do is change these terms so that it becomes your fault. You said it. You said it. If they come on in, it's gonna be on you, instead of be on YouTube. 100%. Right, so. You too know they don't. Look, that's what these companies always do. I wanna, you touch on something, we gotta go that, because that's deep, especially with artists in all the business, y'all are doing a contract, y'all are signing, period. I promise you, I got something to say about that and it's worth staying tuned for, because yeah, you touch on something. But with this specifically, one of the things it will say, do you want to set your channel as made for kids? Select no, right? To set this channel as not made for kids or you can select yes. And then there's even a sub question. And I can't remember it off the top, but I remember at first when it started asking me, I was, first of all, I was just like weird. I don't know, especially, anything to do with kids, it's like, what does this mean? Like, I don't got nothing going on. All right, nothing soft to go with. They think I'm one of them, like, you know, I don't know what. Right, so it was weird. I'm like, why are they asking me about kids? Right. So they ask and they're doing that per video. Every single video, and they will ask you for every single video until you make your channel set as a whole to this is not made for kids or this is made for kids. So this is back in your, the creative studio part where you're uploading. So as you're uploading, you'll see that box exactly that you have to basically check. 100%. And then again, there's a sub question, even so it's kind of confusing. It's like, is it? It's trying to get you. Is this for kids, right? And then after that, if you say no, it's still going to ask you, should you show it to people, maybe 18 or older, I think? Is it for people, should it exclusively show to people 18 or older? So I guess when it says, is it for kids, is it for people who are 13 or younger? And then the second question is saying, should I even show it to people between 13 and 17? I don't know why exactly. I haven't got a chance to dig into all of that stuff, but the big thing that artists should keep in mind, because I get it. People always want to be seen, right? They want to get in front of who they can. It's like, shit, I'm for everybody. No, you are not. No, you're not. Like, you're not for every type of niche, but let alone when it comes to these kids and why it's important, why I'm saying that specifically here, is because if you don't select the option, well, if you do select the option, yes, set this channel as made for kids, just because you want increased reach. You're like, I want to get these views as well, right? You will actually lose access to comments. You will lose access to certain advertising because some people aren't advertising on videos that are for kids. You're just dealing with these rules, right? All this other stuff and reason they can't. Info cards, end screens, that's when you can pop up a lot of info cards. Yeah, yep. And when you can pop up new videos at the end, you can't do the stories feature, which they're doing on YouTube, which, you know, I don't use stories feature, but whatever, and the ability to save videos for later. So that means people can't click to save for later feature. Notification bills and playlist. So you lose a lot. So don't just... You lose everything. Yeah, so like they're making it incentive, I guess. So people can't just say, look, man, I want to be shown for everybody. So keep that in mind. It's not really worth it. And to be realistic, most of you guys probably are not building your fan base on kids, kids in that fashion now. If you really need to get access to that market in those ears, then TikTok is a place that it exists. For now, I don't want to get a deeper neck cause I don't want to feel like I'm advising some weirdos or nothing like that. Right. I guess the question is like, what is for kids and what's not for kids? Like, you know, all of the major artists are dropping every video. I don't think none of them is like Megan Estallion. You know, I don't think her songs are for anybody's child under the age of 18. You can even think about some of the more clean cut artists that are like, I don't know, the Taylor Swift's or something like. Right, cause Taylor's getting a little saucy. Well, yeah, I mean, you've got to get saucy on them. Even people who aren't saucy, it just seems like it might be weird, right? To say your stuff is for kids. It's different to say, can kids check it out? Right. But to say for kids. So that's the great area as well in terms of what do they really want out of this? I think the most important part of it is what you said earlier as far as they passed the buck to you. But again, before we touch on that, Lil Nas X, right? We know that thing was huge with kids. Right. Right? And like the fact that that did so much and it did so much for so long added to the fact that it became a historic campaign. Right. It had to tap into wide fan bases or to reach that. So of course some people might be like, yo man, I want to tap into that. I want to have that reach. But there's going to have to be extra other ways that you go about it. And particularly being an indie, right? You don't want to take that risk. It's not worth it. And unless you're marketing directly to kids, which is a whole other situation that I probably won't be talking to you. It's like marketing for five year olds. Outside of us, I know a few teachers who are literally making kids songs about marketing and all that kind of stuff. Right, right. But that's like so they can learn that whole thing. But generally speaking, you're probably not going to do it and it's not going to be worth it. But to your point about them passing the buck on, what I wanted to say is contracts that artists sign, a lot of times with content creators in general, but especially artists, are always things where they're passing the buck off to you, right? There's these things that have to be done. And essentially I'm saying, look, if it doesn't get done, It's your fault. It's their fault. Right. It's just like... I mean, that's the company covering their own. That's all they're doing. Especially when you're dealing with this amount of people, like if I'm YouTube, I'm like, yeah, dude, I'm advised. I'm not even saying anything against YouTube. Any company that's dealing with a lot of people, you almost have to, because how can you deal with all these individual situations and so many people that you're kind of putting on your platform, you don't want to get that put on you because it's almost impossible to do on a scalable, cost-efficient fashion, except for saying, hey, look, are you terms of agreement? That's why y'all gotta pay attention. They update these terms of agreement. And don't nobody ever read them. Exactly. Like, all right, we update. If you basically don't do this, then it's your fault. They say, we gotta do it. And we're gonna tell them, hey, look, we told him to do it. And we agreed that if he doesn't do it, he's gonna take all the blame and he's gonna pay all the stuff. That's essentially what they're doing. They do it in the record label contracts. They do it in these distribution platforms, like those agreements that y'all signed. A lot of those, they have a version of that. And see, that's also why like on YouTube, while they said they're gonna have you check the box and then they're gonna ask you another question that's basically saying the same thing, but action in a different way, which is what most of your contracts say. One paragraph says it this way, another paragraph basically says the same thing, but it says it in another way. And then we just be like, we feel like we're reading the same thing, but that's when we get the skimming. Like, all right, let me just sign. Let me just- They're trying to create clarity. It's like, we said this and we said this. Like, we hit both angles in both ways. And they said- There's always a loophole. Like, and that's one thing black people good at. We good at finding loopholes. Y'all know, y'all know we are. People in general, we good at finding loopholes and be like, but you didn't say or you didn't mean or it wasn't clear or blah, blah, blah. And that's why they keep following up. We're basically saying the same thing a thousand times. The whole purpose of a contract, when you're thinking about, especially as a commercial lawyer, right? I'm thinking as I talk to my clients, the purpose of these agreements that I'm getting them to create is to eliminate their loopholes and leave some for me. That's essentially what these contracts are doing. All right, so I can say, yeah, I can wiggle my way and I can do whatever I need to do, but they don't have any. So all that stuff falls on the artist. That's again, why you have to pay attention to these contracts, these distribution platforms. I'm telling you, check them out yourself. I got something, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna read some of these policies for y'all all my time. That's something I did when, where I was reading some contracts that were interesting. I was like, yo, they said, this is wild, right? So just really keep that in mind because I was so glad you brought up that point because you should expect almost these contracts to work like this. It's nice if they don't, but you should almost expect it because it's almost really the proper way of doing business from those companies' standpoints and you either don't do the business or you push back and then see if individually you can create your own situation. But in mass, just the template and standard is going to be something that limits our risk, right? Because that's what business is about, limiting your own risk. And sometimes, a lot of times, that involves creating more risk for you. And then another thing is like, which is real important, the fact that these policies are changing because I feel like we always get emails like Instagram policy change or Facebook policy. But it's like, I never read them. You know what I mean? I just be like, blah. A lot of them are, I'll tell you a little tidbit. A lot of these policies, right? Have in their policy that they can change your policy at any time and you still get the blame for anything that's set in because that's a part of the policy. I can change it. And some places, they say, I don't even have to let you know that I did it. Exactly. And see, and then even letting us know is just sending out a quick email that didn't know nobody's gonna read. That's a play tree. I tried. I can say I tried. Exactly. Exactly. And that, but the thing is like, it's so important for us to actually look at that because we're using these platforms as like our main source to contact our fan base. You know what I mean? Like, and we're spending all of this money, like you're spending money running YouTube ads or you're spending money running Facebook ads, but then they're always changing their policy. And then you don't even realize it because you don't read it. And then you find out like months later that something has changed which probably affected how your money was being spent, how your content was being distributed. You know what I mean? And how your communication was growing or not growing with your fan base. So it's like, it's really important for us to really stay up on these policies or up on these changes, on these platforms when we're dedicating so much of our time, our money and our energy into like building something on these platforms. Because that's really crazy. Look, Sean brought that to my attention. I didn't even know about it, right? But it's like, I've just been on there posting, posting and ghosting. Boy, I got a little note in the mail, talking about 42,000, like what? Yeah, hey, look, so again though, that's just a standard of doing business generally for these companies. If you get big enough, some of those things would be standard to you. They're not always, let's just say predatory. Sometimes it's a part of the process. I don't even remember where they got that number from. Yeah, I don't know. That was out the booty. Cause like 42, that was a real specific, that was very specific. I don't know what the, it's probably got passed out from the Federal Trade Commission, right? Right. It looms back to that. They done crushed your numbers and figured it out. But that's the same thing that happens, not just in these platforms. We think about it like this when we're in the creative standpoint. People get more of a victimization mentality when it comes to create, being a creator and how to get treated on that standpoint. But as a general consumer, it happens all the time. When the government creates a new tax and I'm at Walmart or something, right? Walmart has a decision, right? Either I'm going to up the price of this product and then let you pay the tax or I'm going to keep it the same and then I'm going to pay more of the taxes, right? So, and I'm going to pay those taxes myself. But the tax still exists. I have to figure out as a business owner who's going to pay for me or them and which way I want to deliver because even if I decide, okay, I'm not, I don't want to pay this tax. I definitely don't want to do this. I can do it in two ways and how I package it to you because packaging is important. One, I can up the price and you absorb that so you don't feel like you're paying a higher tax rate. You feel like you're paying pretty much a higher amount but it's just that. Or I can charge you the same but then have a higher tax. So that means I go to the registrar thinking I'm paying the same and then instead of plus 20 cents, I see plus $2 and all those things have psychology into how it affects you. One, you're like, yo, what's up with this? Because you didn't expect it on the back end. And then the other one, in which it might allow you to get to the registrar at least and say, look, I don't want to take it back. I don't like the fact I got to pay this. And then the other one is on the front end is telling you what it is. But then on the back end, you don't have to do anything later. And most companies do that anyway. And they all, like, nobody really wants to absorb the price as the business. So they definitely are going to find a way to like put it in your cost. And it's so crazy like the psychology and how that works because if we see a price that costs more, we'll probably be willing to pay for it. But if we get to the register and the tax is higher, like we, that's when we be like, yo, no, what is it? Like, it's like, right, you know, it's just crazy how the mind works. And that's why they basically just put it in the price because it's just a psychology. So like you two probably got hit with like 40,000, you know, on the fines. And now they're just like, are we, let's add like an extra $2,000. Pay for our lawyer's fees. Maybe it'll give us a little pocket so we can get some gone. Right, right. That's just my opinion. I was not in the paragraph, but yeah, that's just what they do. Like it's crazy. You know, I think everybody, one thing we also got to understand is like everything, all the prices go up for everything, you know, every year. So at the end of the day, it's like we got to find ways or they got to find ways to make us pay for things. You know? 100%. They do it slowly, right? Just like your parents might be like, I used to pay 80 cents for some shoes. Nah, that might be a great, great game. But like they used to pay 80 cents for something, right? And now it costs more, right? That's a fact. Even if you look at prices when you were, let's say 10, 15 years ago. Gas. You know how old you were, like gas. Things have gone up. Typically we like to have things go up slowly because then people don't react to it the same. They just kind of go along with it. People are slowly walking to this direction when you do it fast. Everybody says they like change, right? When we think ideally, oh, it was amazing when the civil rights movement happened or it was amazing when this country won some war. Like all those things, the massive changes and uprisings. We look at them endearingly and glowingly when we're looking at the past, but nobody likes change in real time. Like all that stuff that we look at that happened that was uprising and things that we might consider positive in real time. There was a lot of people that was like, yo man, I'm uncomfortable, man. People don't like to face that discomfort. So that's why things go up slowly versus drastically. You gotta be, you just have to learn how to adapt. Like we gotta be those type of people that adapt to anything like stay prepared. If you stay prepared, you ain't gotta get prepared, right? So let's not make content that we know that ain't for eight year olds, you know? Like let's not even try it out. I was wondering where you're going. Right, right, I was saying stay prepared. Do what you gotta do. But if it, now how about this? Because I'm thinking like, what if you have music that first of all, if your music doesn't have like cursing in it, it's kind of cool for good, right? Bleeping out all the bad words, it's suggestive. I mean, it's suggestive versus all right? Okay. I mean like, Old Town Road, he was talking about movies. I want to say I heard Boobies in there. Booty, I think he said Booty, not Booty. Do you say Boobies? What's the line? But both of us. Boor out in the Boobies or something like that. I can't remember. Say something about Boobies. He said something about drinking. He said something about cheating on this girl. You know what I mean? Yeah. He said a couple things. Now all he say cheating on my girl, he said you could go and ask her. That was a wild lie. That was a serious lie. Cheated on my lady. Womanism. All right, we ain't time to end this thing. Ladies stand up. We not going no womanism, woman feminism. We not doing that. That's right. But the kids is the one who made it great. Right? Like that's how I took off. But it's like the edited version. You know what I mean? So Kenneth. And that's, it's up to you to on whether you want to play with a gray area. I think the main thing that would make me not want to say, okay, this is for kids. It's just the fact that you lose all of those amenities that come with being. This is easy and clear for me. Yeah, yeah. I think this should be looked at as something that is a sign of more things like this to come. Because what people don't give enough acknowledgement is this is the Wild West. This era of social media. A lot of times, no, not a lot of times, a lot of these things are first, right? Like we don't know how these kids who came up only on social media, right? And that's all they know. I was talking to a kid the other day, five years old, she was like, she said something about Facebook. And I was like, what do you know about Facebook? And I thought it might be something stupid, right? But she said, I search for stuff. Like that was a real utility, like reasonable answer. She said you search for stuff. That's scary. A little kid and, you know, I'll talk about Netflix and all these things, right? They, they, they think differently. They, cause they experienced differently. And all these things are experienced. So as they start to see results, take, take do studies and things like that, they'll start to try to regulate in ways where once it was super free, we can do anything. I feel like further, like further along, it's going to be more regulated, like regular life is how these other things, because the city you live in, right? The civilization didn't always have those rules. People started to gather, stuff started getting wild for some periods and they created laws because some of the things that were going on, they created the law because of that. Well, cause people was doing the opposite, right? You know, so that's something to keep in mind. And you, there'll be more things like this on all these platforms that you don't own. Remember that. Yeah. All right, that's a fact. That's a fact. That means we done. Like Jason, she done, she done. All right, so we out of here. Once again, this is the music marketing. Oh, I messed that up. Come on. All right. Mavericks podcast. And we are through. Thank you. Follow Lady J at Lady J Bookums on Instagram. Follow at brainmanshine. We out y'all have a good one. You want to say bow.