 Alright, I think we can go ahead and get started. Unless anyone from the mayor's office disagrees, never want to upset the mayor. So unless I hear differently, we're going to get this thing going. So welcome to Metaverse NFTs Web 3, Navigating the Legal Landscape in the Music Industry. We've got a scorcher here. My name is Adrian Perry. I'm a partner at Covington of Burling, which is a law firm based in New York City, though the firm has offices all over the place. I'm co-chair of our music practice, and also part of our tech and IP transactions group. And I'm one of the folks that has been helping to lead our NFT Web 3 and Metaverse work. We've been pretty fortunate to do a lot of work generally in this space with lots of different clients, particularly in the music space we work with some artists, musicians, we work with some big labels and done a bunch of stuff in this space. So the idea is just give you all some information that might be helpful. And I've got a bunch of great colleagues with me who also are deeply involved in this space and have different expertise. So before we kind of dive in, I want to let everyone introduce themselves. So why don't we start with Marisa? Thanks, Adrian. Hi, I'm Marisa Pico. I'm an associate in the tech transactions group based out of New York. My practice mainly involves media, entertainment, sports transactions in a commercial setting. All right, Priscilla. Thanks, Adrian. Hi, I'm Priscilla Pistaro. I'm also an associate in our New York office. And like Marisa and Adrian, I work on tech transactions in the music space, as well as the entertainment space and just about any other space you can think of. So looking forward to the discussion today. Thanks, Phil. Hi, everyone. I'm Phil Hill. I'm an attorney in the New York office. I focus on music, media and entertainment, counseling, litigations, transactions, regulatory work. All right. So I'm going to set the table here and then we're going to just go around to each of our panelists and just talk about different topics that are relevant for folks in the music space. But just to sort of start us off, what is the metaverse? Lots of people talk about it. Ultimately, when people are referring to the metaverse, they're referring to real-time 3D rendered at mass scale through some sort of internet platform, some sort of virtual representation of the real world, which might be very detailed and realistic or very primitive. There are a lot of metaverse platforms out there right now, a lot of our sort of video game platforms. So if you're trying to wrap your head around what is a metaverse, think of Fortnite or Roblox or Minecraft, any of these types of platforms where you have an avatar, you get into it and you're kind of living in some sort of world. Web 3 is another buzzword you hear about. And the best sort of high level summary I can give of that is just sort of another iteration of the internet that's more participatory that involves people being able to earn money and create content and more of a back and forth as opposed to Web 2.0 where it's more you're just sort of receiving content. So when people talk about Web 3, I think that's sort of a lot of what they're getting at. A lot of folks think Web 3 will be driven by sort of decentralization. Again, that gets to more, this concept of being more participatory when you're engaging in these platforms. And then we'll talk about NFTs and obviously NFTs have been a big buzzword as well for the last couple of years. And in the metaverse context, NFTs, I think you're going to be useful both as representing digital assets. A lot of people are going to buy and sell digital goods and NFTs represent digital goods. And they can sort of act as a backbone potentially. So first tracking rights in different digital assets. So that's how I think NFTs might fit in. That's what we've been seeing at least in our experience. So that's kind of the stuff we'll be talking about today. And there's a huge opportunity for folks in the music industry. We've all seen the headlines going back now for at least a couple years of virtual concerts and folks creating experiences where music is either a central part of the experience or is ancillary. And it's not just the music industry. I mean, there's all types of consumer brands, sports leagues and teams moving into this world. So it's relevant across frankly any consumer facing company, I think it's important to understand what the metaverse is and the opportunity there. But in particular, for music, great opportunity to really engage with fans, find new ways to use content and be creative. So with that, I think we should move into the first real substantive topic and I want to start with Phil. So Phil, it'd be great if you could start us off by talking about what are the relevant rights to licensed music in the metaverse. Well, as a general matter, we know if you're on this call, most likely you all know that music rights are notoriously complicated, ownership is diffuse. And the metaverse raises these same considerations and then some. So we might begin by just talking about one bucket of the quintessential music rights. You know, every conversation about music rights starts with the two fundamental copyrights in the United States, the composition and the sound recording. You might think of the composition as the notes on the page. You think of the composer or the songwriter who writes the song, and then the owners might be the composer or the songwriter, then then also music publishers, licensors might be their agents like PROs, the performing rights organizations, the United States like ASCAP, the MI and CSEC that deals specifically with sets of rights called public performance rights. And then the second of these quintessential copyrights for music is the sound recording. And that's the specific recorded performance of a composition. So the Beatles recording, you might think of the recording artist and the record label. Now each of these copyrights, the composition and the sound recording each come with their own sets of rights and different owners and fractional owners potentially and agents. But the rights that we be talking about here for the metaverse are generally going to be some combination of the basic rights that you'd expect in ordinary situations, the rights to make copies or reproduce the rights to distribute copies, you know, to sell them. You might think of it as sort of in the metaverse the equivalent of selling an MP3. Depending on the use case, you might have instances where it implicates the right to modify, to make derivative works, you know, maybe users or their avatars can manipulate certain types of musical assets or digital assets. And then you're dealing with the rights to publicly perform because the metaverse is happening as a massively aggregated group of people. You might be on many occasions, maybe all occasions dealing with performances that might be in front of a few people, a lot of people, people all over the world. And then of course, in the industry, we have combinations of these rights that have developed over time. One of the key ones that is the subject of a lot of discussion involving the metaverse is sync or master use. And specifically in industry terms, that's the ability to use a composition and or sound recording and manipulate it so that it can be played in time relation to visuals. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But that's an overview of the basic quintessential music rights bucket. And then another bucket you might think of as the sorts of experiential rights like Adrienne had mentioned, these virtual concerts. And these are some of the more unique applications that have come up in the metaverse for specific use cases. Some of the things that really excite people about virtual events are things where you can have limitless concerts or lots of microcosms, very close curated concerts, meet and greets with artists, lots of direct fan engagement. And that brings up not just the normal types of music rights that you have, but also name, image, and likeness, likenesses in the real world aspects of the artists, and maybe their avatars as well. So all of that is another bucket that's implicated by the metaverse. And then maybe another bucket you might think of as just your basic virtual goods, rights in the virtual merchandise, virtual t-shirts, virtual albums, all of that stuff. And then each of these buckets are really governed by rights that happen, occur or enforceable under the laws of each country where that may be applicable. So there ends up being territorial rights that you have to consider as well when you're dealing with music in the metaverse. Got it. So it sounds like a lot of the rights we're talking about are things that we've been dealing with already in digital environments. Can you speak to maybe some things that are unique to the metaverse, maybe some unique challenges as far as obtaining these rights and creating these experiences for people? Yeah. So a lot of the negotiations and discussions that are happening are sort of how do we take the analog of what happens in the real world and apply it to a virtual environment. And so one of the things that comes up is that if you're going to be playing music or recording a composition in the metaverse with an avatar, that necessarily implicates some visual component. And there's some code that goes along with that and some audio visuals that go along with that. And so questions arise as to whether when you're playing music in the metaverse, is that also not just a public performance, but a sync? Is it a master use? And these are questions that people are working through now. But if you think about it sort of in the real world, if I'm running around Central Park with a boombox over my head blaring, sweet, click, Caroline, that's a public performance, but it's not a sync. If my avatar does that exact same thing in virtual Central Park with a virtual boombox, okay, it's a public performance if it's in front of a bunch of other people and other people can hear it, but is it a sync? And so we have these sorts of things playing out usually by analogy. Well, it's like this real world situation, or there's some nuance to this. That's one area where these issues are being tested. And another one, I alluded to this before, but this multi-territoriality issue, you might have different owners in the US and Canada and in Japan and in Europe, wherever you are. And so the clearance hurdles, licensing, determining ownership, paying out royalties, complying with the laws and the contracts in all of the different territories really raises a lot of concerns that people have to think about. And you might need to be aware, not just of where a user is using the music, but it might be where other users are receiving public performances of the music. It might be where the servers are that the assets are being served up from such that you can actually play the music. It might be where the platform company exists or the various places where it exists. And then a lot of the issues that come up are sort of on the horizon, lots of different use cases, lots of different ways that we can create and implement things from a technological encoding standpoint. And that creates a lot of options for us in how we set what the privileges will allow or not allow from a legal standpoint, from a technological standpoint. You might think of things in terms of the digital goods that I mentioned. And if you have a physical CD, you could lose that CD, the CD could get scratched, it could deteriorate over time. With a virtual good, it could exist forever. As the rights owners, do you want to build in decay over time? Do you want to build in a revision history? And do you want users to be able to access those things? Do you want users to be able to apply a hissing pop filter to make it sound like a vinyl record? And then do you want them to be able to undo that if they want to? Do you want them to be able to keep these virtual goods in perpetuity? Do you want to allow them to resell? Do you want them to be able to take these things with them across virtual environments? These are all things that are considerations that come up in terms of what agreements rights owners and platforms may agree to, what you might allow users to do, and how you might enforce things as you're going forward in the metaverse. Yeah, I mean, actually, why don't we pick up a little bit on the enforcement question? Because I think that's a question on a lot of folks minds on whether you're a content owner or whether you have a platform is how is enforcement going to work? How is compliance going to work, especially when you have this potential for cross-platform use and being able to use content in these more interactive ways? Yeah, and that's a really interesting and difficult question, both from a technological and illegal standpoint. One thing is for enforcement, obviously, there's these international and territorial considerations. So we'll set that aside for a moment, but it'll come back to it. Many of the people on the call will be familiar with the DMCA, notice and take downs in the United States. If a platform, a metaverse platform wants to operate as DMCA compliant, meaning they get the benefit of the safe harbor, they need some mechanism to receive notices and take down copyrighted content that has been brought to their attention, at least in the United States. And so from a technological standpoint, how does the copyright owner identify a particular asset? I think that that avatar's t-shirt is an unauthorized piece of virtual good, so take that down. How does the copyright owner identify that piece of merchandise to the platform so that the platform can take action? And then how does the platform actually take action? How does it remove or disable access? These are legal questions, but also coding questions. If you've got the avatar wearing an unlicensed band t-shirt, you receive the takedown notice. Does the implementation for the code, meaning that the avatar loses the shirt, reverts to the prior shirt that the avatar was equipped with, is the shirt blocked out? Whatever option you choose, does the platform apply that change globally across all jurisdictions, so all users see it? Or are there different experiences if you've got another user in the United States or a different user in a different country? Do they get different experiences based on these implementations? And of course, I chose the t-shirt because that's a visible sort of visceral thing, but you might imagine the same applications with music. You know, if I've got my avatar with the boombox playing a song, does it show up as mute to other people? Or does it show up as a different song to other people? These are all, you know, considerations that we have to work our way through as the metaverse develops. Yeah, no, that all makes sense. And I think that's probably a good segue to now move to Priscilla to talk about some of these cross-platform issues and some of the user-generated content issues that could come up, right? Because again, you know, assuming that an avatar kind of run around, do whatever they want, you know, holding up a boombox playing whatever song they want, you know, there's not just compliance stuff, but there's potential branding questions and other types of controls that, you know, platforms or content licensors may want in place as far as controlling what can happen. I think a lot of folks think that, you know, metaverse platforms, you already see it. I mean, there's a lot of user creativity and interaction that's something that's just going to continue. So Priscilla, maybe you can talk a little bit about this UGC question and how that's going to play out, you know, for folks, you know, in the metaverse and specifically, you were talking about, you know, folks in the music space. Yeah, sure. So, you know, kind of one of the great things about the metaverse or metaverses, metaversi, I think we'll go with metaverses. The great thing about that is that, you know, they're going to be, they are virtual spaces that are shared with tons of people, you know, all over the globe who are interacting in real time. So this creates sort of limitless opportunities for creativity and for the ability to modify content. So, you know, if we take those examples of running through Central Park, you know, your digital avatar playing music, you know, maybe they meet up with other avatars that are playing music together or having jam sessions, for example, with music that's, you know, already copyrighted. You know, this means that as a content owner, you kind of have to be prepared for your content to be manipulated by users or for it to just interact with other content and perhaps a way that you did not expect. So like, for example, you know, if the user duplicates like a record label, right, creates their own record label in the metaverse, but they duplicate sort of an already existing one and start to release music and that music's really bad, you know, you as the record label that's being duplicated, you know, you're not going to be thrilled about that or, you know, if you're an individual artist and someone in the metaverse is remixing your songs and passing it off as their own, you know, that's not going to be great. But, you know, as a content creator, as an artist, you're going to have to sort of just understand that things like that are going to happen. And so once you sort of come to that realization, then you can sort of start to plan about that and think through how you're going to deal with infringement. You know, Phil gave a lot of really great examples, kind of using what we already have existing in the real world right now. It's a sort of a great first step. The law is still evolving in this area. And we know that this issue, you know, is going to be just as as hairy as it is in the real in the real world, you know, you've got, for example, video games that are creating virtual recreating virtual images of things that are existing in the real world. And, you know, they get sued right now for infringement or violations of rights of publicity and rights of privacy. For example, you know, if they're trying to create, recreate an NBA player in their game, and they want it to be real. And they sort of recreate those tattoos, you know, and that tattoo artist says, Hey, that's my copyrighted work, you know, existing on this avatar in a game. And I never got, I never gave permission for that. Or, hey, this avatar is using my dance move every time it wins something or wins a point. And I never, I never gave my permission for that. So these things are happening right now. You know, some of these lawsuits are successful, some of them are not. But I think the point is, you know, if you are creating content, you don't want to get hit with with a lawsuit. Or if you see your things being infringed, you know, you're kind of wanting to know what you can do. I think the first, the first sort of thing to keep in your mind is, you know, it's all about content control. So when you're granting licenses to your content for the metaverse, it's sort of the same thing that you would think of through think through in the real world. So think through, you know, who's going to be able to actually use your content, play it? Who's going to be able to manipulate it? Do you want users to be able to, you know, should an avatar be able to change that t-shirt that has your band's logo on it? Or should that be a permanent affixed part of that avatar that is not changeable? And if so, in what ways can it be changed? You know, maybe you're okay with them changing the color of the shirt, but you don't want anything added to that logo or added to that brand. So those are kinds of things that you're going to want to think through and make sure is clear in your contract with whoever's, you know, whoever you're licensing your content to. Also in terms of risk mitigation, you know, to the extent you're combining your own content with the third party's IP, you know, you're also going to think through what rights do you need from that third party in order to not only combine it, but to, you know, further license it out to users or to the platform as well. So one way to sort of mitigate the risk here is to make sure you're playing an active role in designing virtual content, you know, work hand in hand with the platforms. If you're working with a third party to actually create the content, really be hands on there because that's a really great way to sort of head off issues before they even arise and making sure that, you know, the creative teams, the technical teams and the legal teams are all aligned on what is acceptable and what's not acceptable. And then finally, thinking through things like technical controls, you know, fill hinted at them as well. You know, those are also one way to monitor and enforce the proper use of your licensed content. Now, the types of controls that are available will be particular to the, you know, to the exact platform and metaverse that you're in. But, you know, you can also inform this. So it's not sort of you just kind of take what's given to you, you know, you also have control over this because it is your content, especially in the case of any kind of decentralized metaverse. Yeah, that's really helpful. And I think the theme that's kind of coming through here is it's a combination of, you know, dealing with legal issues in whatever contracts, but also making sure from a technical perspective that, you know, whatever use content controls you want put in place can actually be put in place. So, you know, it sounds like there's got to be a little bit of diligence too on, you know, particularly if you're licensing in content or content creator is sort of, you know, can these controls actually be implemented. So I guess further to that, you know, maybe Priscilla, you could talk a little bit about, you know, a little more about this content interoperability question, you know, being able to bring a digital asset that you purchased on platform A to platform B, you know, and how did those platforms interact? You know, right now, this is something that hasn't quite come to fruition, but a lot of folks foresee that. So it'd be great if you could talk a little bit about that and things people need to consider with that on the horizon. Yeah, so in a nutshell, you know, content interoperability is the ability for content, whether it's good, virtual goods or identities to travel across platforms. So for example, you know, your digital persona in a game like Fortnite might be able to be used in Minecraft. So that's sort of the idea that it can travel from platform to platform with you and sort of be accessible no matter where you're at in the metaverse. You know, this interoperability ability will raise additional content control considerations. You know, first, do you even want your content to be interoperable with other metaverse platforms? You know, is the license agreements that you're signing, are they exclusive? If you're sort of licensing in third party content, you know, do you now need to go get permission from that third party again to move their content from platform to platform, or is the license from them, you know, only with respect to one platform. And now that they know you want to move it across platforms sort of the price skyrockets. So to the extent that it's going to be part of your plan as a content owner, again, you want to consider the scope of any licenses that you might need to allow for that kind of movement across platforms. And if, you know, if that if it will transfer with the content, you know, how are you going to monitor and enforce those licenses? You know, who and then more importantly, to the technical questions, who's actually going to be responsible for making that all work. You know, it's all great and good if you want your content sort of to move around anywhere, but you know, is that even technically possible? Can it actually travel across your desired platforms and can't travel in a way that's secure? And in a way that makes sure that when it's presented on another platform, you know, it looks just as good as when it's on that first platform. And I think this is particularly going to be true. Again, if you're licensing in some third parties IP and sort of combining it with your own, you know, your third party licensor isn't going to be thrilled if, you know, if the resulting product doesn't look so great or doesn't sound so great, depending on what platform it's on. You'll also want to make sure that the content is adequately maintained when it's on each platform. So kind of an analogy to this, think of things like collectible baseball cards or any kind of memorabilia, you know, once a consumer purchases it, it's sort of up to them to maintain it in mint condition, you know, and make sure that its value continues to rise and continues to rise because they're taking such great care of it. But unlike physical memorabilia or treating cards, you know, the preservation of your digital content is really going to depend on third parties. And so how that platform is maintaining your asset, how, you know, whoever created the digital version of your asset, did they create it in such a way that it can continue to be maintained, you know, indefinitely. So your chosen platform and service providers who are helping you to digitize your content or sort of distribute it in the metaverse are going to be key here and your relationships with them are going to be really important. So when you're, you know, negotiating contracts with them, you're really going to want to pay attention to things like service levels, as well as transition assistance. So making sure that, you know, there's no gap between platform A and platform B when that content is traveling and transitioning from one to the other. You kind of don't want them both pointing the finger at each other and saying, well, it looks like crap because it came from this platform and they don't use XYZ technology and it's not our fault. So you're going to always want to make sure that loop is closed. That's, that all makes sense. And I think now we, Marissa, be great now to turn to you because I think the interoperability question is a really compelling concept for folks, you know, being able to create this sort of integrated world of, you know, multiple metaverses. And, you know, I think NFTs are probably going to be important to that, as I mentioned, sort of at the top of this. So, you know, maybe you can talk a little bit about, you know, how NFTs specifically, you know, may play a role in a metaverse platform. And then just generally talk about some of the digital economy questions. Since again, there's going to be a lot of opportunities for musicians and folks in the music industry, you know, to engage with fans and create new revenue streams, all that stuff in a metaverse. So, yeah, so why don't we start by talking about the NFT question? Sure. So, and the interoperability point is really just to provide an overview is really coming into play, I think in the metaverse industry. It was just announced that the metaverse standards form was launched, and that's a consortium between a bunch of the bigger players in the field. So we'll see what they come up with. But in the meantime, yeah, NFTs are looking like a technology that will help with this interoperability and transfer and digital assets across different metaverse platforms. And so just to back up, so NFTs are essentially made up of two components. There's the token portion, which is the code that's recorded on the blockchain. And then there's the content, which is linked to the code, but it's separate from the token, and it's usually stored on a separate server. So in terms of the rights, this also differs between the two components of what a purchaser usually gets when they buy an NFT. So typically, a purchaser will acquire only the token portion of the NFT and will then receive a license to the content that's associated. That means that the ownership rights in the content, including the intellectual property rights are still retained by the content owner. And this is an important distinction, especially when we discuss some of the legal issues in a second. But just in terms of how NFTs will be helpful in the metaverse, as mentioned, it will likely be helpful in tracking digital assets as they move across different metaverse platforms. And they're able to do this and help because they can keep track of title to those goods on the blockchain, which again, it's a digital ledger, so a public ledger. So anyone can view and verify the transactions, and it's not limited to a particular platform. So if you purchase a shirt for your avatar, for example, that shirt might be represented by an NFT, you would be recorded as the owner on the blockchain, your purchase would be recorded as well. And then if you ever sold that NFT, that transaction would get recorded as well. So it really does keep a good track of everything. Obviously, the hurdle is the technological capabilities, as Priscilla mentioned, for linking these different metaverses together and actually having the content itself show up and look good across metaverse platforms. But from a technical and theoretical standpoint, these NFTs should at least be able to track the content as NFTs as they move across. And so we're starting also to see NFTs do more than just represent content, whether it be an image or a video, but we're seeing NFTs being thought of more as utilitarian in function. So they're being used, for example, as tickets to gain access to certain goods, whether digital or physical, or various experiences that somebody could participate in. And translating that over to the metaverse, again, we could see NFTs being the key to unlock various items, either in a single metaverse or across metaverses. If you have this NFT, you could show that you have rights to go into XYZ or have a different experience, etc. So it is interesting to see the technology behind the NFT. It's not just used for memes or board apes or something like that. So we'll see where it goes in the future. And again, I think the difference between an NFT and maybe a different functionality or something that's maybe in like separate to a particular platform is that NFTs can help you not only verify ownership, but it has an open market. So you can sell your NFT, depending on the terms and conditions of your NFT. So even though you own it, you can sell it. And it's an open market for that purchase, which makes it unique in that way as well. Yeah. No, that makes sense. And it sounds like you're about to go to the broader topic, which I also want to make sure we talk more about the native economy aspect. And we hear a lot about the economic opportunity in the metaverse and what that could look like. And NFTs play a role in that. But maybe you can talk a little bit about sort of more broadly, how someone might participate in a metaverse economy, whether it's a musician or a content owner or a poop, different players in the music space. What are the opportunities? What does it look like? And what are the things that they have to be aware of when they're kind of trying to sort of move into the sort of economic side of the metaverse? Sure. So we're definitely expecting people to buy and sell in the metaverse, whether it's land or digital goods. And we're seeing even proto metaverses today have secondary markets, so people can buy and sell with each other, not just with the platform that's running the metaverse. And so I think in the future, what we'll see in the metaverse is not only purchasing and sales, but people might actually be able to build careers in the metaverse itself. And we've seen examples of this with proto metaverses, where, for example, there was one that actually had real people help run their virtual casino within the metaverse and help to operate it. And so we could see actual native economies within these metaverses that are sustaining and can cross over to various metaverses. But the question that arises is, how will people actually pay for things in the metaverse? What types of payment, what types of currency will be used? And this is up in the air right now, especially because they're contemplating various metaverses, but bottom line is whatever is used will have to be traded off-platform and across-platforms in order to retain its real-world value. And that's really the thing that separates this from, for example, just the traditional video game, where you might earn in-game coins or something where you can't really do anything with that, but having the ability to take whatever currency or money and move it across a different metaverse platform or even off-platform gives it that real-world value. And so cryptocurrency is definitely one option since it provides for secure transactions and it's decentralized, which is helpful if metaverses start to move in that direction. But there's obviously a lot of obstacles for one, as we know, it's very volatile. It has yet to be regulated, but really is likely to be so soon. And it's really not very user-friendly and hasn't been widely adopted or as widely adopted as we're expecting the metaverse to be in the future. So with that being said, we can definitely see traditional payment methods like credit cards being used. And there have been some new technologies in this space where they combine credit cards or traditional payment methods with cryptocurrency, so allowing people to purchase something with a credit card, but on the back end, it's really buying it with crypto. And so all these different technologies will have to kind of see where they go. But again, in order to retain the real-world value has to be usable off the platform. And I think one of the legal challenges to flag is that the transference of whether it be fiat traditional payments to crypto or vice versa could raise some regulatory concerns. So depending on what the metaverse platforms decide to do, it's something that will have to be worked out. No, that all makes sense. So before moving to the next question, I did want to remind any attendees, if you have questions, feel free to put them in the Q&A. We're happy to try and answer them with the remaining time. But the next question, I want to open it up now to any of the panel here. So Web 3 and the metaverse, a lot of folks think that it's going to give musicians new opportunities, new revenue streams. Curious if folks think that that's going to be better for smaller or independent artists or whether folks that are backed by major labels are going to have more of an advantage. Is there not really a difference? And the other thing that I think interesting for folks in the audience is if you're an independent musician, what kinds of things should you be doing to educate yourself? Answer the opportunities and risks other than of course attending this webinar. But yeah, so does anyone want to jump in first as far as whether you see a difference between whether indie artists or major label artists have advantages, disadvantages? Is it a wash? I'll take that one at least in the first instance. I'd say that the opportunities are good for everybody and they're a little bit different but still good. On the independent artist side, one of the things that comes up a lot in these discussions, harking back to my outline of the rights and the diffuse landscape and all the different countries, if you've got a really successful work with very sophisticated people, you might end up having multiple owners of the sound recording and multiple owners of the composition and then each of those across each of the 195 countries in the world, those might be different in each country in the most extreme case. And so that can introduce a lot of friction in the licensing world. If you're a platform or you're an organization who's trying to organize an event with an artist and obviously there's lots of sophisticated folks who are working on these issues and so it's not insurmountable by any means but one of the things that comes up for newer artists and emerging artists and artists who are building their career structured around a world where the metaverse is already here in large part, a lot of those rights structures can be I'm an artist in the United States, I own my masters and my publishing and therefore it's very easy to license with me. And so you become a more attractive target for certain applications anyway because you have the ability to act quickly, grant licenses to users that cover all rights throughout the world and reduce that friction for licensing that might otherwise come up. Makes sense. I don't know, Marissa or Priscilla, any other thoughts on that? Different views? Yeah, I think putting aside all the complications which there are a lot of them, I think that the opportunity for sort of smaller independent artists are really significant. I think with most things, people with more capital and more resources are obviously going to be able to, if they execute correctly, they'll probably likely continue to be successful and have a lot of resources. But I think with a lot of things that we've experienced probably in the past 15 years, I think this is just another avenue to sort of decentralize and take away sort of the gate blocking and gatekeeping aspects that have existed in the entertainment industry for a really long time. So think of things like YouTube, before YouTube in order to create a show, you had to have a deal, but now anyone with a cell phone camera can sort of create their own show. And I think with the metaverse, it's going to be something similar where maybe you're an artist who can't afford to travel the world and go on a world tour to get your music out there, but now with the metaverse, you can have a virtual concert and you can sort of have more of an ability to gain grassroots following for your music and for your content in a way that just sort of releasing it on SoundCloud might not, it might have a bigger impact, I think especially because people are not just listening to your music on the metaverse the way they would on the internet or through the radio, they're actually, they're in it, they're having this experience with you, their app is virtual concert with you, which as a music lover myself, that's one way that I in particular really sort of connect with the music is actually seeing it performed. And so being able to have that virtual experience and feel like you're even closer to your artist, I think is going to have a really profound impact on the entertainment space in general, but I think particularly when it comes to music. Yeah, I think also with the idea of Web3, it's really supposed to democratize what's available on the internet in general. And so I think even more seeing the tools available in this metaverse or proto metaverse and Web3 space, or they're making it more user friendly. And for example, if you take the sandbox game, their whole idea is to allow users to build worlds, to then have other people play those games or interact with those worlds. So it's really people are being provided the tools to actually create things. So it might, you know, make it easier for artists who maybe don't have as much capital as maybe being backed by a label to to get involved in the space. Yeah, no, that makes sense. I'd like to circle back to the the virtual concert thing, because, you know, obviously during the pandemic that there was an explosion, you know, in virtual events, generally in virtual concerts, because it was, you know, in a lot of time, the only sort of live music you could see would be, you know, a live stream or or these virtual concerts in different platforms. And folks were sort of questioning, well, is this going to stick around long term is just a creature of the pandemic. And now we're all going to get back to live music. And, you know, thankfully, like live music is is coming back, but virtual experiences are continuing as well. I'm curious for, you know, any or all of your thoughts on sort of, you know, the long term prospects for virtual concerts and and and how you've seen things evolve over time and what they might look like as the metaverse these metaverse platforms keep getting built up and and and, you know, expanded and become more user friendly. So curious if folks have views on on sort of the virtual concert front. Yeah, I didn't start. So I think this is sort of here to stay. I think it'll be interesting to see kind of where it it goes at first. I don't think we're sort of going to just completely go to virtual concerts and they're not going to be any more in like live experiences. I think what I'm most excited about is and I'm seeing more and more artists do this is they're sort of melding the two. So sort of they'll have, you know, their typical arena performances or live performances, but they're going to create more intimate experiences for their fans. And they're going to do it in a virtual in a virtual space. So whether that's, you know, you get, you know, there's only 10, 10 tickets to have, you know, an intimate performance by your favorite artist and you're watching it from home or you're going to like a physical location and there's only 10 other people there and you've got your sort of VR sets and you're experiencing it together in a very intimate setting. I think I'm most excited about about that because I think, you know, again, as someone who really loves concerts, sort of you're at the concert and you're, you know, you're having this amazing experience and that it ends and it's sort of like, man, I wish this could continue. So now imagine you get to go home and continue that on. And as an artist too, right, like you're only human, you can only make it to a certain amount of states or countries in a, you know, in a particular year. But now you've got this avatar and you've got the metaverse that is persistent and is always on. So, you know, if you're able to create an avatar that really resonates with people and it can sort of continue on your persona while you're sleeping or doing something else, you know, I think that's just going to open up even more revenue streams and even, I guess, less than likely more opportunities for artists to really connect with their fans. Yeah. I'm Arissa Phil. Any any views on on the virtual concert topic? Well, I think the option for virtual concerts is absolutely here to stay. I don't think that will ever be in a world where we're fully replacing it, but it's a legitimate decision that, you know, independent artists can make when you know, to lower the barriers to entry, but it's also a decision, an educated decision that record labels and hit makers can decide to make as well to say, I'm going to focus on virtual or there's going to be a virtual aspect to this. And as long as, you know, the metaverse keeps developing, becomes a viable mechanism, then it's just going to be a choice, a matter of preference, a matter of differentiation, a matter of, you know, your audience and your artistry and how you're going to reach the people that you want to reach. Yeah, I agree. And I also think it opens up the opportunity to reach new audiences too, just because it's a different warm and, you know, people might be wanting to see something virtual or in the metaverse, you know, might be somebody different than you typically reach with your music in general. Yeah, I mean, I remember back in back in the day when I had an indie rock band that was extremely unpopular, for whatever reason, we had a lot of fans in South America. We always wanted to get down there to tour, but it was too expensive. You know, we just couldn't, we could never pull it off. But now, you know, I would just imagine like we could, you know, there's an opportunity to set up like a virtual show and actually interact with people and maybe build up, you know, that type of following that would then allow you to get there in person, you know what I mean? Like that, that type of stuff, I think is really exciting. For any musician, you know, whether you're signed to a big label, small label, completely independent, you know, sort of a virtual concert as an option, can really open some doors and such as one of the many, you know, great opportunities, I think that it's going to continue to proliferate, you know, as these metaverse platforms, you know, continue to develop. Yeah, even on the flip side, like for, you know, artists who can't afford to travel, but think about it on the flip side for people who can't afford, you know, concert tickets, who can't afford to go see their favorite artists live or in a, you know, in a stadium and especially if they're a big artist that only plays Hugh Durina's. Now imagine, you know, for a much cheaper price, you can sit at home and, you know, have people over and have this virtual experience. And so I think it also is going to provide opportunities for those who have been, you know, traditionally left out of live events, whether it's for money, but also think about people with disabilities. I think, you know, those folks who, you know, typically cannot go to live concerts because of their disabilities or their health issues, you know, hopefully now we'll be able to actually participate virtually, right? Because there are no disabilities in the metaverse or, you know, it allows for people to kind of get over that barrier as well. Yeah, that's a great point. So we got a couple of questions from attendees, which I want to get to now. So the first one that came in is, based on the discussion, it seems that each platform has unique features and audiences. How would music artists go about choosing which platform they'd like to use when establishing their metaverse presence? So I'll start it off and then everyone should jump in. But I mean, because right now it is sort of all these different platforms that are different, you have to figure out which one has the features you want, right? Let's say your goal is to have virtual concerts and you want something that has like a very realistic experience. So you would look for a platform that could achieve that and maybe has like focused on better sound quality, right? But if your goal is maybe to just, it doesn't have to be a concert, but you want to just have meet and greets and have some sort of interaction or some sort of gamified thing, you know, maybe you go with a platform that has more of that, more games and other types of things where you can be like interacting and doing something with folks, and it isn't necessarily a concert. But I don't know if the panelists, you know, please chime in. Yeah, I think that's right. I think like most things that maybe another avenue, you know, like Adrian's basically mentioning doing your due diligence. So figuring out what's important to you for your content and finding a platform that aligns with that. But also don't be afraid to just ask around, right? Ask other artists who have done it and say like, how was your experience working with this platform? You know, did it come out well? Did it not come out well? Would you recommend them? I think that's probably going to be like your best bet if you can, if you can actually find someone who's done it and see what they think. Anyone else, Phil? Yeah, I mean, I'd say that if you're an artist who's starting out trying to figure out where to build your presence and you don't have a team of people already betting all this for you, you know, a lot of it's going to come down to the technological tools that are available on the platform and your familiarity with them. So, you know, you would be the person who's designing the stage and the audience experience, the audio connection and the technical back end, the stack that all this stuff is built on, what quality audio you want to stream from, you know, the real-time effect, the lag, the latency, all of those things are things that, you know, you could have a team of people dealing with and then maybe where you go doesn't matter. But if it's just you, then as your own individual person, you'd want to build it in a place where you're familiar enough with the tools to make the world as you want it and to put out there the experience that you want your audience to have. And it may be indifferent to which one you are on, but you would just want to be able to curate it to your preferences. Makes sense. All right, so I think we have time for one more question and I want to get this a question from Aaron, another attendee. So, basically, you don't own the rights to the content like your avatar unless you're the creator. Would example be like when a graphic designer designs you a logo and even though you pay them for the design, you truly do not own that logo until they sign you over the rights via a contract. So again, I'll start that off. So generally right now, like if you're, if you go on any sort of platform, your rights and whatever content that you're consuming are going to be controlled by the terms of use, basically. So if you buy, let's say your avatar buys a shirt, we've been using sort of the basic shirt example, you want a shirt with a logo of a band on it. There's going to be some terms of use that govern that that will tell you what your rights are. There will be the terms of use will tell you sort of what rights you have and the things that you create, you know, things you upload, things you change in the platform. So it really, I mean, it's not standardized right now. It's all basically contract and the contract is a terms of use. You know, those things we all just kind of click through, they're important. Could the regime change as the metaverse proliferates and there are different platforms and maybe there's a new way to do things? I don't know, it's possible. But right now, it really is just, you know, you got to read those terms of use. So I don't know, again, want to allow anyone else to jump in, but that would be my answer there. Yeah, I think that's right. I think as a content creator, that's why we were mentioning before it's really important to one, understand how you want your content to be displayed or interacted with, even maybe you don't want it to be interacted with, you know, and making sure that when you are licensing your content out to a platform, that it's clear kind of what that platform is allowed to let users do and what they're not allowed to do. That that's why it's so important because once it's sort of there, it's there. And depending on what the terms are, you know, assuming that you're like, most people don't read it, you know, you might not know what that platform is allowing people to do. Got it. Okay. Well, we're out of time. So hopefully, folks found this useful. You know, to the extent anyone has additional questions or wants to follow up, I think all of our information is publicly available. You can always drop us an email. And we're happy to chat. This is the stuff we're doing day in, day out. And hopefully, you know, again, this was this was useful and gave you some stuff to think about. And you know, with that, I guess we'll sign off and everyone has a good evening. Bye. Thank you. Thank you to everybody.