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A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song

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Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song

#111

Post by lifeisstillgood »

netcan wrote: post #110
umvi wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like the old aristocracy days except for instead of the elite owning physical property and renting it out to the peasants, the elite own intellectual property and rent it out to the peasants.

In a basic sense, that's what all wealth is. Income generating property. Debt produces interest. Company shares produce dividends Real estate earns rent. Capital produces revenue. It's all quite interchangeable. The most famous rant on this is Marx & Engel's manifesto. Chapter one explains how history works, making similar comparisons from their day to older days. The second chapter describes communism's aims. It's a…

I genuinely googled Mark Engels to see who he was - I was guessing a friend of Brian Eno.

Now I get it.

And yes, the commons may well be becoming more of the world than the private world. interesting idea

Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song

#112

Post by kowalakian »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #93
m12k wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article makes it sound like he's only buying proven songs, meaning they already have distribution. Also, as Napster, Pirate Bay and now Spotify have shown, distribution really is trivial - what he's buying is the right to restrict legal distribution.

> as Napster, Pirate Bay and now Spotify have shown, distribution really is trivial Spotify is a multi-billion dollar company. I’m not sure what it does is trivial. On buying proven content, that still increases competition on the buy side for that content. The decoupling of distribution and content acquisition still happens, and makes the top end of the market pricier. That, in turn, means more money to the lower en…

Spotify is a music player. This is a commodity industry.

Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song

#113

Post by netcan »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #111
netcan wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a basic sense, that's what all wealth is. Income generating property. Debt produces interest. Company shares produce dividends Real estate earns rent. Capital produces revenue. It's all quite interchangeable. The most famous rant on this is Marx & Engel's manifesto. Chapter one explains how history works, making similar comparisons from their day to older days. The second chapter describes communism's aims. It's a…

I genuinely googled Mark Engels to see who he was - I was guessing a friend of Brian Eno. Now I get it. And yes, the commons may well be becoming more of the world than the private world. interesting idea

Ha! (fixed, thanks)

Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song

#114

Post by ancientworldnow »

technofiend wrote: post #57
allcentury wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's buying the publishing (mechanical royalties).

From the article he's dedicating marketers to synch rather than mechanicals. I quoted the explanation of all three revenue streams for people like myself who don't automatically know which is which. With Hipgnosis Songs Fund, Mercuriadis bypassed all of them. Songwriters are able to generate revenue from three sources: mechanical royalties (the sale or legal download of a song), performance royalties (paid every time…

For people curious about synch rates, a friend just licensed the music (not performance) to an unknown song for promos for a major streaming production with A listers for $8000 on a two month license. This was with the assistance of an entertainment lawyer.

Of course every case is unique.

Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song

#115

Post by wtn »

mrnobody_67 wrote: post #101
bagacrap wrote: post #14

He raised $1B of others' money; he hasn't spent anything close to that yet, even in aggregate. The article is extremely light on details of why this guy thinks he can turn a bigger profit off these song catalogs than the traditional publishers can, but I guess he's cutting a lot of fat compared to the big publishing houses? This seems positive to me because it's shifting more money towards the artists: "In the music…

His big bet is that the assets are undervalued... Could end up exiting through the launch of a Music Royalties REIT. Liquid assets that trade always get a premium over illiquid limited partnerships. Could be an interesting asset class for diversification that's relatively uncorrelated... Anyway, full investment prospectus for his fund is here: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5937f2f1bebafb1297678...

That would be a royalty trust.

Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song

#116

Post by umvi »

netcan wrote: post #110
umvi wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like the old aristocracy days except for instead of the elite owning physical property and renting it out to the peasants, the elite own intellectual property and rent it out to the peasants.

In a basic sense, that's what all wealth is. Income generating property. Debt produces interest. Company shares produce dividends Real estate earns rent. Capital produces revenue. It's all quite interchangeable. The most famous rant on this is Marx & Engel's manifesto. Chapter one explains how history works, making similar comparisons from their day to older days. The second chapter describes communism's aims. It's a…

Intellectual property didn't used to be rent seeking. It's a relatively recent phenomenon where you can no longer buy-to-own, you can only subscribe-to-use.

Virtually every company is moving toward this model - Microsoft, Adobe, Disney, etc. That's my main complaint.

Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song

#117

Post by look_lookatme »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #93
m12k wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article makes it sound like he's only buying proven songs, meaning they already have distribution. Also, as Napster, Pirate Bay and now Spotify have shown, distribution really is trivial - what he's buying is the right to restrict legal distribution.

> as Napster, Pirate Bay and now Spotify have shown, distribution really is trivial Spotify is a multi-billion dollar company. I’m not sure what it does is trivial. On buying proven content, that still increases competition on the buy side for that content. The decoupling of distribution and content acquisition still happens, and makes the top end of the market pricier. That, in turn, means more money to the lower en…

They are saying distribution is trivial from a technical perspective.

Acquiring the rights to distribute profitably is non trivial, of course.

Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song

#119

Post by opportune »

netcan wrote: post #110
umvi wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like the old aristocracy days except for instead of the elite owning physical property and renting it out to the peasants, the elite own intellectual property and rent it out to the peasants.

In a basic sense, that's what all wealth is. Income generating property. Debt produces interest. Company shares produce dividends Real estate earns rent. Capital produces revenue. It's all quite interchangeable. The most famous rant on this is Marx & Engel's manifesto. Chapter one explains how history works, making similar comparisons from their day to older days. The second chapter describes communism's aims. It's a…

A very large number of early economists railed on rentiership (Adam Smith, Herny George, of course Marx).

With regard to intellectual property, "ownership" is effectively monopoly because nobody else has the right to produce the good. There might be "inferior" or replacements goods with pop music, but maybe not even that when it comes to things like patents.

However I disagree with your assertion that wealth is income generating property. If I store $5mm under my mattress, I have wealth without generating income: the wealth can be used to purchase a large amount of services over a sustained period of time, but it is not generating more wealth.

The argument about "private property" is not hard to understand, it is just confusing for many people because of the way we use the term in modern language. It is not only to be compared with public property, but also personal property: for example, the apartment I live in, or the comb I use to brush my hair. Interestingly, personal property is almost by definition a form of wealth which does not produce income/accumulate value. Here's a good explanation:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_property#Personal_ver...

Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song

#120

Post by lowdose »

jedberg wrote: post #106
NOGDP wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think pop songs are a depreciating asset since new ones can be pumped out rather quickly like out of a factory.

And yet when you see a car commercial they use an old song. You’re not accounting for the value of nostalgia and cultural significance.

Only when the car is advertised to boomers. Fords new electrified cars commercial pumps techno.
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