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A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song
121–130 of 245 posts
Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
And they'll keep pumping that same techno in 5 years when they want people to get Gen 2 electric cars
Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song
#123Earlier 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…
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.
Depends on what you mean by "rent seeking."
Liberal economists use this term the most, they usually mean large companies trying to get goodies from the state. Lefty ones tend to mean something like "profiteering."
X-as-a-service businesses models aren't exactly new in intellectual property. The patent/copyright systems explicitly assume licensing and royalties. But, I agree that subscriptions are pretty new in consumer-land.
But we need a different term rent seeking already has competing usages.
Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song
#124This new moment of marketization is interesting to observe from the sidelines. I'm a musician but I've never gotten paid for making music and don't want to be. This way, songwriting and playing music can remain something I do purely for the intrinsic joy of it. And it's not really so long ago that, if you wanted music in your house, you had to play it yourself. I have nothing against recorded music or professional mu…
> This new moment of marketization is interesting to observe from the sidelines.
I don't see what "marketization" has to do with things.
There have been plenty of "busy beavers" over the years organizing all the music recordings on various non-commercial services at a scale that surpasses most similar commercial services. If anything, "marketization" has prevented them from making these collections even bigger than they have been.
Those collections are thus better seen as a resource for people who want to play music themselves, rather than as a consumer substitute for musicianship.
Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song
#125Earlier 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…
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 incom…
There are all sorts of practical exceptions, but it's still all backed by income generating wealth.
That $5mm under your mattress is backed by bonds, income yielding bonds. That's why it's worth $5mm. If the country or bank that issues those bonds were defunct, the money would be worthless because the bonds would no longer be income generating.
You could say that gold is nonproductive wealth. Adam Smith sorta argued that gold isn't wealth. You could use a sack of grain as an example..
These examples are theoretical though. IRL, the majority of wealth is equity, bonds, real estate, etc. The value of that property is determined by the income it generates for its owner. If you really had that $5mm, it would probably be in equity, bonds, real estate, and generate a yield... like most wealth in the world.
Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song
#126This new moment of marketization is interesting to observe from the sidelines. I'm a musician but I've never gotten paid for making music and don't want to be. This way, songwriting and playing music can remain something I do purely for the intrinsic joy of it. And it's not really so long ago that, if you wanted music in your house, you had to play it yourself. I have nothing against recorded music or professional mu…
Who is buying music? On the whole don't people either stream it or look it up on Youtube?
Avid music fans do. And also it's easier to manage a vast digital collection any way you see fit than going through streaming options that offer next to no organizational capability except creating playlists, and maybe a master list of all artists you follow.
Organizing data is a problem music freaks have.
Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song
#127Earlier 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…
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 incom…
>If I story $5mm under my mattress, I have wealth without generating income.
This isn’t true. The $5mm is merely representational. The social dynamics that maintain it’s exchange value, i.e. security, is circumstantial. The security is exercised by way of capital.
>personal property is almost by definition a form of wealth which does not produce income/accumulate value.
This is ahistorical. In a capitalist society, personal property is a means to produce value all the same. Capitalism comprises relational circumstances that deem your toothbrush, comb, computer, school supplies, and your quiet home all as means to produce value.
Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song
#128Not a bad idea. Finding avenues to rent-seek seems to be the winning strategy, especially with all the cash floating around looking for returns.
I think pop songs are a depreciating asset since new ones can be pumped out rather quickly like out of a factory.
When you hit 40 you start to see in real time how valuable those old songs are. Your friends and other people in your age group hate the new music so they only listen to music from when they were young. All of the commercials play music you thought would never be used in a commercial. Walking through the grocery store or waiting in an elevator you start to bop your head because one of your favorite songs from high school is now elevator music. A popular song has a lot of long tail value, sometimes you have to wait a generation to start to see the returns.
Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song
#129Earlier 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.
In many cases, old songs are used precisely because they are cheaper to license.
Re: A Man Who’s Spending $1B to Own Every Pop Song
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Depends on what you mean by "rent seeking." Liberal economists use this term the most, they usually mean large companies trying to get goodies from the state. Lefty ones tend to mean something like "profiteering." X-as-a-service businesses models aren't exactly new in intellectual property. The patent/copyright systems explicitly assume licensing and royalties. But, I agree that subscriptions are pretty new in consum…
Rent seeking [0] typically means exploiting a captive market without providing value. I don’t think that fits either of your definitions. The key piece is they basically squeeze without proving value. So buying IP and then upping the rent fits that.