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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

#201

Post by speedplane »

wiseleo wrote: post #184
peteretep wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a public company. I might want to buy some stock in it when I can. Why, what’s the information advantage you have over the market?

I like the concept. I believe the value of back catalogs will only increase. As they increasingly corner the market, there should be a corresponding value increase in stock. What's not to like?

> I like the concept. I believe the value of back catalogs will only increase. ... What's not to like?

Termination rights. In the 1970s, a new copyright bill was enacted that said that 35 years after the creation of a work, the ownership of that work automatically reverts back to the original creator. The idea behind the proposal was to give artists control of their works later in their career, when they may no longer be a pop sensation, kind of like a retirement account.

For example, Lady Gaga may be super popular right now, but roughly around 2050, she will automatically regain the rights to her original recordings. She can then resell those rights to someone else, generating an additional bit of income later in life.

So as an investor, if you buy up the rights to a bunch of works, you need to know that your ownership has an expiration date.

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

#202

Post by speedplane »

erpellan wrote: post #193
peteretep wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing not to like is the current stock price, because everything that you like about it will have already been analysed in deep detail by the market, and priced in. By investing in a public company, you are saying “I think the market is wrong about the potential for this company”, and I’m curious to know why you think that having read this public piece, you think the company is currently undervalued? The shares a…

When I invest it’s usually because I think “I like this dividend yield.” I can buy, forget and auto-reinvest the dividends. Stock price swings are not particularly interesting if you never plan to sell.

> When I invest it’s usually because I think “I like this dividend yield.”

That's a pretty sophomoric way to look at investing. Many companies provide no dividends. Many give large dividends, but their stock value decreases.

Obviously, when considering an investment, one considers both the dividends and potential growth of the underlying asset together.

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

#203

Post by sjwright »

bsder wrote: post #171
wiseleo wrote: post #156

It will be industry-wide game over when they grab Max Martin and Lukasz Gottwald https://nypost.com/2015/10/04/your-favorite-song-on-the-radi... I think the goal is to launch the next ASCAP/BMI/SESAC and basically charge astronomical rates for songs people want to hear. Songwriters will love it and artists will have no choice. This is pretty much a confirmation: "Along with owning a bigger chunk of the publishing mar…

It's unsurprising though. There was a leaked Sony memo that showed that most of profits come from back catalog and most of their losses are from new artist development. The memo: https://sriramk.com/memos/goldberg-music.pdf

Makes sense given that making new music is easier than ever before—the people who do it for the love of music are probably already making good-enough recordings on a shoestring. Just look at Vulfpeck: they've had massive success just doing everything themselves.[0]

What have the labels got to compete with talented artists with a few grand of equipment in their bedroom? A bunch of commercially-minded manufactured acts pumping out me-too crap while countless layers of expensive executives and expensive "experts" polish away anything human from the art? Labels used to be successful because making recordings was expensive. Then it was because they held the keys to distribution and radio. Now it's... what?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv4wf7bzfFE&t=475

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

#204

Post by m0zg »

_wzsf wrote: post #190
m0zg wrote: post #157

I hope he succeeds and makes "every pop song" so expensive to license that pop music just dies a natural death, yielding way to musicians who can actually play instruments and singers who can actually sing. The current situation is kind of absurd.

In the current world, it seems the "artist" has taken the form of a hive mind (artists and songwriters) while the "instruments" are the mechanisms of production and distribution - and monetization: microphones, pickups, mixers, autotuners, amplifiers, filters, mastering artists, distribution companies, Logic Pro, digital-to-analog converters, headphones... Unless they're seeing a live symphony or literally sitting in…

It's kind of like most of the stuff in a US grocery store. It's overprocessed and it's not really food, but people buy it anyway because their TV told them to.

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

#205

Post by anonytrary »

pascalxus wrote: post #181
jrs95 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western Liberalism increasingly seems to just be a system by which you establish global feudalism. I guess it's good for a few generations. Hard to argue it's even good now though because even though we're wealthier than ever we're increasingly unhappy and mentally ill.

That we're somehow wealthier than ever is a great misconception. GDP per capita and even GDP per capita adjusted for PPP is also misleading because it uses the wrong basket of goods: focusing on things that dont matter. People forget, wealth is not money. Wealth is the things you buy with money. Wealth is when you can afford the essentials of life: Shelter, food, water, medical insurance, education and transportation…

> That we're somehow wealthier than ever is a great misconception... I think you'll find that there hasn't been much improvement.

Of course we're wealthier. The shelter you get to enjoy today is leagues better than the shelter you got to "enjoy" hundreds of years ago. The net worth of humanity has gone up. Significantly. We have more advanced technology than ever before. Whatever GDP is measuring probably doesn't consider the fact that we have compounded knowledge and given ourselves things our 100 year old ancestors could not even imagine.

I'm so glad I'm alive at a time further into the future. I may not know how glad I am, because I may not be able to fully comprehend the loss of all of the things that I have today that were simply non-existent back then.

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

#206

Post by erpellan »

speedplane wrote: post #202
erpellan wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I invest it’s usually because I think “I like this dividend yield.” I can buy, forget and auto-reinvest the dividends. Stock price swings are not particularly interesting if you never plan to sell.

> When I invest it’s usually because I think “I like this dividend yield.” That's a pretty sophomoric way to look at investing. Many companies provide no dividends. Many give large dividends, but their stock value decreases. Obviously, when considering an investment, one considers both the dividends and potential growth of the underlying asset together.

Boring. The word is boring. Boring companies whose stock prices do nothing for 30 years but gently drift up and down with the market (or not), steadily yielding 5% dividends year after year. Usually they sell things like toilet paper, soap, electricity or other boring everyday things. When it comes to long term investing, boring is good.

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

#207

Post by speedplane »

anonytrary wrote: post #205
pascalxus wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That we're somehow wealthier than ever is a great misconception. GDP per capita and even GDP per capita adjusted for PPP is also misleading because it uses the wrong basket of goods: focusing on things that dont matter. People forget, wealth is not money. Wealth is the things you buy with money. Wealth is when you can afford the essentials of life: Shelter, food, water, medical insurance, education and transportation…

> That we're somehow wealthier than ever is a great misconception... I think you'll find that there hasn't been much improvement. Of course we're wealthier. The shelter you get to enjoy today is leagues better than the shelter you got to "enjoy" hundreds of years ago. The net worth of humanity has gone up. Significantly. We have more advanced technology than ever before. Whatever GDP is measuring probably doesn't con…

> Of course we're wealthier. The shelter you get to enjoy today is leagues better than the shelter you got to "enjoy" hundreds of years ago.

Those that argue we're no better off than we were 200 years ago are pretty unpersuasive these days.

I'm more worried about the next 200 years though. It took several thousand years of civilization to create the industrial revolution, and that was quickly followed by the information revolution. Both dramatically improved quality of life.

But what if this is the end of the exponential? What if Moore's law is dead, and breakthrough technologies like quantum computers or new propulsion systems aren't just "5 to 10 years away", but decades or centuries away?

There is a lot of evidence today suggesting that the industrial and communication revolution was a blip, closer to a step function in human development, preceded by slow linear growth and possibly followed by slow linear growth.

I'm not certain that this will indeed happen, but if it does, our entire society and world is in for a complete shock.

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

#208

Post by bsder »

sjwright wrote: post #203
bsder wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unsurprising though. There was a leaked Sony memo that showed that most of profits come from back catalog and most of their losses are from new artist development. The memo: https://sriramk.com/memos/goldberg-music.pdf

Makes sense given that making new music is easier than ever before—the people who do it for the love of music are probably already making good-enough recordings on a shoestring. Just look at Vulfpeck: they've had massive success just doing everything themselves.[0] What have the labels got to compete with talented artists with a few grand of equipment in their bedroom? A bunch of commercially-minded manufactured acts…

There's a couple of BIG qualifications on your comments.

1) Vulfpeck slid through the YouTube music window about 2010-2012 that has since closed (that also produced Beiber, Jepsen, Psy with "Gangnam Style" etc.).

2) Vulfpeck were the backing musicians for Darren Criss who was very much a product of the standard system.

3) They are probably the antithesis that making new music is easier. They save a LOT of money because they can get away with doing minimal production because they are SOOO smoking good.

If you have to be at the level of Vulfpeck to make a living making music, then basically nobody is going to be able to do so.

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

#209

Post by superhuzza »

cgriswald wrote: post #59
djaychela wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How, exactly? I'm fairly certain most of a songs revenue is made by the first year. To go beyond that, you've got to get your song back in the public mind. Bass player with a 70s pop star who's still working and making music here.... I know that his hit songs still generate a significant amount of income for him (I'm not giving figures, but I would be more than happy if I had that much coming in for a full time inc…

That's kind of my point. Getting airplay and being in adverts helps keep his song in the public mind which generates income from the song. He may see it as passive income, but people are doing things to keep that income going. I'm also guessing he didn't start out eight figures in the hole by purchasing his songs from someone else.

>He may see it as passive income, but people are doing things to keep that income going.

That's literally what passive income is. For example, if I rent out farmland to someone, most of it's value will probably come from the fact it can be farmed. It still requires effort to farm that land, but not my effort. For me, it's passive income.

Same thing with music, whoever rents the rights must put in the effort to make it worth renting.

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

#210

Post by sjwright »

bsder wrote: post #208
sjwright wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense given that making new music is easier than ever before—the people who do it for the love of music are probably already making good-enough recordings on a shoestring. Just look at Vulfpeck: they've had massive success just doing everything themselves.[0] What have the labels got to compete with talented artists with a few grand of equipment in their bedroom? A bunch of commercially-minded manufactured acts…

There's a couple of BIG qualifications on your comments. 1) Vulfpeck slid through the YouTube music window about 2010-2012 that has since closed (that also produced Beiber, Jepsen, Psy with "Gangnam Style" etc.). 2) Vulfpeck were the backing musicians for Darren Criss who was very much a product of the standard system. 3) They are probably the antithesis that making new music is easier . They save a LOT of money beca…

I only mention Vulfpeck because they're at the pinnacle of their genre, not because they're the threshold. There's plenty of opportunity for anyone. Look at akageorge. (If you can—previously known as George Barnett, he seems to have reset his identity and thrown away much of his earlier material.) He's a self-evidently brilliant musician who can write and perform every part of a radio-ready hit. To the extent anyone makes money in music, he could make it if he bothered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK-UcQ6T2Lg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvJCZr8BjUM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkzJPoehZf4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ofkJfXJpNs

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