8Sided Blog

the scene celebrates itself

A Boost for DJ Mixes and the New Streaming ‘Sub-Economy’

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Billboard:

The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) and Dubset have reached a deal that will allow the NMPA’s independent members, both publishing companies and songwriters, to take part in a new streaming “sub-economy” that only recently became technologically feasible. This new revenue source is through derivative works, or pieces of music that are wholly or partially based on others’ creations, like DJ mixes and remixes. Through its MixBANK, Dubset cross-sections these creations and identifies their constituent parts (a vocal line here, one-half of an entire song there), determines the appropriate royalty splits, then services them to its clients, like Apple Music.

Dubset isn’t the only company making advances in this highly technical space. SoundCloud’s new subscription service, Go, uses an undisclosed process to identify derivative works, which its platform has plenty of. (This, despite a recent report to the contrary.)

Hypebot:

Through the Rights Agreement, NMPA members who opt-in will have access to Dubset’s MixBANK platform where they can set terms and rules around how and where their catalog may be used in mix content. Each time a new mix or remix is delivered to MixBANK the clearance rules set by rights holders to determine whether the content is cleared for distribution are applied. Cleared mix and remix content is then made available to legal music services under an approved royalty structure.

Pay no mind to Digital Music News’s shadowy anonymous sources … DJ mixes and remix culture are on the rise in the social sphere.

(Previously)

Update (May 25, 2016); via Hypebot:

Dubset Media announced today that it has reached an agreement with Spotify to use its MixBANK distribution platform. The deal makes it possible for DJs to upload and legally stream their mixes and single track remixes. In addition, the new agreement is expected to enable Spotify listeners to stream radio shows and other user generated mixes that have not been previously legally available to music fans.

‘We Only Sign Artists That We Like As People’

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The [PIAS] blog has a very informative interview with Simon Raymonde (known for his distinctive multi-string bass lines with Cocteau Twins) about his experiences running the Bella Union label. This bit of advice should be especially heeded, in my opinion:

A few years ago I decided I wouldn’t sign anyone I didn’t like as a person.

There’s brilliant bands everywhere. But when you meet a manager who’s an idiot or meet a band and think they’re just not very nice, I don’t want to work with them. Even if I think their music is the best thing ever.

I’ve worked with people over the years where I’ve thought: ‘These people are going to kill me. This manager is going to force me into an early grave.’

We don’t do that anymore. They meet my wife and my cat. We go for coffee and I ask who their manager is, who the agent is, who the lawyer is. If it’s a nice bunch of people, we take the gamble.

Apple Music and Dubset: Good News For SoundCloud?

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Billboard:

Apple has announced an agreement with Dubset Media Holdings that will allow Apple Music to stream remixes and DJ mixes that had previously been absent from licensed services due to copyright issues.

Dubset is a digital distributor that delivers content to digital music services. But unlike other digital distributors, Dubset will use a proprietary technology called MixBank to analyze a remix or long-form DJ mix file, identify recordings inside the file, and properly pay both record labels and music publishers.

Licensing remixes and DJ mixes, both based on original recordings, is incredibly complex. A single mix could have upward of 600 different rights holders. According to {Dubset} CEO Stephen White, a typical mix has 25 to 30 songs that require payments to 25 to 30 record labels and anywhere from two to ten publishers for each track. The licensing has been done in-house at Dubset. Thus far the company has agreements with over 14,000 labels and publishers.

*In many ways, Dubset is like any other distributor. The {streaming} service pays Dubset for the content. Dubset then figures out which label and publishers to pay. It retains a percentage of revenue for the service and pays the creator (the remixer or DJ) a share of revenue. *

Apple is just the start, says White. “The goal is to bring this to all 400 distributors worldwide. When you think about unlocking these millions of hours of content being created, it’s significant monetization for the industry.”

Much of the coverage I’ve seen, such as this article in FACT, assumes that Apple Music will use this alliance to go after SoundCloud. I have my doubts. For one thing, user-generated content isn’t really Apple’s bag (and adding this to the already muddled Apple Music interface would just create more headaches for casual users). My guess is that Dubset’s involvement is related to Beats One (and the inevitable Beats Two, Beats Three, etc) and making the station(s)’s sets ‘on demand’. Presently any radio sets that are on demand will have to consist of 100% pre-cleared music. I bet Apple would love to create more on demand content from the Beats station(s) without restricting their celebrity guest DJs. They would also be able to integrate featured guest DJ sets in Apple Music’s curated ‘For You’ section. Based on the timing of this announcement, I’m wondering if we might hear more at Apple’s event next week … there are rumors of a much-anticipated Apple Music overhaul.

As for SoundCloud, this news bodes well rather than being “ominous”. Apple doesn’t have an exclusive deal with Dubset, as the company openly aims to bring this technology to “all 400 distributors worldwide.” Having a huge corporation like Apple be one of the initial adopters will do a lot to convince others to come on board. What the technology accomplishes, once accepted throughout the industry, should do much to push ‘remix culture’ forward as it goes legit. And SoundCloud, who already dominate the niche of user-generated mixes and content, could end up coming out on top. Dubset’s tech, after all, seems to solve most of the problems that rightsholders have with SoundCloud’s service.

Harry Fox Agency In The Crosshairs

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Techdirt:

One of the key questions that came up following the reporting on {Spotify’s royalty lawsuit crisis} is the Harry Fox Agency’s role in all of this. HFA, an organization that was set up by the publishers themselves is supposed to be responsible for managing compulsory licensing for the vast majority (though not all) of popular songwriters (remember, HFA is about compositions/publishing, not sound recordings). But it’s beginning to look seriously like HFA just fell asleep on the job and didn’t bother to do the one key thing it was supposed to do for all these music services: file Section 115 NOIs.

So, given that, it sure looks like HFA didn’t do the one thing that it was supposed to be doing all along, and that’s… going to be bad news for someone. The big question is who? All of the lawsuits have been against the various music services, but without being privy to the contracts between HFA and the music services themselves, I’d be shocked if they didn’t include some sort of indemnity clauses, basically saying that if music isn’t licensed because of HFA’s own failures to do its job that any liability falls back on HFA.

And, if that’s the case, HFA could be on the hook for a ton of copyright infringement. If it’s true that it’s basically been ignoring the fairly simple NOI process for a lot of artists, then that’s going to be a major scandal – but one that seems a lot harder to pin on the music services themselves.

Digital Music News:

Sources {have} pointed to an effort by Music Reports to ‘seize the moment of incompetence‘ at Harry Fox Agency, or HFA, a staunch Music Reports competitor in the mechanical licensing space.  As the mechanical licensing agency for Spotify, HFA has been receiving heavy blame for the current Spotify royalty crisis, specifically for failing to send proper paperwork to artists, maintain a robust rights database, or create a system to fix its existing database issues.

The Music Reports ‘claims database’ would offer a possible solution to that mess, at least as it relates to this specific license.  More importantly, it would save Spotify from having to build the damn database: according to details tipped to Digital Music News, an out-of-court solution forged by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) would see Spotify paying a one-time penalty for the non-payments, while also creating an interface for artists that would match all mechanical royalties to their rightful owners.  And, share that data back to HFA.

As details of the NMPA resolution emerged, a number of industry executives wondered why Harry Fox would be exonerated, while leveraging Spotify to build its core database.  HFA’s former ownership by the NMPA has also drawn criticisms of cronyism, and Apple has already started to move away from the company (and towards Music Reports).  Meanwhile, the Agency’s lowball $20 million purchase by SESAC is now being viewed a bit differently: according to some insiders, the soggy price tag carried serious liability costs, the worst of which may lie ahead.

Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life

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A.V. Club:

2016 marks the 15th year since [Michael] Azerrad’s seminal anthological survey of the ’80s underground punk and rock scenes was published. Despite its subject matter detailing the histories of 13 different bands, Our Band Could Be Your Life isn’t really a book about music at all. It’s a collection of stories about people creating amazing art out of sheer compulsion and love of the process. It’s a story of doing it yourself and helping others along the way. It’s a story about communities built, whole cloth, from the ground up to express like-minded ideas and lifestyle choices. Throughout the years, the spirit of that particular period has endured as a guiding light to thousands of bands for whom there is no place in the mainstream. And on the flip side, the enthusiasm of Azerrad the historian has inspired countless writers to dig deep and tell the tales of less-heralded musicians so that their art would receive its due.

Michael Azerrad: "The epigram for Our Band Could Be Your Life comes from William Blake: ‘I must create my own system, lest I be enslaved by another man’s.’ All of the bands in the book were creating their own system.

“The spirit of DIY wasn’t just critical to the success of that community. It was an entire way of life. You didn’t have to be a huge rock star; you just had to do well enough to continue doing what you wanted to do. It wasn’t about hitting the jackpot, it was about sustainability. That was a revolutionary, or at least heretical, idea—especially in a culture that valued getting rich even more than it already had. This idea could apply not just to music but to just about anything—that’s why the book is called Our Band Could Be Your Life.”

I’m not alone in naming Our Band Could Be Your Life one of my favorite music history books. I know that’s in part because I was immersed at the time (as a fan) in the scene it documents. I’m not sure how much enjoyment one could get out of it if unfamiliar with the bands or distanced from the period, but I’d like to think it remains entertaining with many great lessons for those struggling with the art vs. making a living conundrum. Of course there were independent, DIY scenes before the ’80s, but it’s special how the community and interconnectedness of the labels and bands at this time created a modest and lasting ethos. You can see fingerprints all over the independent creative industries today, and not just in music.

Here’s Our Band Could Be Your Life on Amazon
or you could pick it up Powell’s, which is where it beckoned to me from a shelf over a decade ago.

Music Can’t Last Forever, Not Even on the Internet

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Wired:

As music has become more durable, it has—paradoxically—also become more ephemeral. Your physical records don’t evaporate if the store you bought it from closes shop or the record label that published them goes out of business. If a streaming music company goes under, a stockpile of important cultural artifacts could go with it.



Fears that exactly this could happen erupted this week when a financial statements from popular audio hosting site SoundCloud surfaced online. The company, which has become a vital resource for independent musicians and podcasters, lost $44.19 million dollars in 2014 even as it increased revenue to $15.37 million, according to the regulatory document filed with the UK government. The revelation led to immediate speculation that SoundCloud could go offline, taking with it the 110 million audio tracks it hosts.



Fortunately there are alternatives to SoundCloud, such as Bandcamp, which a spokesperson told us has been profitable since 2012, and YouTube, which has become an increasingly important part of Google’s overall strategy. But SoundCloud users would have to re-upload all of their work—if they even still have copies of it. Much of what lives on SoundCloud today would likely vanish forever.



The article does point out that fears of SoundCloud capsizing are likely overblown, though it is generally agreed that 2016 is the service’s make-or-break year. But the warning is good to heed, as it should be assumed that any of these services you may be relying on could suddenly be offline – or at least altered overnight in a way that doesn’t align with your goals or ‘brand.’ My repeated advice is to future-proof yourself by focusing primarily on your own site and promotional ecosystem, treating these third party services only as complimentary outlets. The fan-outreach gateways that you fully control should always be the primary sources of attention.

The Revenant By Tarkovsky

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The Playlist:

To highlight just how incredible the experience of watching “The Revenant” is, The Petrick’s “The Revenant By Tarkovsky” supercut does exactly what the title suggests, putting it side-by-side with the work of the great Andrei Tarkovsky. There’s no question about how indebted Iñárritu’s film is to Tarkovsky’s body of work, both thematically and, more obviously, visually. “The Revenant by Tarkovsky” beautifully captures the homage, helping to peel back another layer of the deceptively complex film that, on the surface, pretends to be nothing more than a tale of revenge, but is really much more.

This is impressive. When I saw The Revenant I caught the Tarkovsky influence, but didn’t realize it was often so explicit.

I also thought the bird scene might have been quoting Jodorowsky.

Related: Here’s a primer on Andrei Tarkovsky, which includes links to where you can watch his films for free.

RIAA Announces Streaming Will Count Toward Platinum and Gold Certifications

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Pitchfork:

Since 1958, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has awarded platinum and gold certifications based on the quantity of albums sold by an artist. One million sold copies meant a record was platinum; half a million meant gold. Today, the RIAA announced a change in that methodology. Now, it will count on-demand audio and video streaming, along with the traditional album sales, in determining whether a record is platinum or gold.



One stream doesn’t equal one sale, however. Instead, 1,500 on-demand audio or video streams will amount to one album sale. (On-demand streaming refers to the ability to choose what song you’re listening to—services like Spotify and Apple Music, not internet radio sites like Pandora.) The RIAA’s announcement didn’t mention how these 1,500 streams will be tallied up—for example, whether one stream of a 17-song album will count the same as 17 streams of a single taken from the album.



Billboard:

Effective immediately, the RIAA will include on-demand audio and video streams and a track sale equivalent in determining which releases get the coveted album awards, a change that follows a similar tweak in 2013 to include on-demand streams for its Digital Single Award.



“After a comprehensive analysis of a variety of factors,” writes the organization in a statement, “including streaming and download consumption patterns and historical impact on the program – and also consultation with a myriad of industry colleagues the RIAA set the new Album Award formula of 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams = 10 track sales = 1 album sale. Also effective today, RIAA’s Digital Single Award ratio will be updated from 100 on-demand streams = 1 download to 150 on-demand streams = 1 download to reflect streaming’s enormous growth in the two plus years since that ratio was set.”

Welcome To The Jungle: Amazon Could Enter The Streaming Fray

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The Verge:

Amazon could be preparing to challenge Spotify, Apple Music, and other subscription music services with a full-fledged rival that’s much bigger than Prime Music. The New York Post reports that Amazon executives have kicked off licensing talks with the music industry for a Spotify-like offering that would tentatively cost $9.99 per month.



Prime Music, a perk that comes included with Amazon’s annual membership, offers on-demand and ad-free access to over 1 million songs. But the overall music catalog isn’t anywhere near as large as those offered by Spotify and other paid services. It’s pretty scattershot, often missing the newest releases that consumers can stream elsewhere. Prime Music is a nice “there when you need it” kind of thing, but it’s not any real threat to Spotify. It seems Amazon is ready to change that with a standalone service that’s completely separate from Prime.



Mashable:

Perhaps the most surprising detail about the latest rumor is a claim that the expanded music offering would operate as a standalone paid service with a fee — rumored to be $9.99 a month — separate from Amazon Prime.



By providing the music streaming service separately, it could give Amazon an alternative product to pair with products (the rumor is it might offer a discount when purchased together with its Echo personal assistant). But that would nonetheless mark a departure from its usual strategy. Consider that it has invested heavily to build what is effectively a mini-Netflix, complete with original programming, and yet that offering is not broken out, but rather kept with Prime.



If Amazon is planning to go whole hog on streaming then they will need to pay special attention to interface and design. Much of the Amazon digital space is overly clunky (including the store site, though it works out of familiarity) and lacks the intuitiveness and ‘razzle dazzle’ that they will need to compete as another music DSP, especially with younger listeners. As far as another tech giant presumably entering the fray, I suppose it’s good in that the battle will push streaming quicker to the mainstream with higher rates of adoption for paid services (one can hope, right?). But the battle could also lead to cut-throat underpricing and lower pay-outs, as well as a lot more release windowing and exclusivity which (IMO) doesn’t much help streaming’s cause.

Touring Can’t Save Musicians (But Independence Might)

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The New York Times Magazine:

In the predigital era, labels profited only from the physical recordings they funded, but as that income began dwindling, a new logic was applied to the artist-label relationship. Labels argued that by promoting the recordings they owned, they were also promoting the artist’s career as a whole, and were entitled to profit from the full spectrum of artist’s revenue streams — the “360 deal,” named for the totality of its coverage.



But labels do not take on the additional risks associated with their additional profits. Instead of protecting the health of their revenue-generating engine, they simply point to an artist’s independent-contractor status, which releases them from any liability they would be on the hook for if artists were labeled employees. Rather than sparking a labor dispute, these 360 deals quickly became the new normal. As a result, administrators, support staff and office spaces are insured against the risks of doing business, while the company’s income generators — the creators of their master recordings — are on their own.



The question of why recording artists have been unable to organize and collectively bargain the way other artists have — actors and screenwriters, for example — is one that has dogged them since the dawn of the record deal. Musicians do have a union, the American Federation of Musicians, but it’s not a particularly strong one; it primarily represents members of symphonies, and it hasn’t been on a national strike in 70 years. *



*Perhaps musicians’ renegade spirit is what ultimately will save the next generation of recording artists, who are increasingly forgoing record deals altogether and going it alone. As true independents, they work the margin between the technology that makes recordings cheaper to create and a public that is steadily buying fewer of them. Without a label taking a bite out of multiple revenue sources, the numbers can actually work. Others are coming together in groups centered on advocacy and pressing for changes to the laws that dictate royalty payments in the new streaming economy — something that could mean all the difference when injury, accident or age brings a touring musician’s career to a halt. But in the meantime, the vans and buses roll on.