WEBVTT - The History of Streaming Music 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.920 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:13.520 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:21.880 chalk and it's just us streaming along merrily on our way, right, yeah, 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:25.680 how it goes. This is off to a terrible, terrible start. 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:29.240 Life is but a dream? Right, Yeah, but aren't they 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:30.480 talking about a stream. 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:36.080 Merrily, merrily and merrily ringer on the rosies pocket little No. 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:38.960 No, that's not it. That's about like the Black Death 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:39.479 or something. 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:40.440 Yeah, let's just move on. 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:44.639 Okay. So we're talking today about streaming music. That's why 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.720 I made that joke. I should make scare quotes for joke. 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:51.280 We're talking about streaming music, the history of it, and 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:53.720 I love this, Chuck, this is a great idea of yours. 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:56.640 Was this your idea? Listeners suggested idea. 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.560 No, this is just me. I was maybe waxing philosophic 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:02.200 about I'm wearing with somebody, and then I was like, 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:03.840 that would be kind of a fun episode. 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:06.480 Well, you were right. And one of the things I 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.760 love about this is this is history, like world changing 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.440 history that we lived through and not like as kids, 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:17.760 like this happened very much in like our adult lives. 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.119 You know, Oh, yeah, for sure, just a seismic shift 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:26.560 in how music was released and consumed and the finances 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:30.560 around it. And yeah, I thought it was super fascinating 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.080 that there was a point in history not so long 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:37.480 ago where people were spending a lot of money comparatively 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:41.240 on buying CDs and physical media until they just said, 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.120 you know what, I'm going to buy music anymore. I 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:46.280 want it. I want it for free, like screw all 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:48.280 those musicians and trying to make a living. 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:53.240 Yeah, pretty much. And it's not so the musicians were 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:55.440 caught in the middle. It was the labels that were 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.920 the greedy fat cats that pushed it too far because 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.920 it didn't matter whether it was the clunkiest album or 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.600 the best that Richard Marx had to offer, both ends 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:10.520 of the spectrum. You were paying nineteen ninety nine for 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:12.040 that thing, whether you liked it or not. 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:13.240 Was that how much they were? 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:18.480 Yes, absolutely, I don't remember being that much. Yeah, they 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:21.000 definitely were. I think they got down toward the end 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.040 in maybe the twelve ninety nine fifteen dollars range, that's 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:26.480 what I remember. They were very much nineteen ninety nine. 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:28.600 For a while, you paid it was like twenty bucks 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:31.359 of CD like that was a birthday present, right there? 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:35.440 One CD YAO who initially fought the big fight and 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.560 refused to release a record unless it was I can't 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:40.079 remember how much it was, but it was quite a 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:41.560 bit less. 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.920 Who Tom Petty baby Man, what a cool dude. 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:46.880 Yeah, RP. 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:49.680 So, like you said, people just kind of got tired 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:51.560 of overpaying. But at the same time, this was a 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:56.480 time where frequently albums were released where no one, even 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:58.839 the band probably thought that more than one or two 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:05.120 songs were worth The rest were just crud. What you 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:08.359 didn't get burned time and time again buying an album 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:10.400 and being like, I only like the two songs I 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.240 heard on the radio. Everything else on this album is terrible. 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:15.839 No, I was a little different. I wasn't a singles guy. 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:19.880 I never bought a singles that was always an album guy, right, 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.200 And so I would buy albums that were good and 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:24.880 not albums that had one good song. 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:27.840 But if that's that's what I'm saying, you didn't know 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:30.680 how good or bad the other songs were until you 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.120 got the album because you only had heard the one 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.520 good song on the radio. So you would hope, hope, 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:38.480 hope that the rest of the album was as good 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:40.760 as the song on the radio, and it never was. 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:44.240 There was like an avalanche of difference between the quality 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.200 of how good the radio song was and how bad 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:49.560 all the other songs on the album would be. That 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:50.920 was my experience, at least. 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:52.640 Well, I didn't follow as prey to it, I think 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:56.000 because and I'm not like some snob or anything, but 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.160 most of the albums that I would actually invest in 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:01.640 buying because you know, I had a limited amount of money, 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:04.760 we're like good, really great bands. 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.760 Okay, whatever, let's move on. I think we've missed one 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.200 of our famous stumbling blocks. I'll stick with my guns, 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:12.920 you stick with yours. 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:14.360 Well, I just didn't have the kind of dough to 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:16.120 be like, Ooh, I like that song, I'll get that album. 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:17.880 I like had to really know it was awesome. 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.839 I didn't either, and that's why I hated it so 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:24.440 much that I'm still upset about it today. Maybe I 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:27.200 was better at it, Yes you were. I think that's 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:29.600 ultimately the point you're driving. I'm glad you just came 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:30.360 out and say it. 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:35.440 So everything changed from the big Heyday leading up to 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:41.760 the nineteen nineties into the two thousand's when a teenager 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:47.599 from Massachusetts, a hacker named Sean Fanning, got together with 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.440 a finance partner named Sean Parker, who would later go 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.520 on to be the very famously the first president of Facebook, 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.440 got together and said, Hey, we got this new thing. 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:01.800 It's a file software. It's a peer to peer thing, 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:07.000 so you can get music for free, basically by trading 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.840 it with your friends. And initially it was just I 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:11.880 believe Sean Fanning was like, I just want to trade 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:13.440 music with my friends who live on the other side 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.160 of the country. Then they realized they could get investors 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:19.400 make it into a real business, and that was Napster. 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:22.600 Yeah. And one of the other things that was required 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.120 for this to work were CD ripping program software that 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.719 came out around the same time, where you could put 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:33.800 in a factory made, label produced CD and rip all 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:36.120 the music from it and turn it into MP three's. 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:38.440 As you did that time and time again, your MP 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.960 three collection would build up, and when you installed Napster, 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:44.359 it would find all those MP three's and then you 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:46.679 could trade them with other people like you were saying, 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:51.960 And it was such a hit, Chuck, that within two years. 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:54.880 We'll talk about Napster shutting down. It only lived for 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.839 two years. Originally, by the end of two years it 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.640 had something like fifty seven million users in. 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:03.880 Two years, Yeah, I saw eighty million. 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.320 That's I believe it. That it was sensational and the 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:11.520 idea that it was a teenager that not only introduced 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:14.120 this to the world but completely changed the way that 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:18.200 music is made is just satisfying but also just mind 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:20.880 boggling because things have been done a certain way for 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:24.880 so long and the labels were so in control. The 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.080 idea of this guy coming along, it's like the original disruption. 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:33.480 Yeah, at the peak of Napster there were twenty seven 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:39.480 billion transfers per month song transfers, So it's just incredible. 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.520 And this is another great stat that LVIA found at 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.960 one point supposedly sixty one percent of all traffic on 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:51.400 college servers were people sharing MP three's. 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:55.919 Totally by that too, man. So, like we said, musicians 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:57.600 mostly got caught in the middle of this. It was 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:00.800 the labels that were really taking the hit, and some 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:02.800 musicians are like, this is great, this is a great 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.680 way to spread music and awareness. Chuck d was very 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:09.360 famous a proponent of it early on, but there were 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.960 also the exact opposite. Some artists were like, to heck 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:15.080 with that. I think it was a famous quote from 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:20.000 Doctor dre And he ended up joining Metallica, A and 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:24.040 M Records, the RIAA and started filing suits against Napster, 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:28.320 and some of them, including the RIAA and Doctor Drake, 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:34.080 started suing Napster users, that is, their fans for pirting 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:37.800 their music, like suing them directly personally individually. 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.720 Yeah, they went after them under the Rico Act, the 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:47.520 Racketeering Act. Metallica was specifically seeking ten million bucks. And 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:51.720 what they didn't realize was this was, you know, this 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.080 was an online thing, so you could get another software 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:57.280 program like if you know. What they ended up doing 0:07:57.400 --> 0:07:59.200 was they ended up getting a list of more than 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:01.520 three hundred thousand in it's like three hundred and thirty 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:07.680 something thousand who had shared Metallica's music and got Napster 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:10.680 to ban them. And what they didn't realize was that 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.520 all they had to do those users was get another 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:16.640 piece of software to allow them to get into Napster 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:20.640 under another name. And so it was a pretty quick workaround. 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.760 Yeah, and so Metallica got such a bad name for this. 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:27.480 This is such bad pr for them. And I can't 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:30.120 remember the name of their basis, their original basis or 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.680 there maybe their second basis. He left in protest saying 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.960 like this is wrong Newstead, but it was it new 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:42.280 said okay, they they were there's still today people are 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.480 like Metallica's who they're fans. They did not. They found 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:47.880 the names of their fans and had Napster banned them, 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.400 and there was a screen you would get that said, 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.880 at the request of Metallica, you are not allowed to 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:58.280 access Napster any longer. But they didn't sue any individual fans. 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.719 The ria ir AA did, and so did doctor Dre 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:06.479 And I read about one twelve year old girl, Brianna Gahara, 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:11.040 who had to pay two thousand dollars because the RIAA 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:14.080 sued her and she had to pay two grand a 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:16.559 twelve year old girl. That's what it was like. That's 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:18.800 how upset the labels were at this point. 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:21.000 Well, she probably didn't think about that when she was 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:22.720 getting two thousand dollars worth of free music. 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:25.560 Well essentially it's what they were doing. But she still 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:27.600 ended up paying like two dollars a song, which is 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.800 really that's outrageous. Today in twenty twenty four. 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:36.160 Yeah, it's double yeah. At least so one thing this 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:38.520 did was just you know, brought it to the news 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:40.840 and a lot of people that weren't sort of on 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:45.200 the on the front edge of that technology, we're like, oh, 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:46.880 wait a minute, there's a site where you can just 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:50.760 go get music traded. So it actually it was sort 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.040 of like the barbar streisand effect it ended up creating 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.280 more users. Napster tried to hang in there. There was 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.760 an attempted acquisition at one point for ninety something million 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:04.560 bucks that a judge shut down for some reason that's 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:07.400 not worth getting into. But they tried to become like 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:11.400 a legitimate player. They paid royalties, eventually about twenty six 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:16.480 million dollars of royalties. They tried different models, they tried subscriptions. 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.120 Nothing really worked, I think because that time. By that time, 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:22.360 there were other like I mentioned LimeWire that was the 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.240 one I used. I never used Napster, Kazah, frost Wire, 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:30.400 these other ones. Competitors came along, and so Napster, while 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:33.240 like completely changing the game because they were the first ones, 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:37.760 didn't end up being some big huge They couldn't get 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:39.199 some big acquisition for it. 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.160 No, they just like you said changed the game. But 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.000 one of the things that also was changed from Napster 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.199 in its brief two years and then its follow up 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:53.160 successors like kaza is the idea that, like, people aren't 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.120 going to pay yeah, fifteen or twenty dollars or even 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:58.680 twelve dollars for a CD anymore. It's not how we 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:00.719 want to do it. That's ridiculous for not doing it. 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.880 I would rather take my chances at getting sued by 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:08.880 the RIAA and get music for free than pay for 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:11.160 an album that I'm only going to like one song on. 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:15.360 That's what I said. And it was just the everything 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.720 was completely upended. And Apple came along in two thousand 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:23.840 and three and brought massive stability to this huge c change, 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:26.160 but it didn't go back to the way it was. 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.520 They said, we're gonna we have a model here that 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:33.080 can actually accommodate both in this new kind of environment 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.400 of how music is created and delivered. 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.080 Now, Yeah, I want to jump back a second. I 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:41.719 wonder if because I think it's a real shame that 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:44.400 you know, you know, maybe at fifteen dollars is too 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.120 much for a CD considering how cheap they were to produce. 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:50.520 But I think it's a real shame. People were like, 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.320 I want to pay zero dollars for music now, like 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.240 I think it should be free and screw everybody that 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:01.520 makes a living doing this under if initially, if the 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:05.280 record labels had immediately just gone down to like six ' 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.560 ninety nine for a CD, if that would have changed 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.760 the game. 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:12.880 I don't know. Maybe. I think one of the things 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:15.920 that did change attitudes like that was a general public 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:19.480 awareness that was spread that the artists were being harmed 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:19.720 by this. 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:21.199 Yeah, like you're taking. 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:24.040 Music did deserve you did deserve to be compensated for 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.640 the music you made, like it shouldn't be free. Year 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:28.160 So it was kind of like the It was like 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:33.080 the pendulum of development, you know, but with music instead. 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:37.400 All right, so I agree you mentioned Apple and specifically 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:39.480 iTunes is what came out in two thousand and three 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:42.120 and the iPod and they started selling songs for ninety 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.800 nine cents. One thing we didn't mention was that if 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:50.040 you had a PC and you were on LimeWire or napster, like, 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:52.319 there was a decent chance you might get a virus. 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:57.160 They were pretty rife with viruses, so you could you 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:01.320 could avoid you could avoid that danger and you could 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:03.960 pay ninety nine cents. You can get that single song. 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:06.040 If you're if you're You, if you're Josh, and you 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.560 don't want to take a chance on buying a full album, 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:11.320 you could just get that single Richard Mark song it 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.240 don't it don't mean nothing, and you would be super excited. 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:17.120 Well that was the thing. Richard Marx is a bad 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.720 example because I think his two major albums both had 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.880 multiple hits on them. So all right, I'm just gonna 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:27.080 say it. Well, let's go with UTAs Saints. They're a 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:32.840 perfect example from roughly this era. They were I don't 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:35.280 even know where they were from, maybe British electronic. 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:38.079 I think I remember that that song, yes, because that 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:38.959 was a. 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:43.280 Song, right, it's samp something good. It sampled Kate Bush 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:46.720 and they would say like you toss Saints. Yeah, yes, 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.480 that song. So you bought that album. To the album, 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:50.360 you would just be like. 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:54.960 God, well that's your problem, you know, buy LP. 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:58.960 I was big time into electronic music at the time, 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.640 and people weren't coming out with albums like every week 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.600 that were you know, electronic. It was still very guitar heavy, 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:07.520 so I know you had to work with what you 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:11.040 got and frequently get burned. Sorry Utah Saints if you're 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:11.800 out there listening. 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:18.880 So, overall, statistically, from and this is a pretty staggering 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.240 stat from two thousand and one to twenty ten, when 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:26.280 this first started. Over that next decade, physical music sales 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:30.520 dropped sixty percent all over the world, about fourteen billion 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:34.600 dollars in revenue loss. Digital sales rose about four billion, 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:39.480 But that left a ten billion dollar annual discrepancy and 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:41.880 what the music business was bringing in. 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.080 Yeah. If that doesn't get it across, I don't know 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:45.600 what does. 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:46.920 Yeah. 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:50.120 So yeah, because at that point it's basically just Richard 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.480 Marx keeping the music labels afloat. The fact that they 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:57.640 had any money was essentially one hundred percent tributable to him. 0:14:57.920 --> 0:14:59.160 Well, you know what they say, It don't mean nothing 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:00.760 until you sign it on the outed line. 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.800 That's right, that's what he's talking about. My man. 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:06.080 Should we take a break? 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:21.680 Yes? Okay. So while Napster was like, hey, we're into 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:24.720 file sharing, some other ones were as well. At the 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:28.040 same time, roughly an alternative model was developing, and that 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:32.000 was just streaming, right, So rather than like downloading an 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:34.320 actual MP three that you would keep on your hard drive, 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:37.040 you could burn onto CD do whatever. This was like, 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.160 there were like music servers. This is this is crazy. 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:43.360 To bear with me for a second. That would actually 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:46.680 you would stream the music over the internet through like 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.400 a player on your on your computer. Usually had to 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.680 download the player itself. This is before they called them apps, 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:58.840 and you could sometimes select songs and then other times 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:01.120 it was more just like an f radio station where 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.320 they would almost play it plates whatever, random songs that 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:05.640 you had no control over. 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:08.520 Right, well, you did have control in that you could 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.320 skip songs and stuff. You just couldn't pick the songs. 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:14.560 Sometimes though, you could only skip a finite number of 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:16.360 songs before it's like nope, you have to listen to 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:17.000 this CARDI one. 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:19.640 Yeah, but that was the big problem with Launch Media 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:21.560 that they probably could have gotten away with it if 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.600 they didn't give you the ability to skip songs, right 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.360 because it was a little more like radio. But because 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:31.440 they had that fast forward button, the RIAA got involved 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.120 again and was like, we don't like that because one 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:39.960 thing I don't think we mentioned is radio. It was 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:42.320 a way for people to listen to songs and music 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:43.640 and get turned onto new stuff. 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:45.240 It was a live transmission. 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:50.480 Yeah, but what radio also was was a free advertisement 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:54.160 for those bands. So you know, every time a song 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:57.600 gets played on the radio, that's an ad to little 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.640 Josh Clark, like, hey, mis Sucker, go out this album 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:01.280 if you like this. 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:03.800 Yeah, Utah Saints are great. 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:07.320 This is this disrupted everything. The fact that you could 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:11.199 skip songs. That's why the IAA got upset because you know, 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:12.720 they're like, well, this is a lot like radio, but 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:14.680 you can't skip songs of the radio. We want people 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.560 to hear these songs because they're little ads. 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:21.600 Right exactly. So that was a big problem. The streaming 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:24.440 services were as big a problem, maybe not as big, 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:27.600 but pretty close to the same amount of problem as 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:30.840 file sharing services were, too. They weren't like any kind 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.879 of solution as far as the music industry was concerned. 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.479 Yeah, and those were you know, like Launch Media, who 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:42.240 eventually became Yahoo Music. Those again, though, were just playing. 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:44.119 There was like a I don't know if it was 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.159 a real person programming, but it was as if a 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:50.159 DJ was playing music. The first legit on demand streaming 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:54.280 surface was Rhapsody in two thousand and one, which started 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.879 out as part of listen dot Com, was bought by 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:02.160 a company called Real Networks, and then eventually, in sort 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.520 of an odd twist, it bought Napster and in twenty sixteen, 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:08.320 rhapsoly was rebranded as Napster. 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:11.399 Yeah. Do you remember Real Player That was one of 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.919 those that software you had to download to stream music? 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:16.159 Oh? Yeah, I remember that. 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:18.479 I went and looked at old real Player skins and 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:22.000 it's just like, oh my god, those things were so ugly. 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:25.880 But they I mean, they're super. They look super two 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:26.920 thousand and five. 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:30.920 Just seeing that little LimeWire lime actually gave me some 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.520 feels because I was doing by the way, I was 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:36.840 doing the same thing. I'm not saying, like when I said, 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.280 it's a real shame that people just said I want 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:42.320 my music free, like I was doing it too at 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:42.640 the time. 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:45.200 Oh okay, well, I'm glad you said that. 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:46.960 I was part of that, that real shame. 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:47.280 You know. 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:50.080 I was like, oh, great, LimeWire, I can trade music. 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.119 But pretty quickly I was I mean, I kept buying 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.560 CDs for a while of the bands I loved, and 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:57.280 pretty quickly I was like, wait a minute, there's something 0:18:57.280 --> 0:18:58.760 about this. It doesn't feel right. 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:02.679 Hey. One other thing that's occurred to me Chuck Is. 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:06.719 I'm sure somebody's like, well, yeah, CDs might be like 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:09.520 fifteen dollars a piece, but don't forget Columbia House, where 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:11.560 you get like ten of them for a penny. 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:12.439 I never did that. 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.399 You didn't. Did I ever tell you my Columbia House story? 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:17.440 You did, But I think people need to hear it 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:21.120 if they haven't heard it. Okay, so told me last 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.520 week at a Cubs game. Was it just that recent? 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.919 Huh? And I got to work on my memory. I 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:33.280 need some prevag in. So like you would send off 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:34.720 for those of you who don't know, you would send 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:37.240 like literally you tape a penny to a postcard and 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:39.720 send it into Columbia House and you could you could 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:41.679 check like what albums you wanted them to send you, 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:44.160 and like magic, they would send you those ten albums 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:46.560 for a penny, But then you were automatically signed up 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:49.760 for their subscription service and they would send you albums 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:52.199 that you didn't want it like two times the price. 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:55.880 So it really wasn't a good deal unless you could 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.760 get out of it with just those first ten albums. 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:02.080 And I did exact factly that because when they sent 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:05.600 me the first first handful of records that I didn't want. 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:09.760 I sent them back with a letter explaining that I 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:12.080 was twelve years old when I entered into this contract. 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:14.679 There's nowhere in the United States that it's legal for 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:16.760 a twelve year old to enter into a contract, So 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.560 please stop sending me albums. And they did. 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:22.600 I love it. Very precocious kid. 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:27.080 Thanks. I like that story. So I was a little bastard. 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.159 Yeah, you mean like the rapper. 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:32.400 No, that's old Dirty Bastard, right. 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:35.359 I was thinking Low Wayne and Old Dirty Bastard got together. 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:38.520 Right, little Bastard. That's my new rap name. 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:44.120 Not tepid t all right. So Panta Pandora, not pantorra 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:48.480 Pandora came along in two thousand and five. It began 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:53.159 as Savage Beast Technologies, and they were founded on this 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:57.080 idea of the algorithm to recommend songs to where it 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:00.960 would curate like this is Chuck's station. And the way 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.600 they did this was through something called the Music Genome Project, 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.280 which I remember just thinking it was the coolest idea 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:11.840 and thing ever back then, and it was a cool thing. 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:12.280 It was. 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.359 It was basically that they would analyze four hundred and 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:20.520 fifty unique attributes of every song that exists from you know, 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:22.639 as simple as like what genre is it to like 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:24.399 how nasally somebody's voice was. 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:25.040 Wow. 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:27.480 Then they would evaluate it on a scale of one 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:30.720 to five with half increments, and the end result would 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:34.840 be the songs you know, quote unquote DNA. Initially, they 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:37.919 had a musicologist that did this by ear in the 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:40.240 hand and it took like fifteen to thirty minutes a song. 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:43.879 Eventually AI took over, but it was that was the 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:48.200 big attraction for Pandora was like this super cool project 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:52.320 where they're categorizing music so specifically that it will start 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:55.040 to learn what you like and you can curate your 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:55.920 own radio station. 0:21:56.600 --> 0:22:00.600 That's nuts. I never heard of that music genome project before. 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:03.760 Oh really, it was sort of all the rage at 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:04.080 the time. 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:06.879 Pretty groundbreaking. I mean, I'm taking it this is in 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:08.159 the early two thousands. 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:10.040 I mean it was when Pandora started. That was sort 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:11.480 of the basis of how they worked. 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:12.159 Wow. 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:13.400 So yeah, two thousand and five. 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:17.960 Okay, So Pandora also started to try a subscription model. 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:20.119 Were they the first They may. 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:22.720 Have been, Well, I think Naster tried it but it 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:23.240 didn't work. 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:26.600 Okay, So Pandora was the first I guess that was 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:30.119 successful at it. It was I think three dollars a 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:34.119 month for streaming music with no advertising, which sounds like 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:36.439 a deal, But there are only like ten songs on 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:40.080 the internet at the time it's it did, and they 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:43.040 tried like ten hour free trials kind of like those 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:47.399 AOL sample discs. Yeah, but only one. They only had 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:49.000 like a one percent conversion rate. 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:49.520 Yeah. 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.600 And one of the reasons why I think that doesn't 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:55.359 get mentioned very often is that we're talking this is 0:22:55.400 --> 0:23:00.480 like the mid oughts two thousand and five. People were 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:03.560 not at all comfortable with giving their credit card information 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:06.680 out over the internet. Yeah, and that's the only way 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:07.520 you could buy. 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:09.920 Back then, Yeah, when it just seemed like the most 0:23:09.960 --> 0:23:12.119 like top secret thing you could even have as a 0:23:12.119 --> 0:23:13.480 part of your life, right. 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:16.200 Yeah. So I really truly think that that was one 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:18.160 of the reasons why this got a slow start. People 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:21.639 were just so comfortable with paying for things using their 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:23.880 credit card over the internet. And that's I mean, how 0:23:23.880 --> 0:23:25.399 else you're gonna build some but you're gonna send them 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:28.200 a physical bill for your online streaming service. 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:30.240 You get a letter from a twelve year old after that. 0:23:31.440 --> 0:23:35.280 Yeah, exactly imagine Pandora getting checks mailed to them every month. 0:23:35.320 --> 0:23:37.359 That'd be hilarious. But I mean, I guess that's what 0:23:37.400 --> 0:23:39.320 you'd have to do to get business going. 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:41.480 Yeah, I think you're totally right. Those early days of 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:43.080 e commerce, I think a lot of us had some 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:45.480 trepidation about entering those digits online, you. 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:48.480 Know, Yeah, and it might become it might be is 0:23:48.520 --> 0:23:52.119 a confirmation bias where I, like, I was like that, 0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:54.040 so I just assume other people were as well. But 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:57.440 most of the people I knew were not comfortable giving 0:23:57.440 --> 0:23:59.200 out their credit card info at that time. 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:03.800 No, I think you're right on the money, no bias whatsoever. 0:24:03.880 --> 0:24:05.399 You're just right cool. 0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:11.600 So Congress got involved, actually in the United States at least, 0:24:11.640 --> 0:24:14.440 and they came up with the Copyright Royalty and Distribution 0:24:14.600 --> 0:24:17.680 Reform Act of two thousand and four. That's how disruptive 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:20.879 napster was. Yeah, in four years, Congress had passed an 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:24.480 act essentially trying to help smooth this over. I'm sure 0:24:24.480 --> 0:24:27.159 it was largely in the favor of the labels, but 0:24:27.280 --> 0:24:32.000 it set up the US Copyright Royalty Board where these 0:24:32.320 --> 0:24:37.120 these software companies and streamers would come and take claims 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:40.040 or be taken to this board by music labels to 0:24:40.040 --> 0:24:41.640 figure out who owed who what. 0:24:41.880 --> 0:24:45.560 Right, Yeah, which was a big, you know, through a 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:46.959 big wrench in the plans of a lot of these 0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:49.840 companies that were just emerging. I think the ones that 0:24:49.880 --> 0:24:53.760 were sort of smaller gave up pretty quickly because it 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:58.240 was such a legal quagmire. Like Yahue Music wasn't even 0:24:58.359 --> 0:25:01.640 you know, a smallish one. They shut themselves down. 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:06.119 Yeah for sure. So again Apple kind of rides to 0:25:06.240 --> 0:25:10.360 the rescue. And in two thousand and seven they introduced 0:25:10.359 --> 0:25:12.480 the iPhone. Because I don't know if we said it 0:25:12.560 --> 0:25:14.760 or not. Before the iPhone came along, if you wanted 0:25:14.800 --> 0:25:18.399 to listen to downloaded music anywhere away from your PC, 0:25:19.119 --> 0:25:22.040 you had to buy an iPod or one of it's 0:25:22.080 --> 0:25:25.480 also ran competitors like Zoom or something like that, but 0:25:25.560 --> 0:25:28.199 you had to have like a physical device to listen to. 0:25:28.680 --> 0:25:30.959 When the iPhone came out, it was like throw all 0:25:31.000 --> 0:25:34.919 that crowd away. Now you can not only listen to 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:37.600 your MP three's that you're buying off the iTunes store, 0:25:37.760 --> 0:25:40.320 you can listen to streaming music. You can do everything 0:25:40.400 --> 0:25:43.040 you can on the internet, you can do on your iPhone. 0:25:43.600 --> 0:25:47.439 So it provided a super stable, safe platform, not at 0:25:47.480 --> 0:25:50.960 all skanky. You weren't going to get viruses or anything 0:25:51.040 --> 0:25:54.760 like that from downloading apps from the App store. And 0:25:54.840 --> 0:25:58.119 Pandora actually saw the writing on the wall very early, 0:25:58.440 --> 0:26:00.680 and they had an app like I think the next 0:26:00.760 --> 0:26:04.840 year that was available for the iPhone that was a 0:26:04.880 --> 0:26:08.800 Pandora streaming app. And I think the first year, within 0:26:08.920 --> 0:26:11.760 nine months that the app that the App store came out, 0:26:12.119 --> 0:26:15.240 the Pandora app was on almost a quarter of all 0:26:15.280 --> 0:26:16.320 iPhones in the world. 0:26:16.560 --> 0:26:21.040 Yeah, this also brought back funny memories of this is 0:26:21.080 --> 0:26:24.159 kind of like when we were getting going with the 0:26:24.200 --> 0:26:25.320 TV show. 0:26:25.520 --> 0:26:28.440 Ish really at those twenty thirteen. 0:26:29.440 --> 0:26:31.520 Well, I'm just talking about no, no, no, I'm not saying 0:26:31.520 --> 0:26:36.480 the launch of the iPhone. I'm saying the apps being 0:26:36.560 --> 0:26:38.720 like the end all be all. Like I remember very 0:26:38.720 --> 0:26:42.280 specifically in some of those TV meetings some of the 0:26:42.320 --> 0:26:44.879 guys on staff, like all they could talk about was 0:26:44.920 --> 0:26:47.040 apps and look at this new app and it does this, 0:26:47.119 --> 0:26:48.720 and it does this cool thing, and it does this 0:26:48.720 --> 0:26:51.399 cool weird thing, and it was just app, apps, apps, 0:26:51.440 --> 0:26:53.359 And it's just funny to look back how that is 0:26:53.840 --> 0:26:55.880 at least changed for me. I mean, maybe people still 0:26:55.960 --> 0:26:58.760 use all kinds of funky apps, but almost every app 0:26:58.800 --> 0:27:03.639 I have is utilitarian and serve some kind of like 0:27:03.800 --> 0:27:05.880 function for doing something right. 0:27:05.880 --> 0:27:08.320 But if you wanted to razzle dazzle a C suite 0:27:08.400 --> 0:27:10.719 executive who is like ten years older than you at 0:27:10.720 --> 0:27:12.760 the time, all you had to do is even let 0:27:12.800 --> 0:27:15.000 them know you were thinking in terms of apps, and 0:27:15.040 --> 0:27:18.600 they would just automatically promote you. I totally remember that time. 0:27:19.280 --> 0:27:21.359 We've survived a lot of weird times, haven't we. 0:27:21.880 --> 0:27:24.359 Hey we have, including the great stuff you should know. 0:27:24.400 --> 0:27:25.560 Fire of eight. 0:27:26.119 --> 0:27:28.359 Yeah, right, death of Richard Marx. 0:27:29.600 --> 0:27:30.560 Oh he didn't die, did he. 0:27:31.320 --> 0:27:37.080 No? Okay, that was a terrible joke. I'm sorry, Richard Mark, Sorry, 0:27:37.160 --> 0:27:39.600 Utah Saints, Sorry Richard Mars Right. 0:27:40.400 --> 0:27:44.600 Uh so we have to talk about Spotify. Should we 0:27:44.600 --> 0:27:45.400 do that or take a break? 0:27:45.400 --> 0:27:50.080 First, let's talk about Spotify, all right? 0:27:50.160 --> 0:27:54.880 Spotify comes along. They changed the game. Pandora was still 0:27:54.920 --> 0:27:57.639 trying to be you know, kind of like radio in 0:27:57.680 --> 0:28:01.119 a way. Spotify was like, know, we're really going to 0:28:01.160 --> 0:28:06.400 be on demand and this is kind of what everyone's 0:28:06.440 --> 0:28:09.000 been waiting for. It was a company out of Stockholm, Sweden, 0:28:09.560 --> 0:28:14.120 very famous for swedeness, for encouraging and supporting their tech industries. 0:28:14.119 --> 0:28:17.119 That's why there's somebody coming out of there. But they 0:28:17.200 --> 0:28:20.919 launched in two thousand and six, and then I think 0:28:21.480 --> 0:28:24.840 Weighted had to wait until twenty eleven to launch in 0:28:24.880 --> 0:28:28.080 the US because they had to you know, they were 0:28:28.080 --> 0:28:30.760 I guess smart enough early on to pre negotiate with 0:28:30.880 --> 0:28:34.040 record labels and kind of get all that settled, so 0:28:34.080 --> 0:28:35.760 they weren't just dragged into court right away. 0:28:36.560 --> 0:28:38.880 Right so early in their early years, even when they 0:28:38.880 --> 0:28:42.320 were just available in Europe, in Western Europe, they had 0:28:42.360 --> 0:28:45.239 ten million users and at one point six of them 0:28:45.280 --> 0:28:48.560 were already paying users. Right So before this thing even 0:28:48.640 --> 0:28:50.920 hit the US, it was valued at a billion dollar 0:28:51.080 --> 0:28:54.360 Spotify was, and when it hit the US, it it 0:28:54.480 --> 0:29:00.240 just reached this incredibly massive level. One of the things 0:29:00.280 --> 0:29:03.520 that Spotify did, I think today there they're at like 0:29:03.560 --> 0:29:07.560 six hundred and fifteen million active users something crazy like that. 0:29:08.760 --> 0:29:11.520 But one of the ways that they managed to kind 0:29:11.560 --> 0:29:14.920 of come in and be like, hey, peace everybody, was 0:29:14.920 --> 0:29:18.640 that they really paid royalties to the artists and the 0:29:18.680 --> 0:29:22.080 labels or whoever owned the copyright of that song. They 0:29:22.120 --> 0:29:26.600 paid like seventy percent of their revenues went to pay royalties, 0:29:27.120 --> 0:29:31.440 and so they have been losing money every year since 0:29:31.640 --> 0:29:34.400 at least twenty eleven, probably back when they debuted in 0:29:34.400 --> 0:29:39.520 two thousand and six and I think twenty twenty three. No, 0:29:39.680 --> 0:29:43.960 the first two couriers of twenty twenty four, yes, they 0:29:44.480 --> 0:29:48.080 they made record profits, and because they lost money every 0:29:48.160 --> 0:29:50.440 year up until then, a record profit for them could 0:29:50.480 --> 0:29:54.160 have been one dollar. But they finally turned profitable essentially, 0:29:54.480 --> 0:29:56.880 and they're saying, like, now we're going to be profitable, 0:29:57.200 --> 0:29:59.560 profitable from here on out. One of the criticisms they 0:29:59.560 --> 0:30:02.479 took is that they became profitable by going through massive 0:30:02.560 --> 0:30:06.000 rounds of layoffs and jacking up the price of their subscriptions. 0:30:06.280 --> 0:30:09.680 But the point about to know about Spotify is they 0:30:10.120 --> 0:30:12.320 created a new standard by saying we're going to actually 0:30:12.320 --> 0:30:16.160 pay real royalties to the people who own this music. 0:30:16.360 --> 0:30:19.720 Oh for sure. So I think we take that break. 0:30:19.440 --> 0:30:33.680 Now, Okay, we'll be right back, all right. 0:30:33.720 --> 0:30:37.960 So twenty fifteen, a little several new players came on 0:30:38.400 --> 0:30:41.240 the scene. Title you might have heard a lot about 0:30:41.280 --> 0:30:45.840 at the time, all capitals TIDL. This was an artist 0:30:45.920 --> 0:30:49.960 owned alternative kind of like you know, United artists and 0:30:49.960 --> 0:30:53.000 movies back in the day. Like musicians actually got together 0:30:54.560 --> 0:30:59.120 under the guidance of jay Z to buy a company. 0:30:59.200 --> 0:31:03.160 Initially it was an Norway based company called a SPIRO 0:31:03.760 --> 0:31:07.760 that we're developing. It stood for wireless music player but 0:31:07.840 --> 0:31:11.880 the WIMP and it was higher bit rates, supposedly better 0:31:12.400 --> 0:31:17.720 quality and also like real human editors making music recommendations. 0:31:18.240 --> 0:31:20.640 So jay Z gets on board. He's like, man, we 0:31:20.680 --> 0:31:24.000 can't call it whimp in the United States. It's not 0:31:24.120 --> 0:31:26.880 tough at all. So they changed it to title, right. 0:31:27.320 --> 0:31:30.560 I read an interesting article. Also, big ups to Olivia 0:31:30.640 --> 0:31:32.280 for helping us with this one. But she found an 0:31:32.360 --> 0:31:36.040 article from Loud and Quiet dot com written by Stuart 0:31:36.040 --> 0:31:38.800 Stubbs called five years on a very silly launch of 0:31:38.880 --> 0:31:42.920 Title and if you like, just kind of laughing a 0:31:42.920 --> 0:31:46.600 little bit at the misfortune of super egotistical, wealthy people 0:31:47.680 --> 0:31:50.840 like that article a lot. Yeah, he just slams like 0:31:50.920 --> 0:31:53.480 this launch and I haven't seen it because I can't 0:31:53.480 --> 0:31:56.760 bear to watch it based on his description of how 0:31:56.760 --> 0:31:59.120 awkward it is. But apparently it was one of the 0:31:59.120 --> 0:32:02.080 most awkward star studded events ever held. 0:32:02.560 --> 0:32:04.760 Yeah, I've seen it. It was awkward. It was just 0:32:05.560 --> 0:32:08.840 I don't know, man, Sometimes companies just screw it all up, 0:32:08.880 --> 0:32:09.960 you know, right. 0:32:10.160 --> 0:32:12.080 I think one of the big screw ups was to 0:32:12.120 --> 0:32:14.600 basically tell the audience not to clap for anything, which 0:32:14.600 --> 0:32:19.000 I'm sure was a decision because you don't want it 0:32:19.080 --> 0:32:20.840 to seem like these stars showed up so that they 0:32:20.840 --> 0:32:23.680 could be applauded for everything they said. Yeah, but instead 0:32:23.760 --> 0:32:27.600 it made it super awkward and quiet. From what Stuart 0:32:27.680 --> 0:32:29.200 Stubb says, it is. 0:32:29.240 --> 0:32:32.040 Very weird for Madonna to walk out on stage and 0:32:32.160 --> 0:32:35.560 be met with silence. It was slightly surreal. 0:32:35.880 --> 0:32:36.440 Yeah. 0:32:36.480 --> 0:32:40.600 So Titles Deal was another company obviously because they were 0:32:40.680 --> 0:32:45.240 artists that wanted to pay through pretty well and musicians 0:32:45.280 --> 0:32:49.760 got a seventy five royalty on each song. It wasn't 0:32:49.760 --> 0:32:53.480 too long after that they were being sued for underpayment 0:32:54.280 --> 0:32:58.520 and it ended up not being a financial success as 0:32:58.560 --> 0:33:01.160 a company, right. A bit of a mess, it seemed like. 0:33:02.160 --> 0:33:05.720 But it got bailed out by Jack Dorsey, the co 0:33:05.760 --> 0:33:09.240 founder of Twitter. He was leading a company called Block Inc. 0:33:09.800 --> 0:33:13.560 And in twenty twenty one he used Block Inc funds 0:33:13.720 --> 0:33:17.080 to buy an eighty six percent share in Title for 0:33:17.200 --> 0:33:22.960 three hundred million dollars. Yeah, and essentially the shareholders in 0:33:23.000 --> 0:33:26.720 Block sued. They sued Jack Dorsey for this because they're like, 0:33:26.760 --> 0:33:28.600 you did this as a favorite to jay Z. You 0:33:28.640 --> 0:33:31.800 can't do that to us. This is a terrible deal. 0:33:32.200 --> 0:33:34.080 And they actually had the lawsuit dismissed. 0:33:35.040 --> 0:33:37.080 Yeah, I think. I mean, if you want to compare, 0:33:37.120 --> 0:33:39.160 I believe that jay Z, what did they pay like 0:33:39.240 --> 0:33:40.240 fifty something million? 0:33:40.840 --> 0:33:42.760 Everybody chipped in fifty six million? 0:33:42.840 --> 0:33:45.600 Yeah, okay, so then flipped it for three hundred to 0:33:45.720 --> 0:33:46.200 his friend. 0:33:47.240 --> 0:33:50.920 But really it was probably worth half of the original 0:33:51.000 --> 0:33:54.080 price by this time because it was not a success 0:33:54.120 --> 0:33:56.800 at all, and even still today, I saw it has 0:33:56.840 --> 0:33:59.480 about five million users, it says, but that that's even 0:33:59.560 --> 0:34:04.480 disputed by people outside the company. And like I said that, 0:34:04.600 --> 0:34:08.120 judge dismissed the case against Jack Dorsey and he said 0:34:08.120 --> 0:34:11.640 that that there's nothing legally wrong in approving it, even 0:34:11.680 --> 0:34:14.400 though it was quote a terrible business decision. 0:34:14.719 --> 0:34:17.040 Yeah, man, that's pretty funny. 0:34:17.120 --> 0:34:18.400 I was so mad. 0:34:19.040 --> 0:34:21.160 Oh yeah, I wonder if you've snuck up behind jay 0:34:21.239 --> 0:34:23.279 Z and looked at his phone what he's playing. 0:34:23.000 --> 0:34:27.040 With the real player he's ogreat I. 0:34:27.000 --> 0:34:28.719 Did look up that logo, by the way, and it 0:34:28.800 --> 0:34:32.960 was a wave of nostalgia. Might another one that came 0:34:33.000 --> 0:34:36.160 out in twenty fifteen. You might have seen Neil Young 0:34:36.640 --> 0:34:39.839 screaming at people on your television set right around then. 0:34:40.560 --> 0:34:43.600 It was Pono that was his this is actual device. 0:34:43.680 --> 0:34:46.239 It was a player, the Pono player, and it was 0:34:46.280 --> 0:34:49.480 a crowdfunded campaign that raised about ten million bucks. And 0:34:49.560 --> 0:34:52.759 the whole pitch here was from Neil Young, especially was 0:34:53.800 --> 0:34:59.160 MP three's are garbage and that compression stinks and this 0:34:59.280 --> 0:35:01.480 is all the night. Like Neil Young was much more 0:35:01.600 --> 0:35:04.759 critical and probably cussed a lot more, but he's like, 0:35:04.800 --> 0:35:07.279 the quality here is better, and this is the way 0:35:07.360 --> 0:35:09.719 music should be listening. It's a travesty how we're listening 0:35:09.760 --> 0:35:13.160 to music these days. And that company, I mean, I 0:35:13.239 --> 0:35:15.879 guess Neil Young failed to realize it. By and large, 0:35:15.880 --> 0:35:18.200 most people don't care about the quality to that level. 0:35:18.840 --> 0:35:20.879 Yeah, a lot of people just can't detect it. It's 0:35:20.920 --> 0:35:23.279 not even that they don't care, it's that once you 0:35:23.320 --> 0:35:26.760 get to a certain bit rate measured in kilobytes per second, 0:35:26.800 --> 0:35:30.000 that's how much how many bits are being transferred per second. 0:35:30.000 --> 0:35:32.759 So obviously the more bits transferred, the more of the 0:35:32.800 --> 0:35:37.680 song that's captured, the better the sound quality. Somewhere outside 0:35:37.680 --> 0:35:40.359 of two hundred and fifty six kilobytes a second. When 0:35:40.400 --> 0:35:43.800 you start going over that, people generally can't tell the difference, 0:35:44.080 --> 0:35:47.160 especially if you're just using like earbuds or something like that. 0:35:47.239 --> 0:35:48.920 You know, we're just playing it through the speaker of 0:35:48.920 --> 0:35:49.440 your iPhone. 0:35:49.520 --> 0:35:53.160 Especially, Yeah, oh god, do people do that? 0:35:54.440 --> 0:35:55.560 Very obnoxious people do. 0:35:55.719 --> 0:35:59.440 Yes, A CD, just for comparison, is a little over 0:35:59.440 --> 0:36:03.839 fourteen high hundred kilobits per second. And you said two 0:36:03.880 --> 0:36:07.640 fifty six is where people can't tell much of a difference. 0:36:07.719 --> 0:36:10.400 That's like, that's like people with a good ear they say, 0:36:10.760 --> 0:36:13.440 if you're around ninety to one hundred and you're not 0:36:13.440 --> 0:36:16.440 the most discerning listener and you're not playing, you know, 0:36:16.480 --> 0:36:18.640 through something great, then you probably won't be able to 0:36:18.640 --> 0:36:19.320 tell the difference. 0:36:19.640 --> 0:36:23.000 Right. But again, if you're Neil Young, yes you're really 0:36:23.080 --> 0:36:26.440 upset about this, but it's a course. He really missed 0:36:26.440 --> 0:36:30.000 the mark by assuming that everybody felt this way about it. 0:36:30.080 --> 0:36:32.880 And yeah, I mean you can you can get just 0:36:33.040 --> 0:36:37.200 great quality of music from a fairly compressed rate. Yeah, 0:36:37.320 --> 0:36:37.920 I agree. 0:36:38.920 --> 0:36:41.160 Twenty fifteen also, and this kind of surprised me. It 0:36:41.160 --> 0:36:42.799 felt like it had been around longer. But that's when 0:36:42.840 --> 0:36:47.160 Apple Music, not iTunes, but the Apple Music streaming finally 0:36:47.239 --> 0:36:52.440 was launched surprisingly late to the game, supposedly because Steve 0:36:52.520 --> 0:36:59.120 Jobs didn't like the idea. So Apple and Amazon, who 0:36:59.120 --> 0:37:01.640 had been selling MP three's just like Apple had, they 0:37:01.680 --> 0:37:04.960 launched about a year later. So they're both giants that 0:37:05.000 --> 0:37:06.520 were kind of late to the streaming game. 0:37:07.040 --> 0:37:11.120 Yeah, Apparently Steve Jobs thought that it was basically piracy 0:37:11.239 --> 0:37:13.799 to make people rent music rather than own it, and 0:37:13.840 --> 0:37:15.719 that people didn't want to rent music, they wanted to 0:37:15.760 --> 0:37:19.759 own it, so therefore subscription streaming services were basically just 0:37:19.800 --> 0:37:23.000 taking advantage of their users. And he kind of said, 0:37:23.920 --> 0:37:25.959 if you pay one hundred dollars a year to listen 0:37:25.960 --> 0:37:28.400 to your favorite song over ten years, you paid one 0:37:28.440 --> 0:37:30.839 thousand dollars to listen to that song and you don't 0:37:30.840 --> 0:37:32.920 even own it, rather than just buying it once for 0:37:33.080 --> 0:37:35.920 a dollar or something like that. And he makes a 0:37:35.920 --> 0:37:38.399 good point, but he's also leaving out all the other 0:37:38.520 --> 0:37:41.880 music that you've listened to over that ten year period. 0:37:42.480 --> 0:37:44.160 It's a weird way to put it. Yeah, it's a 0:37:44.160 --> 0:37:47.080 little disingenuous, but he was very much opposed to it, 0:37:47.120 --> 0:37:49.080 and Apple was not about to get into the streaming 0:37:49.120 --> 0:37:50.200 game while he was alive. 0:37:50.760 --> 0:37:53.120 He's like, if you're wealthy like me, you'll pay for 0:37:53.200 --> 0:37:56.040 a different streaming subscription for every song you want to 0:37:56.080 --> 0:37:59.200 hear exactly, just to make it fair. 0:37:59.400 --> 0:38:00.480 And that's madness. 0:38:01.760 --> 0:38:05.520 Pandora, we should Mention was bought by Sirius XM and 0:38:05.600 --> 0:38:09.680 twenty nineteen, and we should, you know, talk a little 0:38:09.719 --> 0:38:12.360 bit about how the finances worked today, because it was, 0:38:13.920 --> 0:38:15.600 you know, there was a bit of a things have 0:38:15.719 --> 0:38:18.000 regulated just a bit. You know, things really went in 0:38:18.040 --> 0:38:23.000 the tank. I think that the twenty fourteen was that 0:38:23.120 --> 0:38:28.359 the lowest point in dollars for the music industry. They've 0:38:28.400 --> 0:38:31.400 come back now. In twenty twenty two, revenues hit twenty 0:38:31.480 --> 0:38:34.479 six point two billion, which is about a twenty five 0:38:34.520 --> 0:38:37.800 percent drop compared to when CDs died. But that's a 0:38:37.840 --> 0:38:41.000 seventy percent increase from where they were in twenty fourteen. 0:38:41.480 --> 0:38:44.240 Yeah, I mean that's a that is a low point 0:38:44.280 --> 0:38:44.840 for sure. 0:38:45.239 --> 0:38:48.760 Yeah. So they've sort of course corrected enough to where 0:38:49.080 --> 0:38:50.920 I think they're like, hey, it'll never be the heyday 0:38:50.960 --> 0:38:54.560 of CDs again, right, but not every Like people are 0:38:54.560 --> 0:38:57.320 actually paying for music now with these subscriptions. 0:38:57.800 --> 0:38:59.960 Yeah, And it does turn out that Steve Jobs will 0:39:00.200 --> 0:39:03.480 absolutely wrong. People are generally totally cool with renting their 0:39:03.560 --> 0:39:07.080 music through subscription services. I think eighty four percent of 0:39:07.160 --> 0:39:11.520 music revenue comes from paid subscriptions. Yeah that's a I mean, 0:39:11.520 --> 0:39:14.600 that's significant. And one two thousand and ninth study found 0:39:14.640 --> 0:39:18.360 that piracy had dropped because of the affordability of legal 0:39:18.400 --> 0:39:22.400 ways of consuming media, not because of enforcement, not the 0:39:22.440 --> 0:39:25.640 threat of being sued by Metallica, but just the fact 0:39:25.640 --> 0:39:29.080 that it was easier and by this time people got 0:39:29.160 --> 0:39:31.800 used to putting their credit card info on the internet. 0:39:33.520 --> 0:39:36.600 The threat of Lars Ulrich's coming into your room and 0:39:36.640 --> 0:39:39.600 speaking to you for twenty minutes. Yeah, that's enough right 0:39:39.640 --> 0:39:43.839 there for sure. As far as what they pay, I mean, 0:39:43.840 --> 0:39:46.880 Spotify's the biggest dog in the market. They have about 0:39:46.880 --> 0:39:49.400 thirty percent of the streaming market and like you said, 0:39:49.400 --> 0:39:53.840 more than six hundred million active users. But these royalties, 0:39:53.880 --> 0:39:57.600 Title pays the most at one point three cents, Apple's 0:39:57.640 --> 0:40:01.879 point seven, YouTube music point seven. Spotify pays point four 0:40:01.960 --> 0:40:05.799 cents per stream, same as Amazon and then Pandora's down 0:40:05.880 --> 0:40:09.120 to point one. You're obviously making a lot more money 0:40:09.120 --> 0:40:12.279 off of Spotify because they're the biggest player, so it's 0:40:12.440 --> 0:40:15.200 less per stream. But as an artist, if you're a 0:40:15.239 --> 0:40:17.480 hit on Spotify, then there's a lot of money to 0:40:17.520 --> 0:40:18.040 be made. 0:40:18.520 --> 0:40:23.640 Right Yeah. I think Spotify paid over nine billion dollars 0:40:23.680 --> 0:40:27.680 in royalties in twenty twenty three, three times more than 0:40:27.680 --> 0:40:31.200 they paid six years earlier. And there've been studies about 0:40:31.239 --> 0:40:34.760 how much money is actually made by the artists. There's 0:40:35.120 --> 0:40:38.480 sixty six thousand artists that make ten grand or more 0:40:38.520 --> 0:40:42.720 a year on the platform through music sharing, eleven thousand 0:40:42.760 --> 0:40:45.680 of them make more than one hundred thousand dollars a year, 0:40:46.120 --> 0:40:48.760 and then twelve hundred of them make a million plus. 0:40:49.239 --> 0:40:51.839 And of course most of the twelve hundred are names 0:40:51.840 --> 0:40:54.000 that you've heard of that are already making tons of 0:40:54.000 --> 0:40:57.000 money anyway. But you know, toward the lower end of 0:40:57.040 --> 0:41:00.399 that scale, there are indie artists that never in their 0:41:00.400 --> 0:41:02.600 life would have made a million dollars in a record 0:41:02.680 --> 0:41:07.400 label deal that are now like making producing, sharing their 0:41:07.400 --> 0:41:10.960 own music, running their own social media, and they're making 0:41:11.040 --> 0:41:15.240 a million dollars a year more from their music, which 0:41:15.280 --> 0:41:19.040 is That's one of the ways that this completely changed 0:41:19.080 --> 0:41:21.719 the game, not just in taking money away from the 0:41:21.840 --> 0:41:26.160 music labels, but also in making it easier for independent 0:41:26.239 --> 0:41:29.040 artists to just exist without the music labels. 0:41:29.320 --> 0:41:33.319 Yeah, yeah, for sure, I got a couple of things 0:41:33.320 --> 0:41:37.120 for you here on that line, our beloved Pavement that 0:41:37.160 --> 0:41:41.320 we both love. Sure Harness Your Hopes was a B side, 0:41:41.840 --> 0:41:44.279 kind of throwaway song, not throw away, but a B 0:41:44.400 --> 0:41:46.879 side from nineteen ninety six. It never made it onto 0:41:46.920 --> 0:41:50.719 their album. It went viral on TikTok last year. You 0:41:50.760 --> 0:41:53.879 know about all this, right, No, so the song goes 0:41:53.960 --> 0:41:59.560 viral on TikTok for some reason. And like huge Pavement 0:42:00.040 --> 0:42:02.200 for eight song from nineteen ninety six got one hundred 0:42:02.239 --> 0:42:06.640 and forty eight million streams on Spotify. Wow, which, if 0:42:06.680 --> 0:42:10.280 the math is right, close to six hundred thousand dollars 0:42:10.640 --> 0:42:14.359 just from Spotify from a you know, B side from 0:42:14.440 --> 0:42:15.359 nineteen ninety six. 0:42:15.680 --> 0:42:16.360 That's awesome. 0:42:16.840 --> 0:42:19.439 That's amazing. So that kind of stuff can happen, which 0:42:19.440 --> 0:42:22.160 is great. And then I looked up I was curious 0:42:22.160 --> 0:42:25.400 who the most stream like, the most streamed song ever 0:42:25.560 --> 0:42:28.200 on Spotify is. My guess would have been a Taylor 0:42:28.239 --> 0:42:31.000 Swift song. Believe it or not. Taylor Swift has the 0:42:31.640 --> 0:42:34.640 her highest charting Spotify as far as number of streams 0:42:34.680 --> 0:42:38.680 go is the forty second highest. What is it? 0:42:38.760 --> 0:42:41.239 Just so she has so many songs that that it 0:42:41.320 --> 0:42:45.240 counts for her streams, I guess because she has tens 0:42:45.239 --> 0:42:46.640 of billions of streams. 0:42:46.760 --> 0:42:49.520 No, that's for a song like one specific song. 0:42:49.680 --> 0:42:53.360 Oh oh, I see you're saying in dollar amounts and royalties. 0:42:53.480 --> 0:42:56.520 No, no, no, in streams like her. Her Her most streamed 0:42:56.600 --> 0:42:59.640 song is Cruel Cruel Summer, and that is number forty 0:42:59.640 --> 0:43:00.320 two on the list. 0:43:01.480 --> 0:43:03.719 First of all, that's Banana rama. And secondly, I think 0:43:03.840 --> 0:43:08.800 my point still stands. She just has so many songs 0:43:08.840 --> 0:43:11.160 and variations of her songs that when you put it 0:43:11.200 --> 0:43:15.040 all together, she has like thirty eight billion streams a 0:43:15.120 --> 0:43:17.279 year of Spotify. Yeah. 0:43:17.360 --> 0:43:19.600 Yeah, that's for her whole catalog, which is incredible. 0:43:19.840 --> 0:43:22.040 So who's number one? That she's way down at forty two. 0:43:23.200 --> 0:43:28.920 The weekend, which one his song Blinding Lights Wow, is 0:43:28.960 --> 0:43:33.360 the most downloaded song on Spotify And I did I 0:43:33.360 --> 0:43:35.440 think it was. I can't remember. I think it was 0:43:35.440 --> 0:43:39.960 like four or five billion streams. And I did some math, 0:43:40.000 --> 0:43:41.600 and I may not be right, but if I did 0:43:41.600 --> 0:43:44.120 my math right, it looks like that that dude has 0:43:44.160 --> 0:43:47.040 made more than one hundred million dollars on that song 0:43:47.080 --> 0:43:47.880 off of Spotify. 0:43:48.239 --> 0:43:51.520 That's just off of Spotify, right, Yeah, that's not including 0:43:51.520 --> 0:43:54.919 like YouTube music, Amazon music sales of the actual MP 0:43:55.000 --> 0:43:55.800 three year album. 0:43:56.360 --> 0:43:58.680 How many ways can I say? Only Spotify. 0:44:00.680 --> 0:44:03.800 In hindsight, even that doesn't quite make sense. I'm not like, ah, 0:44:03.800 --> 0:44:06.520 that makes sense. It's funny how the internet can do that. 0:44:07.080 --> 0:44:09.880 I would have guessed Gongam style, but that's a little 0:44:10.080 --> 0:44:11.200 little dated, I guess. 0:44:12.760 --> 0:44:15.759 I just like, if that math is right, that's that's incredible. 0:44:15.520 --> 0:44:17.360 Yeah, for sure. But that's the kind of money you 0:44:17.360 --> 0:44:19.200 can make off that. I saw Drake made like three 0:44:19.280 --> 0:44:22.880 hundred million dollars off of Spotify in a year recently. 0:44:24.200 --> 0:44:27.759 So yeah, and if you're again, indie bands are now 0:44:27.800 --> 0:44:30.719 at the table. They can do this all themselves. They 0:44:31.719 --> 0:44:35.160 can just split it among themselves as bandmates. And you know, 0:44:35.239 --> 0:44:38.480 if you just hit it just right, you can go 0:44:38.560 --> 0:44:42.000 viral like that Pavement song did and really make it 0:44:42.080 --> 0:44:44.880 not just money wise, but your career. You can expose 0:44:44.880 --> 0:44:48.480 yourself to so many people virtually on social media or 0:44:48.600 --> 0:44:53.680 streaming music, is what I mean. But also there's an 0:44:54.040 --> 0:44:58.160 other side to it as well, because record executives haven't 0:44:58.160 --> 0:45:01.520 gone anywhere. There's still plenty of them, and so when 0:45:01.600 --> 0:45:05.160 you do have a contract with the label. They'll very 0:45:05.200 --> 0:45:08.480 frequently be like, hey, this song has to have an 0:45:08.520 --> 0:45:11.480 amazing hook that's no more than ten seconds long because 0:45:11.480 --> 0:45:14.520 we want to get it viral on TikTok. Go make 0:45:14.520 --> 0:45:17.520 a viral video on TikTok. Essentially is what they're saying, 0:45:17.760 --> 0:45:20.360 and so that's shaping how artists are making music, and 0:45:20.400 --> 0:45:22.080 a lot of them are not happy about that. 0:45:22.760 --> 0:45:25.800 Yeah, it's also reshaped, you know, the sort of the 0:45:25.880 --> 0:45:28.399 album era is kind of dead. I mean, there's still 0:45:28.400 --> 0:45:30.480 plenty of albums and still plenty of artists doing that, 0:45:31.040 --> 0:45:34.040 but it's almost, like Livia points out, it almost is 0:45:34.080 --> 0:45:36.520 like going back to the days of the forty fives 0:45:36.560 --> 0:45:40.000 in the nineteen fifties where it was you know, these 0:45:40.040 --> 0:45:45.120 singles are being released and that's interesting. I know that. 0:45:45.160 --> 0:45:48.200 You know, one thing we should mention is that there 0:45:48.400 --> 0:45:50.680 is they're trying to get it pushed through now the 0:45:50.760 --> 0:45:54.680 Living Wage for Musicians Act through the house, where they're 0:45:54.719 --> 0:45:59.239 basically saying, hey, minimum royalty should be a penny per stream. Like, 0:45:59.560 --> 0:46:01.640 I know, you make a lot more on Spotify because 0:46:01.760 --> 0:46:05.319 it's the biggest player, but they're paying four cents and 0:46:05.400 --> 0:46:07.719 like if everyone paid a cent, that would be a 0:46:07.800 --> 0:46:08.560 huge difference. 0:46:09.280 --> 0:46:11.919 Yeah, and if you're like I totally agree with that, 0:46:11.960 --> 0:46:14.640 you can go to Actionnetwork dot org and look for 0:46:14.840 --> 0:46:18.320 Living Wage for Musicians ACT. This morning, they only needed 0:46:18.320 --> 0:46:21.120 four hundred and thirty two more signatures to reach their goal, 0:46:21.480 --> 0:46:26.080 so apparently it automatically becomes law at twelve thousand signatures. 0:46:26.080 --> 0:46:28.719 If I'm not mistaken, nice work. 0:46:28.960 --> 0:46:30.040 I'm glad you put that out there. 0:46:31.239 --> 0:46:34.759 I am mistaken by the way. But yeah, there was 0:46:34.800 --> 0:46:36.279 one other thing I wanted to point out to the 0:46:36.320 --> 0:46:40.240 way that it's evolved. Because there's not a huge gamble 0:46:40.320 --> 0:46:43.240 in making music like there was when you have a 0:46:43.280 --> 0:46:46.360 whole production going on in a label and you're actually 0:46:46.400 --> 0:46:51.880 physically producing the albums. There's way more availability and potential 0:46:52.239 --> 0:46:57.520 for artists to explore genre bending, genre fusing all sorts 0:46:57.560 --> 0:47:01.320 of gambly risky new types of music that they would 0:47:01.400 --> 0:47:03.680 never be able to try if they had like a 0:47:03.760 --> 0:47:08.080 major album or a major major label contract and that 0:47:08.200 --> 0:47:10.399 label was not willing to take those risks. So that's 0:47:10.440 --> 0:47:12.120 another way that shaped it positively. 0:47:12.719 --> 0:47:14.520 Yeah, I mean, you and me could get together and 0:47:14.560 --> 0:47:17.480 put out a song and get it out there and streaming, 0:47:17.760 --> 0:47:18.719 like we could do that. 0:47:20.160 --> 0:47:23.520 Okay, what should we do? Should we call ourselves pendulum 0:47:23.520 --> 0:47:27.759 of development? And we're gonna play Both of us are 0:47:27.760 --> 0:47:29.719 going to play the mandolin, but neither of us know 0:47:29.800 --> 0:47:32.040 how to play the mandolin? Is the hook? 0:47:32.760 --> 0:47:38.399 Well, who's our slide whistle player? Jerry? Okay, sure, we're 0:47:38.400 --> 0:47:39.239 gonna cut her in on this. 0:47:41.120 --> 0:47:42.799 Well, no, I mean, but she can still be the 0:47:42.840 --> 0:47:47.439 slide whistle player. Oh okay, great, you got anything else? 0:47:47.719 --> 0:47:49.520 I got nothing else. This is a fun little trip 0:47:49.560 --> 0:47:50.360 down memory lane. 0:47:50.719 --> 0:47:55.759 Yeah, it was agreed. Good choice, And that's it. Everybody 0:47:55.800 --> 0:47:58.640 for streaming music, which means, of course it's time for 0:47:58.760 --> 0:47:59.439 listener mail. 0:48:01.560 --> 0:48:03.800 Yeah, I'm gonna say this is we're sort of correcting 0:48:03.800 --> 0:48:09.399 our omission of our Minecraft episode when we couldn't think 0:48:09.400 --> 0:48:10.439 of the kid's name. 0:48:10.960 --> 0:48:11.520 Oh, Kober. 0:48:11.920 --> 0:48:13.239 It was a kid in the audience, and we could 0:48:13.320 --> 0:48:16.440 remember his name. So we got a letter from Boden's mom. 0:48:16.840 --> 0:48:19.960 Oh hey, guys, my son. Boden was the kid who 0:48:20.000 --> 0:48:22.680 asked about Minecraft at the Medford show. He was the 0:48:22.680 --> 0:48:25.000 one with the glasses who also made the joke about 0:48:25.000 --> 0:48:26.480 being a retired factory worker. 0:48:27.280 --> 0:48:28.040 Was so great. 0:48:29.000 --> 0:48:31.719 That'll make sense if you've seen this show. He didn't 0:48:31.719 --> 0:48:34.640 ask about mobs, and in fairness, there were probably ten 0:48:34.680 --> 0:48:37.120 other kids after him who also asked about Minecraft. I 0:48:37.160 --> 0:48:39.239 don't think that's true, so I'm not sure if he's 0:48:39.280 --> 0:48:42.359 the one you're thinking of. Well, he was, Sarah, but 0:48:42.480 --> 0:48:45.400 she says regardless, I'm pretty sure he considers this to 0:48:45.440 --> 0:48:48.759 be his greatest contribution to humanity to date. 0:48:49.800 --> 0:48:51.200 Man, that kid is so cool. 0:48:51.800 --> 0:48:54.040 Sincerely thanks from a very grateful parent. And that is 0:48:54.080 --> 0:48:57.040 from Sarah, so big. Thanks Boden. Yeah, and I'm glad 0:48:57.080 --> 0:48:58.399 we could get your name out there. 0:48:58.520 --> 0:49:00.719 Yeah, thanks a lot. Boden, was a great idea and 0:49:00.719 --> 0:49:04.080 we appreciate your mom writing in. That was Sarah. 0:49:04.440 --> 0:49:05.520 Yes, awesome. 0:49:05.800 --> 0:49:08.440 Well, if you want to be like Boden and Sarah, 0:49:08.480 --> 0:49:11.560 come to one of our shows and suggest an episode. 0:49:12.120 --> 0:49:14.360 You can also just make it easier on yourself and 0:49:14.400 --> 0:49:16.920 send it via email, Wrap it up, spank it on 0:49:17.040 --> 0:49:19.680 the Minecraft, and send it off to Stuff podcast at 0:49:19.719 --> 0:49:23.759 iHeartRadio dot com. 0:49:23.920 --> 0:49:26.799 Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For 0:49:26.880 --> 0:49:31.080 more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:49:31.160 --> 0:49:33.040 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.