Artists sue Suno! Soft rock! Virtual snarky record-shop clerks! A 16-year old 'song of the summer'! And... chicken ice cream?

0:03Hello there and welcome to The Price of Music brought to you by Music Ally. If you want an easy guide to what's happening in the music industry and understanding how it all works, well, we're here as ever every week, looking at the finances of the music industry and bringing you stories and comments from the pop biz in the past week. He's Stuart Dredge. I'm Joe Sparrow, as ever. Let's start with a big number, Stu, and hopefully this is a big one. No pressure.

0:27Stu:No pressure. Yeah, it's quite a big one. 218.3 billion. That is pretty big. Oh, yeah. It passes the acceptability threshold. What is that? That is how many music streams happened in the first half of this year in India alone. Right. Okay. Now, where is this data from? And what does it mean? That's a lot of streaming. It comes from a company called Luminate. So they are the big music industry data tracker people. and they did a presentation at a big conference in India and they said, yeah, basically, India, 218.3 billion. This is audio and video streams, so it's music streaming on YouTube as well.

1:05Stu:And that makes it the third biggest country for the number of streams globally behind just the US and Mexico. So India is a very big place volume-wise for streaming. But here's the thing, 80 % of all these streams in India are free. They're from free ad-supported accounts, not paying customers. So in terms of the money it makes for the music industry, it's not as big as it might sound. So a lot of these, YouTube is a very big music streaming platform in India. Of course, we've said this before, but Indian music is very visual historically with Bollywood and all that kind of stuff. And so, of course, YouTube really hits that sweet spot for music fans in India.

1:45And how does the, in a nutshell, how does the music, like to say, rights holders, labels, the music industry feel about music? and supported YouTube as a streaming platform?

1:58Stu:I mean, I think the industry is really excited about India in the long term. Like, so many people, such a musical, such a big musical culture, like you say, going back to Bollywood and all kinds of other sorts of music. And the music industry is really mustard keen to get more people paying for music there and drive subscriptions. So they quite like YouTube in that YouTube does have a subscription and they're hoping that that massive power YouTube has will result in more people paying for YouTube. But they're doing all kinds of stuff. Like one of the things they're doing in India is Universal Music puts its new stuff behind payrolls.

2:33Stu:So to listen to a brand new Universal release, I think it's 72 hours. So the first three days, you have to be paying. So paying subscribers can hear it first and then it goes out to everybody else on YouTube. Which is not something we really have here in the UK and elsewhere. but that's a sign of music and you're saying well hang on how can we nudge everyone to start paying because if people start paying India is going to be a huge huge market in money terms not just streams it's interesting isn't it we've said for a very long time India is a fascinating market to watch we have a whole we have a reporter in India covering the South Asia market because it's so interesting and you can sign up for our newsletter should you wish to folks link below the podcast but it's what's really interesting when you sort of shine a light around the world like this is that of course there's so many billions of people who are not paying for music streaming as a subscription but of course just because we do it here in the west doesn't mean it will work like that everywhere else because culturally music is viewed so differently and i'm not saying this is the case for india necessarily but there are plenty of markets around the world where paying for music in the way we're used to here in the west is not really a culturally normal thing.

3:46You know, in some places, music is seen as a sort of mutually owned thing by society, or people don't really understand why you would pay to access it in the sort of streaming platform sense, because it's available in all these different ways. So the music industry, by which we mean rights holders and major labels and things like that, are really keen for places like India to get on board with a version of how we do it over here, aren't they?

4:17Stu:I think so. But yeah, but then finding a way, like you said, it's got to be a way that people like there. So it's like an exciting place. But yeah, just the sheer number. I mean, the other thing as well is this amount of streams in India. This could, what could happen now? So I mentioned Mexico earlier as the second biggest country in world for streams. And one thing that's happened with Mexico and Brazil is they have helped artists from Latin, and why did Latin America break globally? Because when so many people are streaming your music in one part of the world, it's giving a strong message to the algorithms of Spotify and Apple Music and so on that this is valuable music, people like this.

4:52Stu:And that is what has helped artists like Bad Bunny reach people because the algorithms, I mean, the algorithms don't talk like humans, but they're going, ah, Bad Bunny seems very popular over there. Maybe I will play him to more people in Europe who might like this music. So what we could start to see, especially as more Indian streams happen on Spotify and YouTube, services that are available elsewhere, you could start to see Indian artists getting a little launch pad like that. So that's the other thing. The volume of India streams could help Indian artists break through and we could start kind of seeing not just, and this is the thing about India, it's very much not just about Bollywood anymore.

5:29Stu:There's a whole big scene of independent Indian artists who aren't making their own music. And that's another exciting thing, I think. So yeah, this is like a pointer to we're going to be hearing more of those artists in the West, and that's quite exciting. Yeah, and much like a lot of South American music has the sort of language connection around the world with Spanish and Portuguese, there's a huge, obviously, an enormous diaspora around the world of people from South Asia. And that makes it a really sort of, it feels like it's on the cusp of something huge, doesn't it? And watch this space.

6:03Now, let's move on to some big stories this week. Brace yourselves for the listeners who leave pointed comments when we talk about AI music, but bear with us as well, because these are kind of quite artist-friendly stories, perhaps. It's a slow news week if we aren't talking about a new lawsuit against the AI music firm Suno. So Suno are being sued again, is it? But this time it's from... It's been from rights holders, so labels and publishers and things like that, but this time it's from some musicians themselves. What's going on here, Stu?

6:38Stu:Yeah, so the latest lawsuit. And this comes from a group of, I think it's four artists based in the US, four musicians and songwriters. Jason Isbell is probably the most famous current one, but also David Lowry, who was in Cracker, Camper and Boatheon, but has also got form for taking on big music tech companies. He sued Spotify. He led a class against Spotify in the past that actually changed the whole way mechanical royalties are kind of collected and played out in the US. Yeah, he's been very vocal and very active in pushing for, well, rights for artists and against the new music technology infrastructure, hasn't he?

7:17Stu:Yeah. So this is also the other thing that's still interesting. It's not about sound recordings and it's not about songs as such. It's about kind of name and image and likeness rights. So nil. So this is basically accusing Sino of indexing artists by name, harvesting their digital voice prints, so things like the pitch and timbre and breath dynamics, and essentially allowing people to copy those artists' style, not specific songs. And it's kind of a fun lawsuit as well for people. There's the bit in it where they go, yeah, actually, do you know, we typed in Michael Jackson, but we put a space between each letter.

8:00Because obviously, if you type in Michael Jackson soon, You know, say, I can't do Michael Jackson's own thing. Oh, yeah, can't do that. But here's someone who's kind of in the same ballpark. They say they put spaces in between the letters,

8:09Stu:and it came up with a track called Glovebox Moonwalk, which I want to hear. Anyway, but see, this is...

8:21Stu:Apparently, I'm assuming that if that was a loophole, that has quickly been patched now. Yeah, I mean, you used to be able to get around it. I remember a year or so ago, you used to be able to say, write me a song by an artist that sounds like Pleen and it's about a rhapsody of bohemians or something like that and it would come up with something that sounds like Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody they kind of close that loophole and here's another one now and it feels like there's a lot of loopholes that you might be able to well that's it but so the interesting thing is this is artists protecting their identities it's not about the recordings which is what the labels are doing it's not about the compositions that's what collecting says and publishers are doing for this is about their selves their names and their voices, their singing, if that makes sense.

9:07Stu:And that's an interesting thing, because I think if you are an AI music company right now, you're thinking, God, I've got a license. I've got to sign deals with labels for the recordings. I've got to sign deals with publishers for the songs and collection societies. But I probably now have to kind of figure out a way that artists write. And whether that gets rolled into something, obviously labels would love to say, we'll handle the name, image, and likeness rights for all our artists. And artists will go, no, there are rights. But this is just, yeah. So this is a case that could establish the fact that if you're a Suno, you have to be talking to artists.

9:43Stu:And how you do that is a challenge in itself because there are millions of artists. This is fascinating. We had a guest post on Music Alley a while ago by a powerful UK-based lawyer writing about these name and image likeness rights. and I remember speaking a while ago to another lawyer. This is hot lawyer chat this week, folks, about how this was something really key because obviously in the past, let's say if you're a singer or you're a recognizable guitarist, all of that recognizability that you brought to a song was inherent within the recording and it sort of lived as part of your performance on a recording of a song.

10:23And so if you really wanted to hear your favorite guitarist version of a song or that particular recording, well, you just bought that recording. Or you went to see them live and you would get that recreated. And it was kind of siloed into those two spaces. You either bought, let's say, okay, let's use a Jimi Hendrix example, recognizable guitarist, you either went and bought Electric Ladyland the album and you could listen to it or you could either, back in the 1960s, go and watch him perform or you could buy a recording of one of those shows, right? So it was all really kind of siloed into very small and discrete places.

10:57But of course now, because that is so recognizable, it is what built Jimi Hendrix into what Jimi Hendrix is or part of it. That can sort of be imitated in a very, well, even if it's only 90 % correct or recognizable, that's still so much more than was possible before and at scale. And so the argument is that if you're an artist and you have a recognizability element to your work. And that, you know, like, okay, there was a big example like Jimi Hendrix or Adele or whatever. But every artist, every band, every musician, that's a secret sauce, isn't it? That's what they bring to music in a recording.

11:38They bring something that is audibly recognizable. And like, it's a whole new, now it can be reproduced at will or imitate it at will. It's a whole new set of licenses that probably should be signed, isn't it? And that's on an artist-by-artist basis because there is no record label for likenesses.

12:00Stu:Well, that's a difficult thing, yeah. So we should say that Suno did send a statement out saying it believes these claims are without merit, it's going to defend them. And they talked about the stuff they've been doing, like blocking prompts for specific names of copyrighted songs. They're starting to work with other companies to screen uploaded audio files and lyrics. So the company has said, actually, we're going to fight this, but also we're putting features in to stop this happening. But the other thing we should talk about is the way the lawsuit begins by comparing Suno to the Borg from Star Trek The Next Generation.

12:35Right, fantastic.

12:37Stu:Now see if you can see where they're getting at here. So the lawsuit points out that the way the Borg work is autonomy is consumed and repurposed in the service of a cold machine intelligence that feels nothing for what he has taken. So this is why creative people doing lawsuits is a... Yeah, but I think the thing here, I mentioned David Lowry, like he really did hold Spotify's feet to the fire over royalties back in the day. And he is definitely not someone to be underestimated as an opponent in a legal battle because he knows his stuff and he is just, yeah, if it comes to me, Suno is going to have to take this as seriously, I think, as a major label in lawsuits.

13:24Yes, he's an extremely, well, he's someone who knows this inside out. He's an educator. He's a great communicator. He speaks very plainly on how he feels about these things and is a force to be reckoned with. And this is, Suno obviously will be pushing back against this, but this is a, just because it's for artists, doesn't mean that this is not potentially extremely meaningful. Talking of artists and Suno, I'm not saying we're just talking about the custard pies to the face for Suno this week, but we're playing to the crowd here a little bit. One musician who is not suing Suno yet, but is very unhappy with it, is Mary J.

14:11Blige. And this is an odd story. Stu, what has gone on here?

14:17Stu:Well, basically, this happened overnight. So by the time I woke up in the morning, it happened. So there was an ad. I think it was on Suno's Facebook page. So Suno did put it out. And it was essentially Mary J. Blige in a recording studio being shown Suno and a producer, and the producer was there sort of showing how it worked, producing a kind of Mary J. Blige-ish track. And she was saying, oh, wow. And she was interacting and sort of saying, could you make it this, do this, that? What it looked like was she was being shown Suno. And that is something Suno's been doing. It's been getting artists in and saying, let's talk you through what this is.

14:52And she was shown to be like, oh, I'm impressed with this. This is cool.

14:54Stu:Yeah, she sort of was, you know, she was like, she was, you know. And then this went out on their Facebook page. And then that's when, that's when basically it suddenly was pulled and then Variety reported on this and Suno explaining what had happened and Suno said we entered into a business deal with someone who presented themselves as Miss Blige's official representative and as soon as we learned this was not the case and that Miss Blige was uncomfortable we terminated the advertising campaign so the strange thing is it wasn't like a deep fake she really could go to a studio at some point and was shown Suno and said those things I'm assuming, you know, and offer feedback.

15:37Stu:But it seems like Suno thought this had been authorized to become an ad, and whoever did that authorizing was either not part of a team after all, or when there was a back, because there was a backlash online, people were saying, why are you endorsing this? Maybe the person was on a team and then wasn't suddenly. But it's a very strange thing, because she would have been the most prominent artist, apart from Timberland, to have endorsed, with quote marks, Suno. But it was pulled, and it's kind of a... I don't know. It's a very strange thing. I would love to speculate, and I would love not to get sued for speculating.

16:15Stu:But there is this story about someone agreed with Suno that this could be an ad, and it turned out they weren't her official representative. I want to know who they are, how this happened, how they got her into the studio, if they weren't her official rep. It's so many questions. It's absolutely fascinating, isn't it? It's not like she was tricked. It's really her saying, oh, wow, this is really cool, or whatever she was saying, and then it was not okay. And it reminds me, I've got no idea what actually happened there, but I am also desperate to know who they were communicating with as her official representative.

16:50But that sort of wording does remind me a little bit of when you have those stories reporting on politicians, or who have you. I was hacked. well so yeah well along those lines but also when they sort of say uh sources close to the politician say and that's sort of media speak for uh we've just had a whatsapp message from the politician themselves so i i i wonder if um i'm not pointing fingers but one possibility is somebody who's very friends with mary j blige always you know said hey do you want to come in the studio and see this and we'll film it and put it on an advert and maybe she went yeah great okay and then it didn't seem so good in retrospect or I don't know it's very strange.

17:30It's strange because also

17:32Stu:it's absolutely her right if she's if she thinks Suno is cool and is impressed by it and wants to use it because she's one of the artists you would think of as someone who is not threatened by her because she's so good at what she does and she's made her music from her whole life has been you know when we say humans have lived experience and souls and so on like that's She's a definition of that. So if she's interested in what Suno can do, that's okay. And if she says that publicly, there will be some blowback because Timberland had the same thing. People in his comments all going, what are you doing?

18:10Stu:But it's okay. But it's just a very curious tale about how this was an ad, then it wasn't an ad. It's funny. I was going to say that she was, to me, equally, she's one of those people who is perhaps most threatened by... AI, genitive AI like this, because she has such a distinctive voice. Is she not one of those artists who would absolutely want to protect and make sure that a voice that sounds like hers is not easily created on one of these services? I'm fascinated to see where Mary J. Blige intersects with AI next time. Let's get away from AI for a second to our third big story this week, which is TikTok's Song of the Summer this year.

18:55was Katy Perry's The One That Got Away, which was released in 2010. Yes. Now, this feels like there's a lot of discordancy here, isn't there? Because on one hand, TikTok is the, I'm going to say this, the young person's platform of choice. This song is probably as old as a lot of the users of TikTok. And the song of the summer is one of those things that we sort of think of as a song that came out this year and has blown up over the summer. What does this mean and say?

19:29Stu:So Spotify came out with their songs of summer and same week, and it was all the biggest streaming hits, like Ella Langley's Choose in Texas and Sam Fender, Olivia Dean, the stuff that's big. But TikTok's was, what's blowing up on TikTok? And like you say, what blew up on TikTok this summer, Katy Perry's track blew up. It was used in more than 42 million videos this summer, apparently, on TikTok. But like, there's a top 10 chart, and it also includes Lenny Kravitz's It Ain't Over Till It's Over, which came out in 1991. Wow. So, I mean, this is fascinating, isn't it? Because it's about that idea of what is the song of the summer.

20:08Now, I would say, as a consumer, and we know that pop music is about generating, as we know it, new songs, and there's always new songs, and that's the point. You just make more good songs, and that's what pop music is. It's this endless stream of good, new, mutating songs. So the song of the summer is whatever the hot one of the summer is. Albeit, you know, the Sam Fender one is about several eons old now and has been at the top of the chart for the same amount of time. But this is, it almost feels it's more about TikTok, isn't it? Which is like, hey, what are people on TikTok doing? And these are the songs that are blowing up on TikTok.

20:42And famously, kids these days don't really care the provenance of a song. They don't have any of the preconceived feelings around Fleetwood Mac, for instance, that I have and that you may have about them being old and out of touch and boring or whatever. It doesn't matter where that song's come from, if it sounds good enough, if it sounds right, and if it fits with a vibe by the sound of it, because we can imagine what the videos accompanying the one that got away were about. It just works. and that's a very big shift in we've spoken about this for a long time but how pop music is consumed used where it's used and the context in which it's used and the context of all these ones are there's a piece of vibey and viral video content along with it and you can join in and it's a total sort of shift in the consumption point of music pop music isn't it

21:39Stu:that's it and like last year's song on the song of TikTok was Jess Glynn's Hold My Hand which was 10 years old. So this is an ongoing trend. And like I said, this shows the difference between what are people listening to on streaming services, but then what are people using in their videos on TikTok? And there is no date requirement for that. But it's quite funny because the other thing I think is, think about the way streaming services work. And the biggest playlists on streaming services are today's top hits or the equivalent of Apple Music and so on. That's the biggest playlist you can be on is today's top hits.