Will Drake face Kendrick in the witness box?; Los Campesinos! turn down a $60,000 ad deal – but why?; Steve takes a music superfan test; ... and what connects Taylor Swift & Five Finger Death Punch?

16:23Stuart:mean you could describe this as kind of tinkering around the edges of stuff but welcome things but the steps but i the other thing i've picked up and this comes from everyone actually the one thing they can all agree on is that they they all seem to have respect for the minister who's Chris Bryant you've talked about before he's the culture minister it seems like he came in when the government was pointed he came in kind of did a bit of light banging heads together and has pushed for there to be something they can agree on and something to put out and some changes so I think part of the reaction will be well this isn't these aren't the big changes that have been campaigned for but I think there is a recognition that the government is at least trying to make stuff happen and is keeping a watching brief like i expect what the digital is like we're going to do this stuff see how it goes and maybe in a year we'll come back and say has this changed things and look at anything further then so it's kind of a it's not a thing that fixes streaming suddenly but it it does sound like it's going to be some good welcome small steps that maybe do pave the way for this more in future i mean it feels like it's it's one

17:22Steve:way of saying look we are getting somewhere because there were a lot of frustrations waiting around for people to say anything about streaming as you say it's it's years now since that streaming it's a hundred years since that streaming inquiry wasn't it yeah nothing nothing much has really changed for the beleaguered artists so they need to get to a point where they have some positive news before they can then push on to what's you know the the next important points but as i say while you have record labels down one end of the table and artists at the other believing that they're slightly unfairly treated by this current payment system, then it's a hard one, isn't it?

18:10Steve:Sir Chris Bryant is very good at trying to find a middle ground, but, I mean, it will be a Herculean task. I suppose the next thing is who's just going to have to start chipping away, saying is there any give on your side and bring about some compromise yeah and it's funny it's

18:25Stuart:been very funny actually as journalists seeing this because normally when this sort of thing when something is announced people like to tell journalists the day before under embargo yeah get on the phone to you tell you what it means give you their side of the story but with this and this is i think to do with like the way the parliament works and the speaker of the house gets very cross if the government announces things not in parliament first that's kind of a long-standing tradition. And he puffs it up to his full kind of annoyed randomness and goes, how dare you do this? So there's been a lot, no one's been allowed to kind of do that sort of pre-announcing stuff.

18:55Stuart:So it really is going to be government first, then everyone will put out their press releases, and then we'll see if everyone is, if this kind of entente cordial is holding, or if someone comes out and goes, I think this is a load of old bollocks and I'm going to complain. So that'll be what happens tomorrow. Okay, all right.

19:14Steve:I'll tell you what, next week, we'll come back to this next week because I think the reactions, as you say, will be really interesting because everyone involved in streaming, especially representatives of artists or artists themselves, will be responding to this annoyingly over the next 24 hours after we've posted this. But we'll come back to it maybe next week, unless they have sorted out all the music industry's troubles and in which case we will do an emergency. We've never done an emergency podcast. so we could do an emergency podcast um i doubt it's going to come to that but we'll come back to that story um big story number three oh now yeah tell us about this because i mean there's not a lot of money floating as we know uh talking even last week about how bands make money uh it's hard for groups to make a living but even offered um this quite a large chunk of money The Welsh Indie Wizards Los Camposinos have revealed now why they turned down a$60 ,000 sync deal for use of their music for an Airbnb advert.

20:23Stuart:Yeah, I love Welsh Indie Wizards as a descriptor as well. Obligatory. Yeah, this came out of the blue. So there hadn't been a rumour about this or a leak. The band themselves announced it on X, formerly Twitter, and said, yeah, in April, we declined an offer of 60 grand to license somewhere else to Airbnb. And the reason they gave was Airbnb has been used to rent out properties in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, which is about as hot as hot potatoes come to discuss politically right now. but this is like an old story. Airbnb banned listings from these settlements a few years ago, then reversed the ban.

21:00Stuart:It's been in the news again recently about how should they be allowing people in these settlements to rent out their rooms and make money. And the band said, we don't want our music to be associated with this. We don't want to fund this. And so we'd turn it down. And yeah, you're right. I think it comes, I mean, it's one of the few times when a band has talked about not just the issues and principles around it, but they've talked about actually how much they were offered for this kind of usage. and Sync can be a very mysterious area, I think, for a lot of music bands. But here was a hard number.

21:29Stuart:This is how much this band got offered to do this kind of ad for this brand.

21:33Steve:Yeah, I mean, it's actually quite an opportunity to dig into Sync a little bit. I mean, and also how attitudes have changed because, I mean, going back in time, I mean, all manner of alternative artists turned down having their music used in adverts in the late 80s and early 90s. I mean, I'm pretty sure both Pop Will Eat itself and Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine were amongst those who turned down the use of their music in ads. I think one of them was something like KP Nuts, which, I mean, is quite an innocuous product, but, you know, it was different times then. One, you could still make some money out of actually selling records, but also I think artists were far more worried possibly about claims that they'd sold out, artistically sold out.

22:17Steve:um but uh yeah i mean the process is um just as an aside but you know bleeping off from the story if you've ever wondered how music gets on an ad as far as i well you know as i understand it uh i'm not the biggest expert but the client uh that's whatever product it is let's say it's a chocolate bar manufacturer the chocolate bar manufacturer goes to an ad agency then the ad agency comes up with an idea for the advert and then the ad agency will choose a soundtrack to the ad even i i mean years ago was approached once by an ad agency saying if you've got any ideas for music we could use in this ad so they canvas a few opinions uh they're probably these days hounded i imagine by labels and publishers and sync um uh sync companies saying we've got this music uh do you think you can use it anywhere um but anyway and then eventually obviously the artists will get an approach and the ad agency will whether they'll make an offer for what they think that piece of music is worth for them to use in the ads and usually they'll set a time limit on it so say they're going to they'll say we're going to do a six-week campaign for which we'll offer you x thousand pounds and then if they decide to extend the campaign if it's a successful campaign they'll come back to you and offer you some more money.

23:44Steve:The money, obviously, will depend on how big the artist is or how desperate the company are to use your music. So money, this will vary tremendously. So no disrespect to Los Camposinos, but I imagine Noel Gallagher was probably offered a little bit more for use of a cover version of Half a World Away and that John Lewis ad at Christmas the other year. I sense he sat back contemplating how he was going to enjoy his Christmas from that particular royalty check. Although actually the best one, do you know the best one? Do you remember Billy Childish's version of the Dad's Army theme, which was used, I think it was Asda, it was used in a commercial for Asda.

24:29Steve:And whatever Billy was paid by Asda, all pretty much pure profit because the original track was recorded on one of those old, You know, those four-track home recording studio things that you could get, which, I mean, the track was recorded onto a cassette, because I remember the man who put the song out as a single from the label saying, do you know what the biggest recording cost was for that track? Billy Childish's version of Who Do You Think You're Kidding, Mr. Hitler? The biggest outlay for that song was the C60 cassette it was recorded on. wow that's good business so he did i think he probably did all right out of that but um yeah and then obviously you know apart from you know what the agency offers you financially to say it will vary dramatically but then you have to dig into what the artist actually gets paid um which and that's you know subjects of all kind of variables again because it depends on the terms of your record or publishing contracts i got in touch with someone actually just to try and test out what I knew about this.

25:38Steve:Someone who knows loads more than I do. And he explains it this way. This is how the payment is made. So say out of the$60 ,000, it could be split up like this. He says, usually a sync deal will be 50 % for the master and 50 % for the writer. So that's 50 % for the recorded music. 50 % is publishing. Whether it goes on, whether or not those monies make it to the artist or writer is based on the terms of their deals. Sync licenses on the label side are usually 50-50, he was saying. So 50 % going to the label, 50 % to the artist, that's how they split the money. But the 50 % to the artist, if there's a clause in their contracts where income counts against recoupment, then that money's just going to go off and basically, if you're i don't know 25 30 grand down the hole to your record label then the money that comes in from that advert if you have a certain deal it will basically say right we're taking that to recoup the money that we loaned you when you signed your deal i mean it's like it could clear

26:46Stuart:your debt i guess couldn't it if it was big enough then so it could be a good thing in that sense it could clear your debt and then you start earning from all the other things yeah absolutely yeah

26:53Steve:I mean, although psychologically, if somebody came up and said, I'm going to give you 30 grand, you go, yes, brilliant. And then somebody else came along and said, I'm going to take that 30 grand. You are 30 grand better off, but it doesn't feel like it. It's a bit better with publishing because it's more likely that money goes to writers. And my contact said, yeah, money goes to writers. The publisher will take their percentage, which is 20 % or lower. But again, if the terms of your deal say, we're going to have that back because we loaned you some money, then off it will go again. So I think there's two morals to this tale, isn't there?

27:33Steve:One, this is another example of never, but when you see a figure, any financial figure, any money being given to a band for anything, not all that money is going to go to that artist when we talk about how much you've made from streaming, not all that money is going to the artist. When you hear somebody's been offered this for the use of their music in a film, not all the money is going to the artist. The other moral of this tale is do check the small print

28:01Stuart:when you're signing your record or publishing contract. It's interesting because I think we only ever hear about the amounts in sync when someone is complaining generally. Artists don't tend to boast about how much money they made. The other one I remember other than this was do you remember heaven 17's martin ware he got an offer from grand theft auto developers to oh yeah uh and i think it was like seven and a half thousand dollars and he was like this is ridiculous look how much money grand theft auto makes and that sparked a big debate because people were saying well look look how many tracks they license yeah you know that's a lot of money but that that was the last time i remember sync being in the spotlight in this sense where an artist saying i got offered this and i'm not happy although in that case it was the amount rather and the principles around it okay uh all right any other business what were you saying you um

28:48Steve:uh what was that story about five finger death punch you because you wouldn't tell me what it

28:53Stuart:was no okay what's the connection between taylor swift and five finger death punch oh i'm no good

29:01Steve:at these questions do they both demand i don't know bejeweled hair dryers on their rider i don't But hang on, are they both banned somewhere? Are they both banned in China? That's not it, is it? Possibly. I don't know. I concede. What's the connection between Taylor Swift and Five Finger Death Punch?

29:20Stuart:I can't disprove either of those guesses. It may be true. But yeah, well, it's re-recording your hits. So Taylor Swift famously re-recorded a bunch of her albums when her catalogue was sold without her permission. And now Five Finger Death Punch, a very successful rock band. I think they're like seven albums in, or they had seven albums as part of this. Right. They used to be signed to a label called Prospect Park, which sold the rights that it owned in the albums to a company called Spirit Music Group. So one of those catalog deals. And the band weren't happy. And what they say, and so far we've only heard one side of, they say they didn't get a chance to buy those recordings themselves and they might have bought them back and owned them.

29:57Stuart:And they've also been in litigation with this label for a while. So there's kind of no love lost on both sides. But what they've done is they've re-recorded a bunch of their hits for this new compilation called Best of Volume 1, which is one of those things that kind of suggests that there'll be a Volume 2 coming along if it works. And they said Taylor Swift was direct inspiration. They saw what she did and thought, well, we could do that. This might be a solution. And the thing it made me think is, like Taylor Swift started doing her re-recordings a few years ago now, and some people said, oh, this might become a trend.

30:28Stuart:Like loads of other artists might look at what she's doing and say, yeah, we could do that. We could have the rights of things. And it did really happen. There haven't really been that many examples, which maybe is a testament to the fact that when that dispute has emerged, people have preferred to negotiate and sign settlement with the label rather than go nuclear. But this is probably one of the highest prominent examples of this happening. That's not Taylor Swift. And like Taylor, it means that these new recordings will be sitting on streaming services alongside the originals. It's a dilemma for fans.

31:00Stuart:Which ones do you stream? do you kind of switch to the new ones in support of the band um assuming they're as good um but also streaming services if you're a playlister at spotify or apple music and you're putting a five finger death punch song on a playlist do you choose the re-recording or the original like it's a little political moment for you and then that's before we get to the algorithms like when when someone when spotify's algorithm goes oh i think you'd like five finger death punch you know there's a lot of that happening of like of sort of bands who've been going for a long time having catalog stuff resurfaced in recommendations which one will it choose and and that is something i doubt even spotify will be able to tell you that because it will be depending on how many people are streaming the new stuff you know who likes what likes things similar to them yeah but it does it does mean this is what happens in these situations like the you can't delete the old versions that you're protesting about so you have to compete with them yeah um yeah so yeah um i've

31:56Steve:got um one little bit of any other business uh which i think is worth uh a mention because we do always like to bring musicians attentions to available grants and funds that might be open to although in this case this is this is one for you if um if you happen to put on gigs uh any any promoters out there particularly running shows at grassroots level this is another thing i ended up at last week i went to the prs foundation summer drinks event last week which was held to mark the first year and a bit of their early career promoter fund which launched last may and it's it's aimed at giving new promoters a bit of a bit of a bit of help take some of the take some of the worry off their shoulders i think it's sort of about getting their business off the ground more likely as helping emerging promoters to get to the next level uh so they give them some money to be a bit more ambitious or to give them the confidence to promote shows uh with a sort of financial safety nets but it's doing all right apparently since the fund began it's already dispensed more than 170 grants in just over a year to early stage promoters grants or if you can get up to three and a half thousand pounds apparently and they reckon that the money that they've put into the live system so far has helped spawn an additional 500 gigs since they got going with this which is very heartening because I mean anything at the moment to encourage new promoters would be good because i mean it can be a very precarious business to be in financially but there was a lot of positivity in the room though i have to say there was a lot of very enthusiastic emerging promoters there um so if you happen to be uh one of them uh or you'd like some more information um just go to the it's on the prs foundation website you just uh if you go to the prs foundation website click on funding and then click on funding for music professionals you'll find the details there and finally for this week uh interesting things you can buy

33:56Stuart:on ebay yeah i really so you know some people go to the pub have a few pints go home and then buy something unsuitable on ebay yeah um someone may have done this so yeah someone has paid 245 000 for the rights to the fire festival on ebay which i mean that's a tiny figure isn't

34:17Steve:Mind you, I mean, you know, it's fraught with danger. But what was the recommended bid? You don't have a recommended bid, really, do you? Well, the guy... Look, that's a small figure. That's not a big figure in this case, is it?

34:32Stuart:That's why it's at this end of the show, you see. But, yeah, so, I mean, just to recap, the most disastrous festival in recent memory, I suspect. Certainly the most disappointing cheese sandwiches at the festival. So bad, so problematic. Its founder went to prison as a result of it. But then he got out and decided, you know what the world needs, Fyre Festival 2. And he was trying to put that on this year. And then that didn't quite happen. It was postponed. And so he said, I'm going to sell the rights. Make me offers for the rights, the branding rights. And then it went on eBay, which made me suggest that no one did make an offer.

35:04Stuart:And it sold for$245 ,000. But this guy, Billy Barland's name, he was live streaming the closing stage of the auction online. and apparently his verdict on the price was damn this sucks it's so low so i don't think he was very happy which i think anyone who's done on ebay has knows that feeling don't you when you're there waiting for the last five minutes and then it doesn't explode in bids so you know we've all been there but not not quite to this this extent all right that's where we'll leave it for this

35:33Steve:week unless you are one of our kindly patreon subscribers if you are stay listening we'll have another lock-in for you nice people an extra section of the show uh if you'd like to join us for that or support what we're doing you can sign up to become a fan or super fan of the program at patreon.com slash the price of music uh otherwise uh it's still be lovely to hear from any and all of you any correspondence including questions about the industry you'd like us to try and answer drop us a line the price of music podcast at gmail.com we will definitely be covering some of your questions on the next edition of the price of music so it's the price of music podcast at gmail.com if there's anything you'd like us to help out with thank you very much for listening and take care bye for now

36:36Thank you.