'Music is as good as gold or oil': A man spending billions on old hits

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/aug/08/music-hits-elton-john-beyonce-merck-mercuriadis

by codetrotter • 6 years ago

78 92 6 years ago

Swenrekcah• 6 years ago

This is why copyright should only last for 20 years or so. Possibly extendable one time and one time only. As an absolute maximum.

javert5• 6 years ago

Longer copyright times would incentivize more investment in artists.

For example, you would see "YC for budding young novelists" if copyright were more long-term and secure.

You can pay the living expenses of a whole lot of would-be-starving-artists-but-actually-baristas, for an enormous number of years, if you can collect investment revenue from the one who turned out to be Stephen King.

This idea is an extension of what copyright is for, which it to allow creators to make money, thus incentivizing them.

I support unlimited-duration copyright.

danbmil99• 6 years ago

I don't think the financial challenge of being a writer these days is correlated to copyright laws being too weak.

lokl• 6 years ago

Some literary agencies operate like this. They make most of their revenue from a small number of authors. In some ways, literary agencies already are "YC for budding young novelists."

rectang3• 6 years ago

I support unlimited-duration copyright.

Wow. That's an unpopular position around here!

Even among those of us who support copyright and cringe at the advocacy for piracy you often see in these threads, I think there is a lot more support for shortening copyright duration.

Zero copyright facilitates exploitation by certain corporations (telecoms, media giants), while unlimited copyright facilitates exploitation by a different set of corporations (IP-hoarding publishers). Limited duration copyright is the best option.

leetcrew• 6 years ago

You can pay the living expenses of a whole lot of would-be-starving-artists-but-actually-baristas, for an enormous number of years, if you can collect investment revenue from the one who turned out to be Stephen King.

even with unlimited-length copyright, who would do that? if I'm the investor, I would just find a bunch of aspiring artists and offer to pay their living expenses for a year in exchange for ownership of the copyright. I'd ditch the ones that didn't make money and offer better terms to the successful ones for their next work. with unlimited-length copyright, I might be willing to give more people a one-year shot, but the end result would still be that most of them go back to their barista job.

PhantomGremlin• 6 years ago

if copyright were more long-term

I really don't get this. Other people have already replied to you but not specifically on "long-term" vs your later "unlimited-duration" stand.

The USA adopted the Berne Convention in 1989. It stipulates that the duration of the term for copyright protection is the life of the author plus at least 50 years after their death. For some categories of works, the minimum duration is shorter. For example, the minimum term for applied art is 25 years. Movies have a minimum term of 50 years. Countries may choose a longer term of protection, and most countries have done so.

If you're a potential "budding young novelist", will you eschew that career because life + 50 years isn't unlimited and isn't long enough for you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright...

LukeShu2• 6 years ago

Honestly, I'd be happy with a short term and unlimited renewals; you just have to renew it. Shortish base-term of 10 years or so that works as currently, but after that you need to renew every 10 years. Let the special interests that currently lobby to extend copyright just spend that money renewing; don't hold everyone else's stuff hostage from the public domain too. And by forcing them to actually file renewals, the forgotten works in buyouts will slip through to the PD; there will be no questions of "who actually owns these rights" for old works, just check who renewed it.

giancarlostoro3• 6 years ago

Also make it public record on the internet. Current copyright owners must renew with proof for anything over 10 years old. Boom.

rectang3• 6 years ago

I agree that the uncertainty over whether works are actually copyrighted is a major concern, and one that I wish we could fix independent of the issue of copyright duration.

However, concentration of valuable IP in the hands of the few is also a problem. Limited duration copyright provides the greatest benefit to individual authors (by maximizing their bargaining power while limiting the bargaining power of IP-hoarders through erosion) and the public domain.

alasdair_3• 6 years ago

Personally I'd like to see something similar, but with taxes (perhaps 2% or so) paid on the value of the property. Who sets the value? You do! With the caveat that anyone can buy a perpetual license to do anything they want with the property if they pay its declared value.

hanoz• 6 years ago

Honestly, I'd be happy with a short term and unlimited renewals; you just have to renew it.

An immeasurable treasure of music and other works of art in the public domain would still be in the hands of these rentiers on that basis.

robocat• 6 years ago

And by forcing them to actually file renewals, the forgotten works in buyouts will slip through to the [public domain].

I can’t see how that would work now that the data is digitised and the filings are completely automated. At best it might work for some older music, but it wouldn’t work for anything produced after the rule was introduced because services would be created to automatically do the filing for artists.

rtx• 6 years ago

Do you also hold the same views for brand names?

dllthomas• 6 years ago

Well, for my part, I do think that we should be able to copy and share brand names without permission from their originator after 20 years. On the flip side, I also think that we shouldn't be able to use creative works to pass ourselves off as someone we're not, at any point after the creation.

"IP" is an odd collection collection of things that actually work pretty different from each other. Patent limits the use of some kinds information; copyright limits the copying of other kinds of information. Both of these are naturally "non-rivalrous" - I can watch a movie or build an engine at the same time that you watch that same movie or build that same (kind of) engine and we don't interfere with each other. We artificially treat them as if they were rivalrous - where "there are only so many to go around" - so that the market will better reward their production. Letting them eventually fall into the public domain, however, ameliorates the dead weight loss we're causing by artificially driving up the price.

Trademark is a bit different. Someone choosing to do business with me, because they have had good experiences doing so in the past or heard about me from a friend, is a limited resource in a way information alone is not. Letting others confuse that by providing their own goods and services under my mark doesn't increase the total value available.

So your question isn't really a natural one. These things work differently and it makes sense that we treat them differently.

Having said that, your question does make me think about an issue I've seen crop up occasionally, where a long-standing brand known for high quality will self destruct by cutting the quality without cutting prices. If the reduction in quality allows for sufficient cutting of expenses, and the reduction in quality is not sufficiently, immediately obvious, this can radically increase margins without significantly decreasing volume and make people a lot of short term profit until the suckers buying the product figure it out. On the one hand, simply capping the length would presumably make this worse, not better. On the other hand, making them contingent on something beyond a certain point might be an interesting space to look for a solution.

iso1210• 6 years ago

Trademarks protect the consumer

puranjay2• 6 years ago

People who don't make their living off their art shouldn't get to decide how long copyrights last.

metalliqaz3• 6 years ago

This is not what copyright is for.

WJW• 6 years ago

The internet was "for" military communications and academic research sharing, not cat videos or ecommerce. A great many things are used for things other than what they were intended for.

metalliqaz3• 6 years ago

A meaningless argument. The Internet is for communication, which is still its primary purpose.

dredmorbius• 6 years ago

"[the United States Congress shall have power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, U.S. Constitution. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/sec...

(Clearly, US application.)

Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing, Reprinting, and Publishing, or causing to be Printed, Reprinted, and Published Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors or Proprietors of such Books and Writings, to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families: For Preventing therefore such Practices for the future, and for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books; May it please Your Majesty, that it may be Enacted ...

Statute of Anne (England, 1701). http://www.copyrighthistory.org/cam/tools/request/showRepres...

The countries of the Union, being equally animated by the desire to protect, in as effective and uniform a manner as possible, the rights of authors in their literary and artistic works,...

Berne Convention https://wipolex.wipo.int/en/text/283698

Courts may, and do, invalidate law (or interpretation) inconsistent with Constitutional mandate or legislative intent.

AsyncAwait• 6 years ago

No. That was the ARPANET.

The most recognizable feature of today's internet is the web, which wasn't part of ARPANET.

You could say the internet is a descendant of ARPANET, but it's not the same thing.

cortesoft• 6 years ago

How so? This is increasing the value of created works... isn't that what copyright is for?

gruez2• 6 years ago

It's essentially trading an annuity for a lump sum payment. The issue isn't that it's possible, it's the long copyright terms.

charlesdm• 6 years ago

There is also a tax benefit in the US. A lump sum payment is taxed as capital gains, vs an annuity which will be normal income.

lapinot• 6 years ago

Indeed, happy to meet someone i'm ripping off while downloading.

echelon5• 6 years ago

With AI-generated vocals and music, I think we're about to see an explosion in works created. I don't know that it's wise to invest in copyright catalogues right now. We're going to be able to create nearly unlimited music with famous vocalists (and entirely generated ones!)

Check out the Tupac Shakur voice on https://vo.codes

It's kind of broken, but it took zero effort. And that's the direction we're headed.

r9y9 on Github has amazing results synthesizing lyrics. Better than vocaloid at this point.

Look what people are making:

https://www.reddit.com/r/VocalSynthesis/comments/i3egph/even...

https://youtu.be/3qR8I5zlMHs

https://youtu.be/2X3Rqo6JVmg

https://youtu.be/noJHHN39ZCw

https://m.soundcloud.com/r9y9/sets/dnn-based-singing-voice

My prediction is that in ten years, music copyright is going to be very different than it is today. We'll still have live artists putting on performances, but we'll also have entirely virtual artists like Gorillaz (with neural-backed lyrics) and recreations of Tupac, MJ, Elvis, and so on.

jhardy543• 6 years ago

It's kind of broken, but it took zero effort.

What does "zero effort" mean? I'd be surprised if you told me that Tupac's voice was recreated without using any copyrighted material.

echelon5• 6 years ago

I'd be surprised if you told me that Tupac's voice was recreated without using any copyrighted material.

This fascinates me and opens up a wholly new can of worms.

Technically, it's mostly Linda Johnson's speech data, which is in the public domain. Most voice models incorporate this as the base for learning how to transform phoneme to spectrogram, spectrogram to waveform. They'll then transfer learn on top of this.

Could you tell the difference between Tupac and an impersonator? What about 10% Tupac, 90% impersonator?

What if it's really 1% Tupac, 9% impersonator, 90% Linda Johnson? Or no Tupac at all? Can anyone tell the difference?

Where did the copyrighted data go? Is there any left?

trash3• 6 years ago

Good luck proving that.

riantogo• 6 years ago

An explosion of work created doesn’t mean popularity. You can go to YouTube and find endless user generated good work. Popular (and hence valuable) music is the one that they system curates and puts in front of you (radio, shows etc.). In fact most people don’t even take a deep liking to a song in their first listen. But the system ensures repeatability which is a key factor in success. Then there is the social aspect of everyone liking it together.

echelon5• 6 years ago

An explosion of work created doesn’t mean popularity.

100% agree. I like the indie genre better than pop, though even that's somewhat manufactured by labels as you say.

I recently found some incredibly underrated Zelda remixes that are jaw dropping and have barely been heard at all: https://youtu.be/4r9S2yEiuME

So I agree with your argument.

A new factor in the equation, however, is how much cheaper and less labor intensive it becomes to create new music. If you make it so that anybody can produce vocals, that changes the game for a lot of genres (eg. EDM).

But these techniques won't just be viable on vocals. Everything is going to be easier to create. Melodies, instrumentals, the full stack.

That's going to have a profound effect and definitely rock the boat the incumbents are riding.

elwell• 6 years ago

most people don’t even take a deep liking to a song in their first listen

It's very rare for me to really like a song the first time I hear it. Once my brain has become accustomed to where the song goes (even for a jazz song), then I tend to like it a lot more. Another layer to this is the connection that a song can have to a certain period in your life, bringing back the emotions of that time with it.

lordnacho3• 6 years ago

Yeah, it's only a matter of time before everyone has an AI composer on their phone continually creating works they are likely to enjoy. I wonder if it will feel formulaic.

echelon5• 6 years ago

creating works they are likely to enjoy

This! This is the future I want to live in and help create.

People are going to have all sorts of media tweaked to their interests. The system will have to be smart enough to introduce novel changes in interest so that it never gets boring, or so that people's interests can be expanded.

If we're careful, we can characterize and destroy the filter bubble while we're at it.

zozbot2342• 6 years ago

The SOTA "AI composers" don't feel formulaic - if anything, they feel a bit too random, much like noodling with little long-term structure.

tomc19854• 6 years ago

I wonder if it will feel formulaic.

OF COURSE it will feel formulaic. You will never get anything but as long as you're simply mashing different source training material together, which is all these things are doing

giancarlostoro3• 6 years ago

It's kind of broken, but it took zero effort. And that's the direction we're headed.

"thug life" is kind of a horrifying one to hear. On another note it would be interesting to have a sort of test for these sort of systems, if they can say x sentences without screwing up, they can say almost anything. A "turing" test if you will.

coldtea9• 6 years ago

It's kind of broken, but it took zero effort. And that's the direction we're headed

That's not the same as artist connection to the audience (which is a big thing even for pop music), or popularity.

We've had such schemes for ages, even without AI (e.g. 3D or anime artists with songwriting teams behind them) but outside of a few cases (mostly in Japan) they're irrelevant...

smabie• 6 years ago

How about gorillaz?

tomc19854• 6 years ago

God, I hope not

dehrmann• 6 years ago

I find that take on the future of music depressing. A big part of music is how shared it is. This is why I love piano bars and people singing along with every song. This doesn't work with everyone listening to personalized AI-generated earworms.

To your point, while the value of old songs usually drops over time, I don't see new music, AI-generated or not, driving it down more. A familiar song takes you back to a different time and place, and there's no substitute for that.

bgrainger• 6 years ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22019925

zozbot2342• 6 years ago

I do wonder why this guy thinks that the rights to a successful song are an "uncorrelated" asset. Wouldn't strong economic growth mean that people are far more likely to spend money on these things? Especially for 'sync' rights which mostly come up for things like ads, or derivative mass-marketed media (e.g. successful song X ends up in the soundtrack of movie Y)? Just seemed like a weird claim to me.

davidivadavid• 6 years ago

Not a professional finance person, but I think that in that context it's important to look at "uncorrelated from what". When building a basket of uncorrelated assets, you look at pairwise correlations, not just aggregates.

paulpauper2• 6 years ago

Because even in recessions, studios and ad agencies still shell out big bucks for songs, even if the stock market is down a lot. The royalty rates for Beatles songs did not fall in 2000-2003 despite the S&P 500 falling 50%. There is very low correlation with other asset classes.

paulpauper2• 6 years ago

This only works well if if people still care about the artists and culture long after the hits are released. Catalogs from the 50s, 60s, and 70s were dirt cheap in the 80s and early 90s because few anticipated the huge nostalgic demand by boomers to relive their youth in the 2000s and later. Will today's consumers of pop music feel the same nostalgic attachment as boomers to today? hard to know. But I think not, due to fragmentation. A top-selling Arina Grande song will probably be all but forgotten in 50 years.

puranjay2• 6 years ago

People will always listen to the music of their youth. The 90s pop hits are still popular among my 30+ year old friends because that was the music they grew up listening to

coldtea9• 6 years ago

A top-selling Arina Grande song will probably be all but forgotten in 50 years.

The people listening to it now will listen to it in 30 and 50 years. And, judging by social media comments, teenagers in that era will also appreciate it.

There used to be this notion that only "great" music survives (probably judging from classical music or the history of literature), and "transient" pop hits don't, but we've seen every one-hit-wonder and tons of pop hits from the 70s and 80s survice just fine, and even get new listeners.

It's basically a kitch pop hit, but it's not just people listening to Toto's Africa in the 1980s that appreciate it now. Or stuff in Madonna's 80s catalogue, etc.

martindbp• 6 years ago

An interesting thought experiment: what if shares in songs could be traded on a public exchange? Which would be in the S&P 500?

'Music is as good as gold or oil': A man spending billions on old hits

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