Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world
He took the midnight drink of his man, he played
Just a city boy, born and raised in soft Detroit
He took the midnight drink of his man, he played
Just a city boy, born and raised in soft Detroit
A singer in a smokey room, a smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can share the night, it goes on and on and on and on
Strangers waiting, whooping down the pool above their shadows
Searching in your nights, streetlights, fever
Living is the sound of the sound of hiding, somewhere in the night
Getting hard to get my feel, everybody wants a thrill
Then anything will roll the dice, just one love's hand
Somewhere in, somewhere loose, some of all your sing-a-blues
You're the food in their veins, you're falling on and on and on
Strangers waiting, whooping down the pool above their shadows
Hey everyone, good evening, good evening, welcome to our weekly space
This week, this space topic, Webtree and IP, Entertainment Edition
We're just gonna talk a lot about like Webtree and Entertainment
And everyone's view and input on that
Welcome everyone, market is still in a good state I would say
Bitcoin is hoovering steady between the 65 and the 70k
We can't complain, we can't complain
While we get speakers on, make sure to click on the link
On the tweet pinned to this Twitter space and share the word
Get some likes in, some retweets, comments if you like
The more we can share the message, the better
Every week we do space like this
And yeah, let's do a little round
Creator Hoot, how are you doing? Good to see you again
Good to be back my brother, I'm doing well
I'm in Southern California, the weather here is nuts
It's just absolutely beautiful lately, I've been planting my garden
And then obviously the market's doing pretty good
And other than that, we're just building
I've been here before, so I've already introduced a company
We're an NFT marketplace and creator launchpad
And right now you can farm that token by engaging with our platform
Buying and trading NFTs and all that good stuff
But I'm excited to be here
Good stuff, sounds like exciting times for you guys with the farm
Farming is hot, isn't it?
And we're just trying to build the best possible product that we can
And also reward people who help us early on
But yeah, it's been a lot of work, man
Tropic, good to see you back, man
Also enjoying the nice weather down here in Jamaica
And been on the spaces tour leading up to NFT NYC
You're in Jamaica, so the flag there is not just an emoji
Are you touching grass as well?
Or is that something I can't ask on the space?
Yeah, no, neither of the grasses
Because I've been literally just stuck inside
I haven't even been in the sun
I had coffee outside this morning
Then I'd just been stuck before a screen and a microphone all day
Which, you know, I'm not complaining
Because I like that kind of thing
But yeah, I need to go outside
Good stuff, you need to go outside, man
Hey, Benjamin, good to have you on
I'll enter myself really quickly
I'm CEO and founder of Overlabs
We've built and launched Granted
So we help Web3 companies get grants
Equally to that, we're currently building Overchain
That's very, very underapp
So that's much I'm going to say
It's going to be a layer 3, though
Yeah, I'm interested in talking about this, though
I'm a big fan and a big proponent of cementing your own IP
So I'm looking forward to talking about this
Good stuff, layer 3, you know
Next cycle, we have layer 4s
How are you doing, my brother?
I'm getting a bit depressed
I'm listening about all this good weather
Because I'm in South Wales and we don't get there
But yeah, other than that, all good
Yeah, anyone don't know me, I'm Matt, founder, CEO of PopX
And yeah, really looking forward to hearing everyone's opinion
On kind of IPs swimming way
Very bullish on and kind of working with some big companies out at the moment
And yeah, it'd be cool to know there's any crossovers
Anyone we can work together with
And yeah, start chatting and collaborating
I'm envious with that Jamaican weather
Right now in the UK, it's cold and grey
So yeah, a bit envious on that front
But yeah, for those of you that don't know me, this is my first time on the Twitter space
I'm a growth hacker running some of the marketing
And helping me to push this PopX launch
And I'm excited to be here, excited to chat about everything with me
Doing well, doing well, busy day
I've been working with the X Co-host team
As we're engaging a lot of the Polygon developer community
And the broader Polygon community on spaces
Because I don't travel to a lot of events
It is cool to be able to experiment in these different communities
It's an interesting, very interesting time
Good stuff, good stuff, Polygon
They have some vibrant communities there
In different segments, I think
Jen Marie, last but not least, how are you doing?
Hey, y'all, it's the girl, Ms. Jen Marie
The weather in LA is still trash
I'm waiting for it to be over 70 degrees
But hey, patience is a virtue
I'm on the countdown for NFT NYC
So if anybody is out there, please do not let me pass you by
I am also a digital artist
I fell into digital artwork
Just trying to level up my skills in the Web 3 space
And obviously, to make money, of course
So I acquired a new skill
And I've been an artist and curator for a HUG studio as well
And I'm also a RUG radio creator as well
So I'm so excited to talk about all things Web 3 and IP
Because the Web 3 music community is in shambles right now
So it'll be good to get some things off my chest
Oh, wow. Yeah, we're looking forward to that, Jen
I want to know what's popping there
Good, yeah, let's start talking about IP and Web 3
Let's hear what James got to say about the shambles, I'm interested
Yeah, so recently, like literally overnight
I don't know if you all know James Blake
He's an artist and a very well-known artist
Out of, I believe he's out of London or somewhere in the UK
And he decided that he wanted to launch a vault platform to share his unreleased music
Now, anybody in the Web 3 space knows that we already have tools for that
And it just seems, it's coming off very on like deaf ears
To where we see a lot of artists, mainstream artists that are coming into the Web 3 space
Like a bull in a china shop
And they are just, you know
What makes Web 3 music or music on chain so like making it a sustainable living for artists
Is the fact that we're able to curate our fan bases and onboarding artists into the space
Well, when you have somebody with a big name, like a James Blake, who has a catalog, who has fans
A lot of people in Web 2 are like, what the hell is this?
But then Web 3, it's like, you could have just talked with us
You could have, you know, had a round table with artists that have been in the Web 3 space
Doing the work like your Black Daves, like your Latashas, like your Amman Europe, like your TKs
Like your Jen Marie's and building stuff to make sure that it's sustainable
As well as not just coming into the space and not really paying your dues, if you will
So a lot, there's been a lot of conversation around like the tooling as artists in this space
But like, it's like we have a lot of tools, but essentially they're the same tools
So how about we like consolidate and work together to make sure one or three tools work
To make sure that artists are properly compensated
They're building fan bases and they're onboarding, you know, new newbies properly
As opposed to just coming out with new tools, new programs, new platforms that essentially do the same thing
So, yeah, no, we're in shambles right now
So I would love to hear what other people's thoughts are
Yeah, I think the question for you, Jen Marie
I'd love to hear about how you like plan on uniting all those different tools
Yeah, everyone wants to launch this big thing, right?
What would be your proposition for you?
I think we had two people speaking at the same time
I could see that Jake was speaking
I'm not sure who the other person was, maybe it was Ben
Is it Ben? Do thumbs up if it was you
But let's go to Jake and then to Ben, if that was the case
Yeah, Jen, it was just a question for you as to how you plan on or like think the best way is
the best approach to unite those tools because everyone wants to build the next big thing
So what would be your approach?
My approach is very much so getting the tastemakers that have been doing the work
And I say the work like the Black Daves, the Cam Murdocks, the TKs, the Jamie Cornelias
There have been people that have been building in the space that could offer a better insight
on how to collaborate and how to consolidate
because they've been doing a lot of projects
TK did a whole project that he released last year
that focused on rewarding not only his fans, but then also onboarding new people
He worked with Mochi and had his fans participate in games
to yield reward tokens for participating in his music
I forgot Latasha just had a...
She just had a project where you could own like a share of her song
based on the Twitter engagements from her original post
There are people that are doing the work in the space that are trying to streamline
And a lot of us are already collaborating with one another
For tools or people that are building tooling, I think that it is imperative
that we start talking to artists that are already in the space that have already been building
Because that's the only way that we'll get down to the common root of
Okay, maybe these two companies should consolidate
Or maybe out of these three companies, one company emerges as one tool
And then we have another platform that services other things
That's why you see a lot of artists going into gaming
You see a lot of artists designing their own digital art
Because we have so many tools available to us
But they really don't solve the ultimate problem
And one, artists have to make a living
So they want their art to make money
They want to curate a fan base
They don't want to have a middleman telling them what to do
Like Spotify or Apple Music that take all the money
But you only get fractions of the price
And then also, I'm a big music admin person
I own a catalog aside from my own
What does music publishing look like on change
So people are properly compensated for when an Abagachi game decides that they want to license out a song
I really feel like there has to be a global roundtable to talk about the issues at hand first
And it just happens in little silos right now
And not really happening on the global scale
Where people are actually building out products
And we just happen to see them roll out after a while
And it's like, damn, I really wish that they would have had some artists in the room before they decided to do that
But yeah, yeah, that's all
Good, John. Ben, you've got your hand up
Yeah, sorry, Jake. I actually can hear you for some reason
It's an issue with Twitter
Yeah, I was actually going to ask a question to Jen Marie
Are a lot of the issues that Web3 artists face very similar to what they'd face in Web2 or not?
Because I know it's not easy to be an artist in Web2
So does a lot of it transfer over or is it a different experience?
Yes, no, a lot of the same problems emerge in Web3 as well
Artists, it depends on your...
Now, you can cultivate your own artist or whatever
But it's not an easy onboarding process to onboard your fans
And may not have heard about Web3
Because obviously the appeal to artists in Web3 is
You have more direct-to-fan consumer
There's more of a direct path to your consumer or fan
So when we get on a sound or we get on a catalog or we put our music out
If your fans are not already in the space, you still struggle with the same problem
So that's why I'm always like, okay, so how can we onboard or make the process easier to onboard
non-Web3 music fans into the space
That's why everybody was happy that sound started taking credit card payments
Or you didn't have to have a wallet if you wanted to support an artist
Partnerships, everybody has their go-to partnerships or whatever
But it's not liquidated equally amongst a lot of artists that are putting in the work during the work
But if you know, we had the We Love Art Optimism Challenge
Where there were a lot of artists that had been building in the space that were properly compensated for that
But now the question is, is that once every year or do we have sustainability
Where we can constantly work with different partners to ensure that we have ongoing opportunities for artists
To showcase their work and monetize their art
So it's the same problems just in a different lens
Yeah, anyone else has something to add?
So I think they're kind of two separate problems to describe
I've built two profiles from nothing to quite successful
Platforms need to have fans already onboard for new artists to come and benefit from it
It's not the other way around
Because new artists aren't going to bring new fans
I think existing artists are just kind of dabbling in the space to find extra revenue models
And when we started, we tried using large artists in their fan base
And basically taking a percentage of their fan base
But ultimately, we pivoted to use Live Nation Live festivals
Something super interesting, I kind of tell you guys
We are actually joining forces with about three or four other large music companies
And one of the largest gaming companies in the world
To create this kind of global music direction
A few people got their hands up
Yeah, I just think it's very interesting
Just in general, it's not just, I would say, just a music problem
I would say, just anyone that's trying to monetize their entertainment
Or creativity, I should say
Because this could even go to physical art, like paintings and such
But it's an interesting dynamic, right?
You're trying to monetize and make your creative, your passion sustainable
But at the same time, we are adding in a layer of complexity with the technology
So one of the things that I find very interesting
Even as a podcaster, that's my main platform, right?
It is so decentralized and fragmented
People want to say, where are you going to listen to your podcast?
You could listen to it anywhere
People are sending the MP3 around via WhatsApp and whatever
So when I want to monetize the show
Like when I decided to offer this club membership, right?
I put up a Stripe payment
Pay with me the credit card
And everyone's like, oh, why are you doing that only?
You're supposed to be like a crypto show
MP3, NFTs and all that stuff
So why are you putting up a Stripe landing page?
I was like, look, anyone that wants to pay me in crypto, I'm gladly going to take it
But there's so many complexities and layers into releasing a podcast as it is
And trying to build an audience without an algorithm helping you out in anything
So like whatever the easiest method is for somebody to get in
And sure, I've gotten some DMs
Someone said, you know what?
I don't want to really use my credit card
The vast majority of people don't have that
So I just think it's just really interesting as an entertainer trying to get your things out
Trying to build and all this
Sure, we have this layer of complexity
But rather than trying to force everybody into our Web3 vision
I normally like to say is, look, I'm a creator
I'm an entertainer, whatever it is that I'm putting out
I'm building an audience trying to monetize it
And then those people that are interested in going the Web3 route
Even though my main topic of everything I create is about Web3
If you don't want to go that route, that's cool
At the end of the day, my bills are in dollars for the most part
I save and I like to receive crypto
But anywho, I don't want to make that too complex for anyone that's just trying to come in and everything
So I think at the end of the day, if somebody big comes into this space
I remember when Gary Vee came into Web3
Everyone was throwing darts at him and saying he's messing up NFTs and so forth
But guess what? He got onto CNBC
He got onto all of these platforms that last time I checked
No one invited me to go up on Bloomberg and CNBC
So it was a win-win for me, so I was excited about it
And a lot of people weren't as excited
But in the long run, I think when these big names come in
Even though we don't like how they necessarily do it
It might trickle out where all of us kind of benefit
We had a bit of backlash when we were telling people about the Live Nation deal
Because they were like, this is a huge company
But our relationship with them is different
Myself and Luke, they kind of found us when we were playing in clubs
To like 10 people that nurtured us over like 8 years
Until we were playing in front of 50,000, 100,000
I don't see them as this kind of big global company
That's trying to take over the space or evil the new artists
Because they do actually help new artists
So they see something they like, they'll run with it
And to me, it's about getting those guys in
It doesn't have to be one way or the other
They could find you on another site
And then take you back to Web 2
And get you to play festivals all over the world
Ultimately, you've got to pay your bills
And you want people to listen to your art
And where that audience is and where it comes from
To me, it doesn't really matter
If I may interject real quick
I agree with a lot what you guys are saying
But I just wanted to point out
Although we don't really specifically apply to musical artists
But getting rid of that Web 3 friction
Friction is one of our main things that we're trying to do here
We've built our own fiat on off-ramp rails
So like what Tropic was saying
I think it's really important
So you can, on our platform
In over 200 different fiat currencies
As well as a variety of cryptocurrencies
And so when we're talking about the complexities
If we're talking about music specifically
There's more difficulties that the smaller artist
Is going to face currently in Web 3 versus Web 2
But there's a higher reward
So I think it's more difficult
For someone in the scene currently
But it's also a high risk, high reward
Where if you can build those superfans
And those people who have invested in you from day one
And build that really strong community
It's much more beneficial to you
But right now it's an uphill battle
Just because we have so much friction
And it's one of the things that we're trying to do here
So for someone like Tropic
If he were to use our platform
People could invest in his upside
So they could buy his token
Or have token gated access
Whatever he could set the specific utility to be
And that's how I envisioned
When I first got into the Web 3 industry
So I'm a music producer myself
But that's what got me excited about Web 3
Because as someone who was DJing for years and years
I would have my finger on the pulse of the culture
In finding these young, up and coming
Face producers and house producers
And to me it was like a signal of joy
To find these young artists
Or artists no one knew about
And then I would play them at the clubs before anyone else
Now that same thing could be applied in the right way
If you could find all these young, up and coming artists
Invest in them through crypto
And be attached to them on the upside
I think that could be one of the cooler use cases
And the way the IP could be tagged with it
Let's go to Mindless and stop after Mindless
Sorry, a little bit of a late entrance for me
I want to cycle back to something a couple of minutes
I think perhaps the narrative for our artist friends entering the space
Might actually have been flawed from the very beginning
And perhaps the understandings of why folks enter the space
May not be based on sound principles
For example, I've had a lot of friends over the years
In the creative space that have entered here
Because they assumed or thought that it was a shortcut
To sort of gain some popularity
Or get that flywheel moving
Or they assumed that it was a new industry
Therefore they can tap in and grow with that crowd
But unfortunately that was very short-lived
It later transpired simply a byproduct of a raging bull market
Because all of the liquidity was here
And people like to talk about art and creatives
We had everybody from Gary Vee
To every other copycat of Gary Vee
Use the same word salad of art and branding
And ownership and IP and all that type of stuff
But it all later transpired that most of that was anything but
And even more painfully so
The audience that came here
They may have said that initially
But they definitely were not here for any of those reasons
So it seemed for a short while
That this space was for artists
And it was a surefire easy opportunity
To gain some traction and popularity
And notoriety and grow in the audience
But the moment that got gained out of existence
It stopped being the same
This space is very much just like the normal world now
As an artist you have a very, very tough time
It's a reason why most artists
Or many unfortunately are in real hard times
I tend to look at it from a commoditization perspective
So not only do you have to be incredibly skilled
And talented and passionate about what you do
But you have to build a loyal follower base
An audience you have to become known in this space
You have to build your community
You have to be a brand in of yourself
If you really want some sort of income or sustenance from that
The NFT space did definitely help with that
I don't think it does anymore
So you'll see now the folks that really
Gain some sort of success
In terms of sales or become well known
Are already well known to begin with
They didn't just enter here
And become well known because they came here
Or because they're good at what they do
It's because they had a really strong
50,000, 100,000 follower base
And they were able to leverage that
And commoditize that and sell that
And we saw that just recently with Bohm
By any means not Web 2 artists
Probably spent the last three years
Growing that follower base and social equity
To now finally monetize it
Not the first time but perhaps the second or third time
But he did leverage that early ability
From the NFT audience from the previous cycle
If he or anybody like that were to try that now
It's very, very difficult
Because the arbitrage between Web 2 and Web 3
In terms of artists and creatives has already happened
The space is pretty saturated
So you're competing now for everybody's attention
When that audience has realized that they weren't
Actually here for art to begin with
It's a really tough spot to be in
A lot of the points that are being mentioned here
I feel like I walked into a time zone
And we're having conversations that have already happened
And we're not discussing the lessons learned
So I've worked in the quote-unquote Web 2 space
I hate making that distinction
Because it feels like what we're starting here
Is a new and everything that we've built
And we've worked on in the past doesn't count anymore
But I've worked in the Web 2 space with fans directly
And from speaking to fans
I know that they are not looking to
Quote-unquote invest in their favorite artists
They just want to support them and have a relationship with them
And I think that's the key to monetizing
It's just curating different experiences
What's available right now for artists to monetize is merch
That's not really that well as running dry right now
And then the third thing is touring
So there aren't really many opportunities
But I feel like this Web 3 space
Allows us to have access to a lot more data
So you can build curated different experiences
That kind of fill in the gaps of in-between tours
In-between album sales, etc.
And I feel like those are the things that we've learned
And then as far as the artists that are being successful in the space
It's been artists that have been really creative in creating amazing things
And while it is true that it's hard to enter the space as a new artist
The issue is not that the space is saturated
It's that we're not helping artists onboard their fandoms
And we are underestimating how far these fandoms will go
We assume that like, oh, well, they don't know enough about Web 3
So, you know, they're not even going to be interested in participating
If a fan loves an artist enough, they are going to jump the hoops
It is the key of anyone building in the space to work with developing artists
Because an established artist has no motivation to come here and use your tool
Other than like, let me just cash in
And if that's the experience you want your customers to have then, you know, fine
But you're not going to have a very long lived product
But if you are working with a developing artist
And you're helping them kind of nurture their career
They're going to grow this product as well as their own career
That's what you need to be doing
That's how Spotify came about
I was here when Spotify came to America
And how we onboarded all the fans and all the artists
They used the artists, the developing artists, as their tool to onboarding folks
And then building that product
So, you know, definitely work with those developing artists
Because those are going to be the ones that are going to be more willing to experiment
And are definitely going to grow your user base
Okay, Mike, let's end that, Matt
Yeah, I kind of half agree with what you're saying there
But, like, for us the success that we're having now is
Because we're offering tools like that, you know, established artists can make more revenue
The promoters are making more revenue
The fans don't pay anything, they just get better experiences
So, like, we're hitting Download Festival this year
The top 30 bands have got, like, 900 million followers
All the bands have been responsive
Because we've created advertising space that didn't exist before
And a different way to approach your fans
Two of the things that interest me about it is, like, when can we get, like, samples
Like, people always say, IP, sorry, on chain
So, when people are using samples, they can get paid
And people know that they're getting paid
Like, I've experienced lots of songs that kind of got out
And not had, you know, not been compensated for it
And the other thing is, like, when that's in place
Then we can look at lightning payments
So, people aren't waiting three to six months to get paid for records that go out
You literally get paid in increments instantly
Because everything is on chain
And it's easy to see where the payments have got to go
So, it kind of takes out that element of hand to sort that
But, yeah, that's what I kind of take on it
Hey, thanks. Some great takes all around
Steph, I think you touched on something really interesting there
I wish more people would explore it
You already have a fairly successful prolific high-profile artist in the traditional art space
Besides the financial incentives, what motives are there for them to come here?
And I would argue probably very few
Because this is a space that's centered around, you know, tokenized, sort of, well, value-capture tokens
So, if you're not coming here with that in mind
I don't really see a strong case already
So, if you are a very fairly successful prolific artist
You may only really be coming here because you see a bigger opportunity for monetization
I don't think that's a bad thing, but we just have to recognize that that is the case
And if that is the case, that's actually the case
So, if you are a very successful prolific artist
We just have to recognize that that is the case
That artist is still going to have to tackle the hurdle of trying to tap into the Web3 native audience here
You know that OG Eth crowd that have been sitting on thousands of dollars
Well, thousands of Eth, the same folks that spend 90 million dollars on a
You know, on a crypto punk or whatever
You are still going to have to tap into that audience
We've seen, I think, I'll have to go back and put some names down
But fairly successful artists from the normal world who came here and still lack luster performance per se
They failed to tap into the Web3 audience
They tried to leverage their traditional audience and get that conversion
But that's a long journey
You have to educate and nurture them through and hold their hands and explain all this NFT stuff
And by the time you finally get to it, it's been 12 months and the opportunity is kind of long gone
So, it is a real problem in the space again
But I'll just go back to the point
I think it's, we forget it is about, a lot of the time it's about the economic capture
It's about the financial innovations of these technologies over and above art, unfortunately
Matt, you wanted to add something?
Yeah, no, I just, I feel like that's really short sighted to think about it that way
If you think that the potential of this technology is just about like financial value capture
It's going to be really sad and boring, personally
And I'm going to say this honestly
Like I was able with an artist to generate and onboard 400 people and 400 wallets
And it wasn't necessarily seen as like a financial value capture
And the fans were happy, the artist was happy
So I feel like, is there no value in that or are we just going to be dollar amounts and numbers
And who can enrich themselves?
Yeah, that's a great point
But how do we measure value in this space if it's not in dollar terms?
Like these are all literally economic capture vehicles, all of these blockchains
We measure impressions in marketing, we measure other things as well
It doesn't have to be measured in value capture
I think it's really, really short sighted
The stories are valuable, we know they're valuable because people flock to them
So yeah, there are other ways of valuing things that are not financial value capture
I'm going to have to jump on that right there
It's kind of interesting that you said that because that was pretty much my premise coming into the whole space, right?
When I first launched the podcast and all this stuff that I was doing
During the time when pretty much everyone creating content and so forth
The way you got on their shows or in their newsletters or whatever it was was you just paid them to get there
And I was turning that down. I was like, I want to do something different. I wanted a different model
And pretty much what you just said is basically without me being able to articulate it at the time
Was that if I put out just things that I'm genuinely interested in
I'd get invited into the rooms that I want to be in
That was basically my theory
So the value that I put on creating the content wasn't necessarily a monetary value
And I always had the theory that if I do this long enough and I get into the right rooms long enough
It would eventually turn into monetary value
However, most people don't have the the runway to do that or the wherewithal to actually have that long-term vision
So I could see it is a balancing act trying to get the short-term vision to pay the bills up front
But at the same time have the long-term vision and I just at the time when I started doing all this stuff
I mean, I wasn't really depending on it to put food on the table
But it was funny enough once the transition starts to happen where it became my full-time focus
It was like that was when the fun started to roll in and it was never with the sell something right now
You know mentality, so it's very interesting
Yeah, I could just jump in there
I think like any kind of artist or creator like never goes into it at first for money
Like, you know, we used to turn the back of a van, sleep in a van
It was just like having people like listen to our songs and kind of even when we made a bit of money like the contentment
Like it's about like gaining contentment and realizing that like
You know, you're happy with your art and like I remember we played a festival and we stopped
And like about 40,000 people sang our chorus back to us
And like there's no monetary value you can put on that
But then also you can't kind of punish or kind of say that like, okay
So you can never kind of chase the money because ultimately, you know, you're gonna have to kind of support families
You're gonna you're gonna you're gonna want stuff, you know, so it's I don't think it's kind of
I would think any less of an artist to kind of go into a space to try and kind of expand their product
And for some reason like music's different to like if you're a builder or a painter like, you know
People don't go and build walls for free because they love doing it
If someone offers them more money to build a wall somewhere else they go and do it
And it's kind of the same concept, you know
Yeah, I mean people should be making art that way
I just want to be clear. I'm not saying don't make money
I am just saying like if your selling point for crypto is come here to make money
Then we lost that's really short-sighted and it's really boring
I think like the reason we came into it was there was like technology that could solve issues
Which is like so bad and it would you know, I don't think it's to solve the issue of new artists being more successful
I think it's the issues of like artists that are successful like it's not transparent
You don't know who was kind of putting your music out
You don't really know, you know when you start doing tours in like 60 days and you're doing like big show
You don't know how many tickets you sold really because like and that was kind of a big kind of like draw for us
Of kind of why we got into it. It's just to make the whole to make everything more transparent which
Snoop until he started jumping on all the bad three stuff, you know
As much money as he is now
Hey, is it just me or say everyone breaking up here?
Yeah, I'm rugged too. I think our creators were going to yeah, I wasn't sure if it was my side of or everyone as a Jake
Do you experience any issues?
Yeah, bugging out there as well. Okay, but now it's okay, right? Oh, I went down because I thought I rugged
Everyone rocked. I think everyone tried to rock each other. It's web three guys
I think what was speaking for me mob broke up
But maybe we could we could talk a bit a bit more about the IP rights and in web tree and
I think we were all promised that
The web tree would solve IP
But what are you guys thoughts? Has it brought any more challenges actually?
When were we promised that I that web 3 would solve IP
Yeah, like web 3 would bring a lot of like, you know IP to the masses
shared ownership of IPs of creators and stuff, but like
Has it brought more more challenges actually?
Well, I mean interestingly enough, I don't know if you guys read this but the USPTO
And the Copyright Office just put out their findings on NFTs
You definitely should check it out if you don't follow her username is near but her name is Jessica Jessica near she's an IP attorney and she's kind of
Always given updates on on things on the chain, but they just put up their opinion and they basically said that it's essentially same kind of normal copyright and trademark laws applied IP as
As you know as traditional traditional laws
I think the only tricky thing I've seen is that a lot of people assume that owning an NFT means owning IP and that is not the case
Obviously each NFT has its own terms and conditions and I have seen some really funny stories where people have sent YouTube copyright takedowns because they feel like owning the NFT means that they own the music and the music side
So that's been really a really funny thing that happened on our side
Alright, so they would send a claim with the wallet address, I guess that stuff
Yeah, it was just funny I mean because buying an NFT can be like buying a record or sometimes yeah, they just come tied in with some with some rights
All of the rights I've seen though and any kind of like rev share that's happened with an NFT has always just given the right to get money from the streams never actually
actual ownership IP so I think it's interesting how you know people are so vastly misinformed because it would happen with the PFP collections where people actually did own the IP
And the music side of things that's I haven't ever seen it be the case. The only one I saw this way was Verite that she sold
You know like 2.2% of the ownership of her of her one of her tracks fully but that's only been done once as far as I'm concerned
Yeah, just to jump in quickly there is like what it is is they sell in the ownership of the master rights so the master rights entirely to streams
Or kind of like if it gets in a game not the signing of the game but like if it gets played after and streamed so then the other side of it is publishing
The reason why people aren't selling publishing rights is because every time it transfers that means you need to like transfer the ownership of the publishing which means is like
Not on help publishing or Sony whoever it is have to actually physically go out and kind of go for the like on board those people then as like people on the on the content list of pay which is just way too much admin
So like like effectively like if you own Masters on a track you own the IP on that track like I've released stuff and kind of I've just I just own the Masters and I've like and it's got like 400 million streams and you know that's cool I don't mind that I don't own the publishing but it's I think that's the difficulty in kind of like owning outright everything on there
But but you don't own the full master rights because I would also give the right to decide who sings or who doesn't sing the song and other sort of revenue streams
And at least the models like Royal is just like for example Royal who was a marketplace I would sell people the right it was just income of that and another block is another one too that was just income from streaming so it wasn't even the full master rights it was just the fraction that was tied to streaming
Yeah so that's what I'm saying like master rights is like for someone that's either creative input or performed on a record which means you get a right to the streams then publishing rights is when you decide kind of how much you get from sync or if someone can cover the song or if someone can do samples of the song if it goes into a movie which is like kind of a more complex kind of system to kind of get around and I think like it's almost kind of productive given like splitting your publishing rights because they're
And then publishers will just take the easier option with stuff that isn't as hard to kind of process as admin again like like I'm sure if you could kind of streamline them streamline the tech it would be different
No you can the thing with okay you know what it's fine it's you have a different interpretation of this nevermind
No I was just gonna say like you can sync a master that's what I'm saying like you don't sync income does not just come from publishing you can also use it from the master and what I wanted to clarify is that what has been sold at least as NFTs in my experience is usually just the rights to monetize the stream
Okay yeah okay yeah sorry yeah I don't know what you're saying so do you think that like there'll be a system that will kind of make publishers and the distributors kind of redundant in that way or do you think we're a long way off that
It's gonna be really difficult because even like even just digitizing all of the music and all of the rights and all the information took decades to get to that spot and now to bring it all in chain is going to be also really difficult and along an arduous process I obviously think it makes sense and to like split revenues that way would be great but I think we're decades away from that to be quite honest
So like do you think then that like kind of the artists that utilize this new tech are going to be newer artists because you know we're dealing with kind of clearing catalog from like songs from years ago now and it's you know it's messy like
And it kind of makes more sense that like kind of when AI takes over and people start like giving up their samples and it stems to AI that ultimately would have to be new artists and like so is that is that the avenue that kind of artists like new artists coming in can kind of really kind of jump on or do you think that a system will be put in place to kind of sort out the mess that you're talking about
I mean I think eventually a sister will come I actually worked on a project that was really interesting and you should definitely check it out it's called legato it's in my bio but they were working on like a licensing system and part of that tool was creating a blueprint where you would do somewhat of like a copyright registration or something on chain and then you could also have like mutable like splits on chain by tokenizing the track which was really fascinating but
I don't think it's going to be newer artists I think definitely older artists can come on chain and come this to do the issue is that the revenue collection that's happening is really fragmented in like different places around the world it doesn't matter like say you have you know your own you know rights organization collecting royalties for you in whatever country you're in if they want to collect in a different country then they need to use a local kind of company and local rights organization there to collect they're going to charge a fee then one that once they transfer it to you they're going to be able to
to your organization they're also going to charge a fee so like I think those inefficiencies are probably going to go away and it's in the best interest of even old catalog artists to figure out a way to collect the royalties in a way that is seamless and they don't have to go through like five layers of fees so I think that makes sense I don't think it's going to make it redundant though because I don't know any artists out there who's actually doing all of their book kippy keeping what what it will be like super helpful for is auditing because right now it's basically impossible
to audit your royalties every artist that I know it has to come out of their own pocket it's super expensive and so this will allow it to be because that system that system is super broke you know that is really broke like you know the artist I know like myself I've got like 170 signed releases out there I know I'm not getting all my money and every artist I speak to who's kind of been quite prolific and got a lot of catalog out and you know our majors and even working with major labels in like different countries is so different like if you're collecting
from like Universal UK or you know you're gonna get your money but like you know I've got a track on Universal Turkey which I've said it on like 400 million streams got the number one I've got paid 82 pounds so like you know that that's where you know having stuff on chain and kind of people being able to kind of be transparent about I think that's a bit this process Ben Benjamin sorry bro you had your hand up for so long I feel I feel bad
no you're all good mate I was actually gonna make a point right at the start before we even started talking about music I was just gonna say briefly I don't necessarily think that everyone was promised a sixth for IP with web 3 but I do think it's one of the best opportunities we have currently to fix it it's different space to space I am maybe the most least sorry knowledgeable on music in this entire space so I'm not even gonna dream of thinking and talking
about it but if you go into things like sports sports collectibles for example just the option to tokenize assets and then create a virtual market for this ownership first of all I do believe is somewhat sold with web 3 and with blockchain as an extension of that as long as there are systems in place to track the IP and unlock that with whatever the web 2 equivalent is in X industry whether it's just a straight up trademark or whether it's a specific collective for that
industry I think it is it's a portal to affect the work for IP but yeah I think the whole I think there's a very few amount of people that thought web 3 and blockchain straight off is just gonna fix IP for people because there are some industries that will be perpetually screwed by it but yeah I'm not sure yeah I'm sure a lot of people didn't think it was gonna fix cuz they checked in so much money you know
actually yeah so I guess you work for a label so what what what made you come into like kind of web 3 and it was a label or an artist or artist manager what have you done because you're obviously quite knowledgeable about this face yeah I worked for I worked for major labels and I've also worked for artists so both I yeah I just wanted to add the one thing that not a lot of people are considering
is because the blockchain is forever and IP law is not forever for everything so that's something that you know we do need to consider because there is gonna have to be an expiration point and things are gonna have to expire and become part of the public domain which is the fun thing about about IP is that it only lasts for so long so yeah definitely definitely an interesting problem to be solved and I something I keep my eye out but recommend you follow Jessica who I pinned at the top she's
expert in this and you know a definitely great resource to have I think that one specific thing can be fixed pretty easily though because smart contracts can burn a token if it's existed so if you can burn it after a specific time that's fixed and maybe there's a mechanism within it where it can get if you
have a protocol maybe there has to be a company that does that but I think that in itself is pretty easily fixed yeah yeah definitely like like I got another kind of thought on this is like like I got friends who's kind of you know second third generation from like kind of songwriters that absolutely wrote absolute beasts of songs that we'll all know and you know now the IP is kind of expiring on stuff like they don't get paid
you could set up kind of legacy IP and kind of continue it cuz I don't know everyone's opinion but I think being able to kind of pass that down through through generations if you wrote something I think you should always get paid for it you know mindless yes you had to end up for well did you wanna step in yes absolutely I want to take the contrary opinion I think actually when you go back to 2020 and 2021 a large part of the space was promised
that web three was going to disrupt IP and bring a whole new layer to it you can go back and listen to basically anything from Gary V he just rattles on and on about this for an entire two years literally every single ape bought a for the first two years of the existence went on about IP and ownership and all the rest of this even till today you see it it's in all of the major NFT collections I actually just go back to some very basic principles if it's it code is law in this space and if you can't enforce it on chain you're just adding complexity and then you're not
solving anything and the fact that you still need a government policymakers law judges agencies lawyers jurisdictions to give you your rights when it comes to IP adding a layer of web three and complexity on that doesn't solve it in any way in fact it probably makes it more difficult we've already seen with issues such as in fact funny enough several apes bought apes that have launched a small scale businesses using their so-called IP branding you know selling merchandise
and selling that ape but that business that they had launched initially was registered in another domain now they have to go through the rigmarole of transferring this company and all the items and merchandise with some owner in a foreign country somewhere else that's trying to exercise his rights to IP it's a minefield that's an issue anyone want to buy an ape from the Cayman Island so well exactly that so I actually don't think it's all anything I think that whole discussion and it was a really big discussion is just yet another one of
those narratives that we were all sold but turned out to be false there's loads of these narratives by the way yeah cool guys I think there's some some really interesting points been made the promise that we were told about the battery fixing it but it sounds like battery is is though the most likely vehicle to to get to
a more idealistic world around IP and yeah let's wrap it up here we're up we're running for an hour and I want to thank everyone that said this joint and see you next week bye bye thanks guys