Tag: Maria Schneider

What the Algocrats Want You to Believe

There are five key assumptions that support the streamer narrative and we will look at them each in turn. Today we’ll assess assumption #1–streamers are not in the music business but they want you to believe the opposite.

Assumption 1:  Streamers Are In the Music Business

Streamers like Spotify, TikTok and YouTube are not in the music business.  They are in the data business.  Why?  So they can monetize your fans that you drive to them.

These companies make extensive use of algorithms and artificial intelligence in their business, especially to sell targeted advertising.  This has a direct impact on your ability to compete with enterprise playlists and fake tracks–or what you might call “decoy footprints”–as identified by Liz Pelly’s exceptional journalism in her new book (did I say it’s on sale now?).

Signally, while Spotify artificially capped its subscription rates for over ten years in order to convince Wall Street of its growth story, the company definitely did not cap its advertising rates which are based on an auction model like YouTube.  Like YouTube, Spotify collects emotional data (analyzing a user social media posts), demographics (age, gender, location, geofencing), behavioral data (listening habits, interests), and contextual data (serving ads in relevant moments like breakfast, lunch, dinner).  They also use geofencing to target users by regions, cities, postal codes, and even Designated Market Areas (DMAs). My bet is that they can tell if you’re looking at men’s suits in ML Liddy’s (San Angelo or Ft. Worth).

Why the snooping? They do this to monetize your fans.  Sometimes they break the law, such as Spotify’s $5.5 million fine by Swedish authorities for violating Europe’s data protection laws.

They’ll also tell you that streamers are all up in introducing fans to new music or what they call “discovery.” The truth is that they could just as easily be introducing you to a new brand of Spam. “Discovery” is just a data application for the thousands of employees of these companies who form the algocracy who make far more money on average than any songwriter or musician does on average.  As Maria Schneider anointed the algocracy in her eponymous Pulitzer Prize finalist album, these are the Data Lords.  And I gather from Liz Pelly’s book that it’s starting to look like “discovery” is just another form of payola behind the scenes.

It also must be said that these algocrats tend to run together which makes any bright line between the companies harder to define.  For example, Spotify has phased out owning data centers and migrated its extensive data operations to the Google Cloud Platform which means Spotify is arguably entirely dependent on Google for a significant part of its data business.  Yes, the dominant music streaming platform Spotify collaborates with the adjudicated monopolist Google for its data monetization operations.  Not to mention the Meta pixel class action controversy—”It’s believed that Spotify may have installed a tracking tool on its website called the Meta pixel that can be used to gather data about website visitors and share it with Meta. Specifically, [attorneys] suspect that Spotify may have used the Meta pixel to track which videos its users have watched on Spotify.com and send that information to Meta along with each person’s Facebook ID.”

And remember, Spotify doesn’t allow AI training on the music and metadata on its platform.  

Right. That’s the good news.

We’re All In It Together: Independents File “Friend of the Court” Brief in Google v. Oracle

 

Helienne Lindvall of the Ivors Academy, David Lowery of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, Blake Morgan of #irespectmusic and the Songwriters Guild of America joined in a friend of the court brief supporting Oracle in Google’s appeal of its losing argument in a copyright case involving Google’s taking of Oracle’s Java code without a license.  Oracle won the case on two different occasions at the Federal Circuit, but Google appealed to the Supreme Court which of course is their right.

I got to co-write the brief as co-counsel with my friend Charles Sanders, long time counsel for SGA.  You can read it here.

SCOTUS Brief Cover Page

Oracle had nice things to say about our brief:

There will also be numerous Amicus Briefs filed shortly on the side of strong copyright protection for expressive and creative works including computer software. One brief, filed by the Songwriters Guild will state: “There are untold riches in running the Internet of other people’s things.” Only a songwriter could so eloquently capture the essence of this case, and Google’s business practices. We wish we would have thought of that line ourselves, but we didn’t, so we repeat it here (with credit and permission).

One of the accomplishments in our brief was that we were able to bring the words of artists and songwriters like Zoë Keating, Kerry Muzzey and the indefatigable artist advocate and five-time Grammy winner Maria Schneider before the Court.  All of them have written eloquently of the reality of being an independent up against the biggest corporations in the world.  We were happy to put their voices before the highest court in an important copyright case.

Stay tuned.  Google’s reply brief is coming soon and oral argument is scheduled for March 24.