Sophie Moser 0:02
Hey, I'm Sophie.
Sophia Barber 0:04
And I'm Sophia.
Sophie Moser 0:05
And this is the That's Showbiz, Baby! podcast.
Sophia Barber 0:12
Hi, Sophie.
Sophie Moser 0:14
Hey, Sophia!
Sophia Barber 0:17
How's it going?
Sophie Moser 0:18
You know, pretty good. It's been a little busy. I'm actually really excited about the show we're both starting to work on. Um, we are about to work on our first virtual concert, which is kind of exciting. A little bit scary. I don't really know, um, how, how our in person concert knowledge is going to transfer over to virtual, but we're really excited to work on that. So stay tuned. I'm sure we'll have more info about that in the future.
Sophia Barber 0:46
Yes, it's definitely been a busy week because of that. But it'll be interesting to see how virtual goes. I'm a little nervous, to be honest. But that's fine, whatever. We'll figure it out. So everyone, welcome back to our second episode of the podcast how exciting. We're going to start today's episode, with a little new music discovery and the music, I have to be honest, it's not that new. We both decided to choose songs from 2020. But if we continue this in the future, it's going to be either new or new to us. So you'll get some new music recs. Super fun.
Sophia Barber 1:28
So Sophie, do you want to start off what is your music recommendation for this week?
Sophie Moser 1:34
Yeah, totally. So for this week, I brought "Cowboy in LA" by LANY or lanie I don't really know I've heard people say both ways.
Sophia Barber 1:43
Laney?
Sophie Moser 1:44
So any or all of the above. Um, but I really like their sound. So maybe we can play a little snippet and take a listen.
Sophia Barber 1:53
Yes, let's play a clip.
Sophia Barber 2:10
Okay, Sophie?
Sophie Moser 2:19
Yeah, so that's a little piece. Um, I just think it's such a fun song. Such a vibe for the end of summer. It just really gives me like summer going into fall vibes. Um, and also a fan of the topic. I mean, I'm a Midwestern gal, um yeehaw, not even from the country. But I really appreciate that it's kind of this play on maybe not your typical LA type of man. Um, so I've just really been listening to that a lot. I really love the sound of it. I don't know if you have any thoughts, Sophia?
Sophia Barber 2:58
Yeah, I really like how they use kind of the Western country twang in their voice but with a very LA like Lauv backbeat, and it's just like really cool. And I thought it was nice. I can imagine like driving around LA windows down, listening to it. Definitely an end of summer bop. I agree.
Sophie Moser 3:20
Oh, totally.
Sophia Barber 3:20
That's a fun. It's a fun track. So check out. LANY, we're not really sure. L-A-N-Y on Spotify. So my music recommendation for this week, is a band that I've been a fan of forever. And it was a guy called Dylan Gardner. And he did a rebrand. And now the band is called Communicant. Another one not totally sure how to pronounce.
Sophie Moser 3:47
I think that's right.
Sophia Barber 3:48
But we're gonna go with communicant and it's from the EP Memory Palace, and the song is called "Quicksand." So the band is kind of a genre blend between -this is from their Spotify bio, I'm not just making these up- 60's psychedelia and modern indie rock. So that's kind of fun. Let's take a listen to that one.
Sophia Barber 4:40
So I've been listening to this EP just kind of in the background, like lowkey, non stop. It's kind of embarrassing, but I just really like it. It's really chill, and vibey if you will, and I'm just really enjoying it. Sophie, do you have any thoughts?
Sophie Moser 4:58
Yeah, I also I really like it. And Sophia. Yeah, you put me on their music. I think it's great. I really love what they're doing with the effects too. I think it's just really kind of interesting, like the very beginning of the intro, you know, kind of transitions into this. Yeah, like very vibey thing. It wasn't quite what I expected. But I really enjoy.
Sophia Barber 5:21
Fun. So, today on the podcast, our main topic of discussion, which is something that I'm kind of forcing Sophie to talk about a little bit, but I'm hoping she'll enjoy it is Tik Tok. Sophie, what side? Well, are you on Tik Tok?
Sophie Moser 5:40
Yeah, I actually I've had a Tik Tok for a while I've never been like a, like, Tik Tok maker. I have no videos of my own. But, I definitely enjoy watching. And I did delete it for a really long time, because I was not being productive, I would spend way too much time on it. Yikes. But I got it back when I heard there was a risk of it going off of the App Store, which we'll get into a little bit later. And, and so yeah, starting to go back through it. I'm, I'm on a lot of animal Tik Tok I get a lot of like, puppy videos and also like humorous animal content. And also this I like don't really know how I ended up here, but I'm on some like, teacher Tik, Tik Tok. So I-
Sophia Barber 6:25
I love those!
Sophie Moser 6:27
I get a lot of like teachers making fun of their students. And I'm, like, pretty sure I've never liked a video like that. So um, yeah, I don't really know what the algorithm is doing there. But that's fun. And I do. I do get a lot of travel ideas, which I like. There's a lot of like California travel ideas, which obviously is applicable to us. So
Sophia Barber 6:49
That's- Yeah, I get a lot of cow Tik Toks.
Sophie Moser 6:53
Classic.
Sophia Barber 6:52
Because I love cows. And I'm always liking cow videos. So there's a lot of that. A lot of weird comedy and recently, if we're going to talk about sides of Tik Tok, here's what I've been on. Miley Cyrus singing "Heart of Glass" by Blondie. Have you seen this performance?
Sophie Moser 7:12
No, I haven't.
Sophia Barber 7:13
Okay, so at the 2020 VMAs Miley Cyrus, in like a mullet in this black-
Sophie Moser 7:19
Okay yes, I've seen the pics.
Sophia Barber 7:20
Okay, very revealing, like jumpsuit. You've seen the pics? She does that cover of "Heart of Glass", the Blondie song. And my Tik Tok for days has just been people reacting to it, memeing it, editing it. That's the side of Tik Tok I'm on. I don't know how I got here.
Sophie Moser 7:34
That seems really right for you, I think.
Sophia Barber 7:41
Thank you. I really want her outfit. I'm not gonna lie.
Sophie Moser 7:45
Interesting. Maybe Halloween costume if there's even Halloween?
Sophia Barber 7:50
Yeah, yikes.
Sophie Moser 7:53
Well, anyways, we thought it would be interesting to kind of go behind the scenes. I mean, obviously Tik Tok has been really influential in the music world. And definitely a lot of just songs and artists kind of getting discovered on that platform. And so I think Sophia is going to start us off with some research that she's done just about kind of what goes on behind the scenes. How do artists get paid? You know, how did things like that work on Tik Tok?
Sophia Barber 8:20
Okay, so guys, this has been one of my life's greatest mysteries for a while is how people get paid on Tik Tok, how do they make money? Not just the Tik Tokers, but the musicians who provide songs, the actual company Tik Tok and for a while, I've just been living my life not knowing I could have definitely researched. But here we are. So this week, I went on a deep dive. And Sophie doesn't know any of this, so we're gonna, we're gonna talk about it. So it's owned by a tech giant ByteDance. So one thing that I thought was really interesting is ByteDance has an artificial intelligence research lab that has claimed on their website that they use Tik Tok as a way to research how people interact with user generated content, and gather content recommendations, object recommend- recognition, and surveillance, which I thought was interesting. So they are using the data collected from Tik Tok to quote unquote, venture into machine intelligence that the world has never seen before. So that was kind of a little interesting. It makes sense, but it definitely scared me.
Sophie Moser 9:38
Yeah, that's really interesting. I didn't know kind of the details behind that. I've kind of done some more research on the political side, which we'll get into later. But, um, yeah, that's, I mean, you wouldn't think of that when you think of Tick tock, you know, you wouldn't know that's like behind the scenes.
Sophia Barber 9:54
Yeah. So where kind of YouTube or Triller I think I don't know that much about Triller, I'm not gonna lie, I have used it before I made one Triller of me eating a bagel, and it was hilarious.
Sophie Moser 10:06
That's also very, very right for you.
Sophia Barber 10:10
Thank you, I try and keep the branding of my life really consistent. So unlike YouTube or other media companies ByteDance is a technology company. It's not a media company. So that I guess makes sense that they're coming from that angle. But it was interesting to hear about. So yeah, they're a tech company. They make money from venture capital and private equity. They're not publicly traded. But they're rumors that Tik Tok is pursuing an IPO, which is an initial public offering soon, they were supposed to do it in 2020. But now, because of the political stuff with the US and them trying to figure that out, I don't know if that's going to happen. We'll have to stay tuned. So they're just at the phase because they're kind of new, where they're getting investors and venture capital. So they are actually losing money. Still, they have not quite made a profit from revenue, just investments. So I thought that was interesting.
Sophie Moser 11:15
Yeah, that's also really interesting.
Sophia Barber 11:17
Now we go on to the musicians. So what would Tik Toks be without music? My theory is nothing. Very boring. Because Tik Tok relies so heavily on the music for comedy. And for the dances I'm not really on dance Tik Tok. Sophie, are you?
Sophie Moser 11:37
No not at all. I like have purposely purposefully like avoided dance Tik Tok. I've made myself not on it.
Sophia Barber 11:45
Same so I can't totally speak to that. But the music is super important on Tik Tok. However, where's the money? This is a question. So one way that labels or that musicians can make money from Tik Tok is with their label making a deal with Tik Tok on behalf of the artists. So that label issues Tik Tok a blanket license, which for those of you that don't know, it's pretty much just a license for Tik Tok to use an artist's catalogue in any way that they see fit, there's obviously contingencies, but it definitely depends on each contract. And the musician gets paid based on videos that use the sound. So it's not per stream of those videos, it's per video, and or I mean, or they use the market shares of the artist on another platform to pay them. So they use like ratios of how many YouTube views they get, or Spotify streams compared to other artists. And that's how they determine how much they get paid.
Sophie Moser 12:52
Okay, that's really interesting. I definitely did, did not know that. Um, and it's interesting that the label kind of has to proactively step in on their behalf to kind of make a deal.
Sophia Barber 13:06
Yeah, another thing to think about that I didn't think of, is, every time that a song is used in a Tik Tok, their max capacity is one minute, but most Tik Toks are 15 seconds. So they don't even get paid -if they do this type of deal- the tiny, tiny, tiny portion of a penny that an artist gets paid for a full stream, because it's 15 seconds to a minute of a song. And that counts towards how they get paid is how much of the song that gets used. Which is wild.
Sophie Moser 13:39
Yeah, that's definitely crazy. It seems like, you know, you'd have to rack up a pretty significant amount of uses of your song because again, we're not talking, you know, streams or views per se, of any particular video, but like a single use, um which is really interesting. Like it would differ, you know, if we're talking Spotify in that way. Like, you are benefiting from the amount of time people are kind of getting their ears on your music. But, you know, it sounds like that's not necessarily the case here.
Sophia Barber 14:08
Yeah, exactly. So Justin Bieber on Spotify can ask his fans to stream it while they sleep, which we can get into the ethics of that another time. But this with Tik Tok, someone would have to actually make an individual video and then they get paid, but also not really. It's honestly, just such a small amount, like even huge Tik Tokers. I was reading get paid like 1500 dollars or something for a viral Tik Tok sound.
Sophie Moser 14:39
Wow. So definitely, yeah, we're not talking huge amounts of money here by any means when it comes to, you know, use of your music or your audio.
Sophia Barber 14:49
Yeah. And that's when they do get paid. So the other way that artists get paid on Tik Tok is that they don't.
Sophie Moser 14:57
Love that.
Sophia Barber 14:58
So because you- Yeah, we love the music industry, everyone. Because any user can upload a sound. And we all know like, we all have YouTube to mp3 converter. You can upload someone's song, like however you want. I could upload someone's song if I wanted to and use it in a Tik Tok dance, because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which is from 1998, which we've learned about super fun, that actually protects companies from copyright claims that would otherwise squash them by making them immune from copyright liabilities of their users, so long as they tell their users not to do it and aren't aware of individual violations. So we see that with YouTube, where YouTube is not liable for any youtuber's video that uses copyrighted content. It falls completely on the user. And that's because of the DMCA from 1998. So what happens, let's say Sophie steals my song and uploads it to Tik Tok, what I would have to do, if I was mad about that, is I would have to fill out a DMCA takedown notice and submit it to Tik Tok and then Tik Tok would tell Sophie to take the video down. And then if she didn't, then I could pursue legal action against her. However, with Tik Tok, you have to fill out a DMCA for every individual use of your song, that's a copyright violation.
Sophie Moser 16:30
Oh, wow.
Sophia Barber 16:31
So, if Sophie uploads my song, and then 4,000 other people use that audio against my will, I would have to fill out 4,000 DMCA takedown notices.
Sophie Moser 16:44
Yeah, so that's definitely, you know, not really a plausible course of action, when it comes down to it. I doubt anyone is really going to be, you know, doing the legwork to go through and kind of submitting those takedown notices for all of those uses.
Sophia Barber 16:59
Exactly. And so what I gathered from all of this research is Tik Tok is very much using its bargaining power as being a marketing tool to get out of paying musicians for their music, they've set it up completely within their legal boundaries, because Tik Tok is so new. And it's also not considered a streaming service. So it's not a part of any of the new music Modernization Act legislature that has been put into place, that they're completely within the law for doing this. But because you have to take the time to fill out so many DMCA notices, or takedown notices. Most musicians just let it go, and hope that it benefits them in the long run.
Sophie Moser 17:44
Yeah, I mean, that definitely makes sense. And I think, you know, that's definitely, on some level a fair claim to make that it is a marketing tool, that there is a lot of recognition, that people are benefiting from it, even if it's not, you know, like this monetary benefit from uses of music. But I think it'll be really interesting to see where it goes in the future, because it is kind of this uncharted territory of being very close and having similarities with the streaming service. But really, you know, that's not the main purpose at all. And so, I think, you know, maybe it'll be interesting to see if there comes a time when artists are getting really frustrated about kind of this inability to really protect their music, or necessarily monetize their music on the platform. Maybe it could be a source of, you know, legal change when it comes to protection and that sort of thing.
Sophia Barber 18:34
Yeah, I'm definitely guessing that we will see, especially if Tik Tok continues to say around and continues to operate this way. They're going to have to start making deals with labels and music licensing companies, and doing it more on the books, otherwise, people are going to get really frustrated. And we might even see some actual legislation or laws that cater to this unique type of platform that Tik Tok is.
Sophia Barber 19:02
So, one thing I also wanted to touch on is Tik Tok as a marketing tool. So one thing that users, or not users, musicians are getting very frustrated with is people uploading their music, and then using a different name. So once you upload an mp3 file, you have to name your sound. And if you don't name the actual song, and it goes viral, then that direct line of Tiktok virality to streaming numbers doesn't exist, because it can be so hard for users to find the song that they're listening to.
Sophie Moser 19:39
Yeah, that's a really interesting caveat as well. And you know, maybe that's something even that if it did come to this place of more negotiation about how to make Tiktok more profitable, profitable or protect these musicians more maybe that's something that could change. But I think it is interesting to note that while we can definitely see successes and musicians that have really made a big off of Tik Tok, you know, a lot are really not benefiting and even that marketing aspect is not there for them because of things like that.
Sophia Barber 20:07
Yeah, for sure. And something else is even when artists are going viral on Tik Tok and their streaming numbers are going up, they're getting recognition from Tik Tok. Besides the obvious except- exception of like Lil Nas X and maybe even 24kGoldn, you could argue that he's an exception to this. But I'm curious to know, and the pandemic is honestly affecting our ability to look into this, because tours aren't really happening right now, unless people are buying merch, because there's not tours. But I'm curious whether these actual musicians are gonna end up blowing up, like outside of their song. So is that going to translate to actual money for them from touring and merch, or are people just gonna stream this one song and never get invested in the actual artist?
Sophie Moser 21:03
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point to bring up, like, just how conducive is to necessarily like, the longevity of a career, like if it is just going to be more producing these. I mean, this probably isn't a very accurate term, but kind of this like, one hit wonder idea. Like, even if you know, there's multiple successes, but this idea of something that kind of pops up stays for a little bit and can't really continue on, based off of the, you know, kind of momentum Tik Tok started, I think that'll be really interesting to observe as well, like, if it is something sustainable at all, and seems like you know, maybe it won't be.
Sophia Barber 21:39
Yeah, because I, speaking from personal experience, I'm a music lover, I'm in this industry, this is the career I want to go into, and I'm a big Tik Tok user. But it doesn't necessarily translate into what I listen to on Spotify, just being completely honest. And if a sound goes viral, that I really, really love, then I'll add it to a playlist, but am I gonna go to Bands In Town and set the notifications for them when they're going on tour? Maybe not. And that's also just my personal experience. So obviously, people might go about it a different way. But that's definitely not something I do.
Sophie Moser 22:15
Yeah, I would agree with you on that. I think I mean, if I'm being completely honest, a lot of the songs that are huge on Tik Tok, I avoid otherwise, because I've heard them so much. Which, you know, obviously, that's not the case for everybody, because we do see a lot of these songs are, you know, making it high onto the charts and stuff like that. But I think it's definitely an interesting point to bring up. Just kind of how Tik Tok is a very different platform than necessarily the rest of the industry, like if things really translate from one to the other.
Sophia Barber 22:46
Yeah, it definitely also makes less, quote unquote, mainstream songs go viral. So songs that are viral on Tiktok, or different sides of Tik Tok aren't necessarily what you would hear on the radio or a big hit. And so labels or just mainstream consumers might not totally be hip to that. And that could also be another barrier to the success of these artists is how niche the different sides of Tik Tok are.
Sophie Moser 23:22
Yeah, I think that is a really good point. It seems like there has been a little bit of A&R going on, which is, you know, like discovery of new artists on Tik Tok. But, again, I think it's interesting, you know, maybe some record labels aren't really hopping on that because the future of Tik Tok is so you know, unstable. We don't exactly know what's going to happen with it. Even just looking at it from that perspective, much less the challenges it poses to musicians and people in the industry. I think all different, definitely interesting points to consider.
Sophia Barber 23:53
So Sophie, you looked into this week, the political controversy of Tik Tok and the pulling of my heartstrings of whether Tik Tok was gonna get banned or not, and whether my nightly routine of scrolling through Tik Tok would have to come to an end. And I don't really know a lot about it. So I would love for you to walk me through it.
Sophie Moser 24:13
Yeah, totally. So I mean, I think from our previous conversation, what we just talked about, we can can kind of conclude that Tik Tok can, you know, has its challenges, but still can be a great resource. And there has still been a lot of controversy. A lot of, you know, people really for it, a lot of people against it, surrounding this app, primarily on the basis of national security concerns. Which I think going back to kind of what you brought up about ByteDance, the company, the Chinese company that does own Tik Tok, and maybe some concerns founded around what the company is doing with the data and what they could do with what they have available to them. So I think in terms of politics, it's been made pretty clear by our government that, um, in order for Tik Tok to remain fully functional in the Unites States, its US segment, so not the company as a whole, but you know, its operations here in the United States would need to be purchased by a US based company. And this would kind of be the step to alleviate the concerns surrounding national security, you know, you're not going to have the data of American users in a foreign country's hands. And so kind of alleviate the concern about this potential, you know, wrongful use of any data that might be on the app. And the whole process has been really slow moving, it's been very politicized, as you know, most things on most days. Um, and yeah, as many have heard, Tik Tok was actually set to be banned from the App Store last Sunday, on September 20. So the Department of Commerce had announced that they were going to take it off the App Store and basically disable the app. And it's been pretty unclear, you know, kind of communications to the public about all of these negotiations. But essentially, um, you know, maybe people with it downloaded wouldn't have had it taken away right away, but plans to kind of disable the app. And that was quickly followed up by this really kind of confusing announcement about a potential deal, which was Trump endorsed, that would, you know, protect the app in the United States. So, again, information coming out on this has been, you know, pretty vague. But basically, Walmart and then Oracle, which is a software company, are both kind of side by side taking a stake in Tik Tok, the US branch. And if this deal goes through, it should allow, you know, the Tik Tok that we know, use, love to continue on.
Sophia Barber 26:45
Amazing. Yeah, it's been a very interesting ride. On top of everything that the US government does, this has really been emotional for me.
Sophia Barber 26:58
That was a joke everyone I don't-
Sophie Moser 26:59
I think that's primarily because of your nighttime routine.
Sophia Barber 27:02
my nighttime, my bedtime routine. That's super interesting. And I'm also wondering how the US segment of Tik Tok being owned by a US company might affect how royalties to musicians and their music are paid. Because if you guys don't know, each country, or it's, it's very different in different regions, or countries, or areas have different copyright laws and ways of paying artists for when their songs are used. So I am curious to know, I guess you don't have an answer, I guess we just have to wait and see, if it could maybe streamline the payment of those royalties to US artists, if it's based in the US.
Sophie Moser 27:49
Yeah, I mean, I think that's all pretty uncharted territory. I think, you know, as we mentioned, just the, the whole thing is pretty uncharted territory, just the nature of the platform, and how they're going to move forward handling, you know, monetization and artists relations, kind of, and I think this could be a really interesting factor that, you know, could maybe differentiate for sure how things are happening in the US. And it does vary, you know, country by country, we probably have some more protective laws of the artists than necessarily some other countries would. So maybe that could be a good thing. But, again, I think it's very up in the air to kind of see what's going to happen with this, because we haven't really seen something of this nature before.
Sophia Barber 28:34
Yeah, it also could be up in the air because the motivations behind bringing Tik Tok to a US company are not about music. They're about national security and data. So that's probably going to be an afterthought. But here on this podcast, that is what we're interested in. So we will just have to wait it out and see.
Sophie Moser 28:59
Yeah, absolutely. And I think something interesting. Another kind of point that came up while I was researching all of this is that there is a lot of precedent for this in other countries, this kind of idea of political bans on social media platforms. And again, none of these have been musical platforms per se which Tik Tok, you know, is not necessarily either, but there definitely have been bans like this before, like China has had some pretty broad bans on platforms such as Facebook and Google. And there's just been a nature of other bans on different platforms by countries like Egypt, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Turkey, India, and others. So I think it's kind of interesting to note that the US is getting a little taste of something that has already been at play on the global stage. And, again, that's not really much of a guarantee for artists or musicians because this hasn't been happening with an app where music is so central to what's happening, and artists, you know, are so kind of wrapped up in the operation. But definitely interesting that things like this have happened before.
Sophia Barber 30:05
Yeah.
Sophie Moser 30:06
Yeah, well, that's our discussion of Tik Tok, obviously, a lot is still up in the air. And it's gonna be really interesting to see how things kind of shake out as time goes on and seems like it's probably here to stay at least for a while. And hopefully, there will be kind of more discussion surrounding, you know, the role that musicians play in all of this.
Sophie Moser 30:31
So we want to make sure you guys um, your questions are being answered. So if you have any questions about the music industry, please DM us at sophia.productions on Instagram and we would love to answer some of your questions in our future episodes.
Sophia Barber 30:47
Thank you all for listening. You can find us on Instagram at sophia.productions. And please go rate, download, and follow wherever you get your podcasts
Transcribed by https://otter.ai