In this insightful episode, Roberto Blake speaks with Paul Sampson, CEO of Lickd, about revolutionizing music licensing for content creators. Paul details Lickd's mission to democratize access to mainstream music, allowing YouTubers and creators to use popular songs without copyright headaches. They discuss the complexities of the music industry, Content ID’s limitations, and how Lickd's technology "Vouch" works to protect creators from unwarranted claims. Paul also explores the challenges posed by AI music, the ethics of training datasets, and what the future holds for music in the creator economy.
I had a revealing conversation with Paul Sampson, CEO of LICKD, as we uncover how this platform is changing music licensing for creators. We trace LICKD’s origin story, get clear on what Fair Use really entails, and hear firsthand about the music industry's stance on licensing. Paul also explains YouTube's ContentID and the copyright claim process, providing a roadmap for creators who want to use music legally and strategically in their videos. Whether you’re a content creator, musician, or just curious about the digital music world, this episode breaks down how creators can amplify their content with music while staying on the right side of copyright law.
Paul Sampson is the CEO and founder of LICKD, a platform transforming the way content creators legally access popular music for their videos. With years of experience in the music and digital industries, Paul leads LICKD in offering a simple solution to licensing mainstream tracks, helping creators elevate their content while protecting artists' rights. His innovative approach has made LICKD a game-changer in the creator economy and digital music space.
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Announcer (00:00:01):
Are you an entrepreneur, creative Pro, or in a transition to becoming one? Welcome to the Create Something Awesome Today podcast, where it's all about enabling you to develop the skills and mindset, encouraging success and helping you to thrive with everything you do, and of course, helping you create something awesome today. And now your host, creative entrepreneur and founder of Awesome Creator Academy, Roberto Blake. Hey
Roberto Blake (00:00:27):
Everybody, this is Roberto Blake, help you create something awesome. Today I'm here with Paul Sampson, the CEO of LickD. How are you doing today, Paul?
Paul Sampson (00:00:32):
I'm good. Thank you, mate. I'm not bad. I'm enjoying VidCon.
Roberto Blake (00:00:35):
Yes, same here. For those in the audience who may not be familiar with your company, what do you do over at LICKD? So LICKD
Paul Sampson (00:00:42):
Is the world's first mainstream music licensing platform for content creators. So we work with the biggest labels and publishers and artists in the world to make their music available to content creators for YouTube and other platforms, free from copyright claims, affordable prices. Our mission is to democratize all the world's music for all the world's creators.
Roberto Blake (00:01:04):
I love it. That is a fantastic mission. And so that would mean that creators could use the music they hear on the Spotify or on the radio. So if they wanted to have a little piece of Eminem song in the music, sorry, in the background there because they have a little joke that makes sense. Or if they wanted to play even, could they play even a full version of a song in the background of their video?
Paul Sampson (00:01:27):
They could play the full song. What they can't do is make a video about the song and then monetize it. But you can monetize all your videos if you've licensed a song from Lickd. So for instance, if you made a lyric video, that's label revenue, right? You can't stream a song on YouTube and expect to keep the artist's revenue, but if it's just a part of your video, no problem. You can generate a license on L. And then we built proprietary software that every label and every distributor that signs with L has to integrate into the YouTube CMS. And what that does, we call it vouch because it vouches for our customers, right? So vouch forces content ID into a decision-making process rather than its current state, which is presumption of guilt at all times,
Roberto Blake (00:02:16):
Right? Guilty until proven
Paul Sampson (00:02:17):
Innocent. Correct. When they built content ID, there was nowhere in the world to get the rights. So every time they heard a song, they knew it was an infringement. I know you were infringed because I didn't license it to you. And so what we've said is if we're going to build Spotify for content creators, it's pointless giving people the rights and the contract and the license. If you don't then follow up and protect them from the automation of the prosecution of content Id
Roberto Blake (00:02:43):
Correct. And they shouldn't have to do any extra work for that or provide evidence of their innocence and everything. So that's what you guys solve for is a seamless integration for you to be able to have that opportunity.
Paul Sampson (00:02:53):
Yes. Look, there's full transparency. I always try to do that. There's like 1% of the catalog where a manual process to get a claim cleared. It's one rights holder that won't work with software
Roberto Blake (00:03:06):
Because
Paul Sampson (00:03:07):
The music industry is slightly backwards if we're all honest with each other.
Roberto Blake (00:03:10):
Can you name them?
Paul Sampson (00:03:11):
I mean it won't help me with my negotiations with them, so I'll leave them out for now. Okay, fair enough. But it said when you license songs from them, it says this is what you do. You just notify us just ahead of the upload and then we put them on alert and they clear the claim.
Roberto Blake (00:03:25):
Okay,
Paul Sampson (00:03:26):
So it's still claims free. It's just claims managed rather than seamless. I see. There's one and a half million songs live and available on L for context, that's 35 times larger than epidemic, 60 to a hundred times larger than Sounds Stripe. And all they've got is stock music
Roberto Blake (00:03:47):
And probably significantly even more than the YouTube audio library now
Paul Sampson (00:03:52):
Three times larger than the YouTube audio library and the YouTube audio library creates music, doesn't have a single major label or a single major publisher, and we have those labels and publishers.
Roberto Blake (00:04:02):
That's pretty significant. Yeah, that's huge.
Paul Sampson (00:04:05):
Yeah.
Roberto Blake (00:04:06):
So how did that happen
Paul Sampson (00:04:08):
With great difficulty? Okay, so look, I've been putting music to picture for 20 years, right? I was telling you before we started recording it, I put music in films in trailers and TV shows and just like you today, I used to work in television and today I watched you put up two cameras that you own
(00:04:25):
And
(00:04:25):
Essentially create a mini TV show that set up is democratized to the home creator.
Roberto Blake (00:04:33):
Yes, exactly.
Paul Sampson (00:04:34):
You are going to go and edit it on your laptop. We used to have to go into edit suites and hire 700 pound an hour editors and a thousand pound a day edit suites. Now you've got it on Final Cut or Adobe Premier, whatever it is you're using. And the only thing that I didn't democratize in line was what I was doing. And I thought, well, that's nonsense. This is the fastest growing production sector in the world. Why would we treat them like second class citizens? Makes sense to me. Every other production sector, all those ones I listed, advertising, film, trailers, tv, they can license whatever they want, whatever they want. The only people precluded from working with the artists they love are creators.
Roberto Blake (00:05:12):
The independent creator is like you said, straight like a second class citizen in media.
Paul Sampson (00:05:16):
Absolutely. And they're looked down upon and I thought that's got to change. And the music industry is sitting there going, how do we grow faster? And they've got commercial,
Roberto Blake (00:05:25):
It's right there.
Paul Sampson (00:05:25):
It's right there. It creates, you've got commercial teams going, this artist has got 2 million really engaged fans. Whatever they do, these fans always engage, right? Yes. Whether it's merch or tickets or bespoke
(00:05:40):
Content. Yes.
(00:05:42):
How do we get 40 pounds a year more out of each of them? Well, how about stop persecuting them for celebrating your artist on YouTube? That would make a difference. Now it's really difficult. The first thing we had to do was create the software and then take that to the music and go, look, this is what I'm proposing
(00:06:00):
That
(00:06:00):
We enable pre-cleared licensing, pre-cleared means label and publisher both agree that you can use it without asking them.
Roberto Blake (00:06:08):
Now how does that differ from the content ID system that YouTube currently implements?
Paul Sampson (00:06:12):
Pre-cleared just means the label, the artist and the publisher have given you the creator the permission to license anything from Lter without asking for their consent against the content, right? Yes. It's a one-stop shop. So it's basically whitelisting, well, kind of no vouches and white listings, no vouch reviews. Every use of a song on YouTube. It's making millions of decisions a day.
Roberto Blake (00:06:38):
Wow.
Paul Sampson (00:06:38):
So when a label integrates vouch into their YouTube CMS, what Vouch does is enables them to put a bespoke policy on the song without vouch the only policies you can use or monetize track, take down and block all persecutory. Right?
Roberto Blake (00:06:56):
So nothing collaborative.
Paul Sampson (00:06:57):
So nothing collaborative. What vouch
Roberto Blake (00:06:59):
Does that's interesting
Paul Sampson (00:07:00):
Is it says now you can click a fifth option, which is the vouch policy, and that puts it in a review state. And so every time, let's say we've got physical by Dua Lipa, right? Every time anywhere in the world that physical by Ju Lipa is uploaded within a video on YouTube, vouch reviews the usage and it says that's not a lit customer. Customer claim it. That's not a L customer claim it. That's not a customer claim it that's a licked customer. They paid for that. Leave them alone.
Roberto Blake (00:07:32):
Got it.
Paul Sampson (00:07:33):
Okay. So in order for the software to work, it has to review the 1.5 million songs that are appearing in the billions of videos that are being uploaded every day. I mean, it's a piece of work, man.
Roberto Blake (00:07:45):
I understand. That's significant.
Paul Sampson (00:07:47):
So like I said, vouches, if it just reviewed one video on one song every day, it would be making one and a half million decisions. It's doing that on multiple videos anyway, then we have to go to the labels and we have to convince them of it. They were very worried about, well, we earn money off YouTube already. Is this going to diminish those returns? Right?
Roberto Blake (00:08:08):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:08:08):
And I had to spend years creating a business case saying you are monetizing people at the very bottom of YouTube. When I say bottom, I don't mean that pejoratively, I
Roberto Blake (00:08:18):
Just mean, but just the people aggregating the less views, the least amount of views. A long tail,
Paul Sampson (00:08:21):
Right? A billion videos with a hundred views.
Roberto Blake (00:08:24):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:08:25):
You are only a penny from each of them. So what I'm telling you is 84% of videos on YouTube use music. It's just not yours. And there's now 10 million channels on YouTube with over a thousand subscribers. Those 10 million channels make five videos a month, 12 months a year. So you're already at now 600 million videos. Right.
(00:08:47):
So
(00:08:48):
That's why I scale percent of them use music, but they won't use your music because you are going to steal their salary. So if we could create a licensing structure for them and work collaboratively,
Roberto Blake (00:08:58):
This a new customer base,
Paul Sampson (00:09:00):
This is a new revenue stream. Absolutely. Absolutely. But when it comes to adopting innovation, the music industry has only ever been slightly ahead of the Amish, right? They resisted radio. Oh my lord. They resisted CDs, they resisted streaming downloads
Roberto Blake (00:09:18):
And they resisted mtv.
Paul Sampson (00:09:19):
Yes, correct. Do know, this is crazy. Right? In the fifties I think it was, there was something, the music industry imposed a policy on radio called needle time. So until in that decade, up until that point, you could only hear 30 seconds of a song on the radio. They were prohibited from playing any more than 30 seconds because well, if we play the whole song, no one's going to go and buy it. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. Why would you buy the cow? We're giving the milk away for free.
Roberto Blake (00:09:46):
That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
Paul Sampson (00:09:48):
And then in the late fifties or early sixties, some bright spark in marketing went, can you just, let's see what happens if we let them play the whole song? And of course, sales went
Roberto Blake (00:09:58):
Through the roof sales the moon. Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:10:00):
And radio promo as we know it today was born. Right.
Roberto Blake (00:10:03):
Well, we've seen something similar with creators in short form, particularly in Instagram and TikTok, TikTok, Simon, its issues in the US now. We've seen that it's been able, at least up until the pandemic, to create homegrown talents that became billboard topping stars.
Paul Sampson (00:10:20):
Absolutely. I mean, tiktoks become so central to the music industry. Actually, I think marketing departments in the music industry have got two reliant on it. I would agree with that. Bit too lazy. I would agree with that. But social platforms in general, I mean at any given point, new releases are less than 1% of all global catalog, right?
Roberto Blake (00:10:41):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:10:41):
So it's much more important for labels and it's really important for 'em to keep adding new hits, but they've always got a back catalog of 80 million songs that they would like to keep generating revenue from.
Roberto Blake (00:10:52):
Yes. Why not take advantage of an asset that already exists? Same thing for content creators.
Paul Sampson (00:10:56):
And then we see now the reason things are starting to pick up is we are seeing data with them because some of the labels really like us and we'll share data where, hang on. That song that has been pretty dormant for five years has just been used in this creator's video. They paid X amount to use it. Can you tell us what's happened on the streaming of that song in the last week since the date of the video and the graph always comes back like this,
Roberto Blake (00:11:23):
So it's always, yeah, it's going up.
Paul Sampson (00:11:24):
So you got a license fee and now we just regenerated catalog and added a bit of incremental streaming revenue on that catalog that wasn't do
Roberto Blake (00:11:32):
As much. So we got free printing free money in terms of residuals with that and being paid for the privilege.
Paul Sampson (00:11:37):
This is a win win, win win.
Roberto Blake (00:11:39):
No one seems to be able to lose. So why is it that the music industry in general and the entertainment and film industry in general struggles so much with understanding and seeing the benefits of fair use and fair dealing? Talk to me a bit about fair use and the conflict there.
Paul Sampson (00:11:54):
Well, so just to be clear, fair use is different to a licensed use from us, right? Fair use.
Roberto Blake (00:11:59):
Correct. I understand
Paul Sampson (00:12:00):
Fair use is like parody or newsworthy ephemeral content,
Roberto Blake (00:12:05):
But even reactions and so on so forth. But the thing is there's still a struggle with copyright holders and IP holders to feel like they're not seeing theft of their IP versus this resurgence of interest in their IP and scaling it to people who wouldn't have interacted with it otherwise, because the value is, it's that the creator and the IP are getting more attention than either would get on their own. So why is the struggle is their struggle to see the value of that?
Paul Sampson (00:12:31):
I think there are still some legacy stakeholders in the music industry. The music industry for all of its life has had one MO monetized scarcity, your viewers.
Roberto Blake (00:12:47):
So they struggle with scale abundance now and economy of scale.
Paul Sampson (00:12:49):
Everything I'm asking them to do is democratize and liberate and they go, no, we are used to saying no and demanding the highest price
Roberto Blake (00:12:59):
Possible. So it's
Paul Sampson (00:13:00):
As few times as
Roberto Blake (00:13:01):
Possible. So it's ideological for them because their entire thing was predicated in a world where scarcity mattered because there was no such thing as an economy of
Paul Sampson (00:13:09):
Scale. Correct.
Roberto Blake (00:13:10):
Well, at least not an accessible way to reach economy of scale. And now we live in a digital democratized world where economy of scale is real. We see this with ai, we see this with everything. It's a foregone conclusion if you're in the modern world. But they're built. They were built before that. So it's all we've
Paul Sampson (00:13:26):
Ever known. Exactly. Going back to the Amish point, right? Other industries have already jumped on this bandwagon. Interesting. I'm saying to them, there are even things like artist contracts have in them a syn clause that gives the artist the right to approve every use of their music against picture. Now that was written so that the artists could deny the label wanting to put their song in a Nike had wrote if they didn't like Nike, if they had an Adidas deal or they were vegan, right?
Roberto Blake (00:13:56):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:13:57):
It wasn't there.
Roberto Blake (00:13:58):
That makes sense.
Paul Sampson (00:13:59):
It never foresaw the proliferation of online video content and the democratization of production in the way that exists today
Roberto Blake (00:14:06):
Because the cost to entry was too prohibitive to ever think that the average person would ever have the means. And there was nobody, there was no model of distribution for it. No one had broadcast capabilities.
Paul Sampson (00:14:17):
Exactly. So I'm going to meetings and I'm telling them, this is your future. This is another revenue stream. You want to keep bitching on panels about how are we going to grow and we're not back to 1999 revenues yet. Well here's an open goal for you. Let's work together and do it. And they just get very, very nervous about it. Well, we can't pull because there's this clause. It's in every artist contract and you're going to make your asking me to go and remove it from all of them. And I said, are you telling me that's the last contract anyone's ever going to draft?
Roberto Blake (00:14:48):
Yeah. Contracts aren't going to ever renew, put a new clause at every new renewal and be done
Paul Sampson (00:14:52):
With it. Yes, correct.
Roberto Blake (00:14:53):
Bloody hell. Correct. And
Paul Sampson (00:14:54):
That's how we've had to work. And that's why I don't have 80 million songs on day one, which is what Spotify has, but I've got shit ton more music than any player in the game. And by the way, I mentioned to you earlier, we also offer subscription, sorry, stock music under subscription.
Roberto Blake (00:15:08):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:15:08):
Right. Because all the other companies are just stock music. We have that as well. I used to work in stock music. It provides a really good resource for creators. Like I said to you, if you want a scene in your video to sound like Pirates the Caribbean, you are going to need to be able to search for adventure or fantasy or action that you're not going to get that from Ed Sheeran.
Roberto Blake (00:15:28):
Correct.
Paul Sampson (00:15:29):
So you need that kind of stock music. It's like a
Roberto Blake (00:15:32):
Toolkit. Yes. I need to be able to source for just mood tone. Absolutely. Something of that nature. Yes. Which
Paul Sampson (00:15:38):
Stock music does and that's what all the other companies do. What they don't do is go, by the way, here's another one and a half million famous songs from your favorite artists.
Roberto Blake (00:15:46):
That way if I could just use a single line in a song as a throwaway on a joke that I need to do or something.
Paul Sampson (00:15:52):
Correct. And the first time Mr. Beast used Licked, it was a 23 minute video and right at the very end, as is the case of most of his videos, there was a cash giveaway because the person won the challenge and he used Cash Machine by Oliver Tree as the outro to the video because it made sense to what was happening on screen.
Roberto Blake (00:16:14):
Yes. Good storytelling there.
Paul Sampson (00:16:15):
Yeah. Yeah. Good storytelling, music assisting. If you care about your production values, if you care about elevating your content like good producers do, then you should have access to as much good quality ancillary content as you can. And that's what licks trying to do.
Roberto Blake (00:16:32):
No, that makes perfect sense. I mean, there are things where if I was going to do something and if I wanted to do a motivational video, for example, for creators, just even using the backtrack to lose yourself would set the right tone for the seriousness of that. Or if I was doing something about going on stage in public speaking, lose Yourself is the right thing to be able to put in that just for even a few seconds to go into it, it up. I
Paul Sampson (00:16:57):
Agree.
Roberto Blake (00:16:58):
And it makes a difference in being invested in whatever the rest of the narrative is going forward because there's just something about that and it is some of the BestEx, there's a subtext. Right.
Paul Sampson (00:17:09):
And I can't remember which director said it. Oh, guy Richie said, half of a movie is the music. It is. Right. And I think that's true in all content. People undervalue the role music can play in your
Roberto Blake (00:17:24):
Content. Well, I'm a big Miyazaki fan and everyone knows and understands that Miyazaki's films that really half of it is the feeling you get from the thing. There's like if you just start playing the violins from Manque, there are people who are just going to nostalgically start tearing up remembering the most heartbreaking scenes of it from the film. The same thing for Spirited Away. My Sisters are big fans of Spirited Away, things like that. So it does play a role and being able to use music to even play and reinforce on certain emotions, nostalgia and such, that makes a big role. You were giving me some data earlier about how it affects
Paul Sampson (00:18:00):
Retention. So we just started analyzing a lot of the data that we sit on and we looked at our customers engagement rates on their content for the lifetime of their channel. And they are customers. A portion of that includes them being with us.
Roberto Blake (00:18:18):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:18:18):
And since they've started using mainstream music across comments, likes, watch times, and views, the average uplift across all four is 22%. So there was actually a business case for using better music. Interesting. A famous song will get you more comments if it hits the right fields with the
Roberto Blake (00:18:43):
Right people. A 22% is a lot. Yeah,
Paul Sampson (00:18:45):
It is. So on comments, it's typically like 50%. It's some of the others that might drag that aggregate number down.
Roberto Blake (00:18:51):
And people don't understand that there's a significant value there beyond the algorithm is that your rate for sponsorships does increase dramatically proportionately to engagement rate rather than just view rate.
(00:19:04):
And a lot of people do not understand that that's a factor in the negotiations. A lot of creators are naive about that, but the internal, I've seen the internal tools that agencies and brands use in working with creators and how some of you in their management and talent teams do things and everyone thinks about the views, the subscribers, the follower accounts, they don't ever really consider the engagement rate. And the thing is, a lot of times people don't understand my sponsorship brand deal pricing is that I outperform in education when it comes to engagement rate. And one of the things I did was things like I use engagement triggers like asking a question in the early part of the video and triggering more comments. I get more comments than people with 3 million subscribers
Paul Sampson (00:19:47):
Sometimes. Wow. That's because you've treated it like the profession that it should be. Right? Right. You've given the respect. Exactly.
(00:19:56):
One thing I wanted to say is I mentioned to you that we are on this mission, right? Yes. Maybe it's just a personal mission. I don't think it should be. I don't know why I am so passionate about making sure every song should be made available. I just think it should. I think it doesn't make any sense for it not to happen. But I will say this, without the backing of the creator community, it won't. That's true. We are the only people in the world doing this. We are the only people being given the rights and that built the technology that can enable it. The music industry won't license a third party until we prove the model. If this doesn't work, if creators don't get behind it, then if it falls away, that's it. They won't come back with
Roberto Blake (00:20:46):
An version. No. No. Seriously. Because the mainstream doesn't without that have any real compelling reason to do something differently other than what they've been doing.
Paul Sampson (00:20:58):
And the only alternative currently is create a music on YouTube, which is fine. It's not great offering, but it's rev share.
Roberto Blake (00:21:07):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:21:07):
Now I can tell you our
Roberto Blake (00:21:10):
And with L you guys are,
Paul Sampson (00:21:11):
It's usually pay an upfront fee.
Roberto Blake (00:21:13):
It's just upfront.
Paul Sampson (00:21:14):
Yeah. So there's
Roberto Blake (00:21:15):
Not a version of it that's rev share. It's all upfront.
Paul Sampson (00:21:17):
There's no version of it as rev share. It starts at $8. It's scales based on the channel size. Essentially the revenue share that creator music asks starts at 30% and goes up to 80% based on the label or the artist
Roberto Blake (00:21:34):
And creator music. Is that owned by Universal or No,
Paul Sampson (00:21:36):
It's YouTube. It's YouTube. Okay.
Roberto Blake (00:21:37):
Oh, you're talking about YouTube creator music? Yes, yes,
Paul Sampson (00:21:39):
Yes. Mainstream
Roberto Blake (00:21:41):
Audio
Paul Sampson (00:21:41):
Library. Like I said, they don't have the major labels, they don't have the major publishers. They won't for a while. I won't get into why that's a difficult thing to do. It is taken me seven years to get this where it
Roberto Blake (00:21:51):
Is. How did TikTok accomplish that where YouTube was not
Paul Sampson (00:21:54):
Able to? Lemme just finish that point and I'll come onto it. You don't want to be left in a world where the only option you got is rev share because the music industry will always overpriced and our data tells us that the average customer is using a mainstream song in a video for 7% of the video.
Roberto Blake (00:22:12):
Okay. Yeah. 30% is too much of an ask for that.
Paul Sampson (00:22:14):
So now take that 7% music and visuals, if you attribute equally at 50 50, which I would argue is probably a bit too favorable to the music, right?
Roberto Blake (00:22:25):
Yes, yes.
Paul Sampson (00:22:26):
Then even that's three point a
Roberto Blake (00:22:27):
5%
Paul Sampson (00:22:28):
Percent. Yeah. So asking for 30 is mental.
Roberto Blake (00:22:31):
Yes. Like eight x. Yeah. Because eight x on the low end Exactly. Going to be over 10 x on the average. Yes. It's not. Okay. That's
Paul Sampson (00:22:38):
Wild. The music industry, and bless God, bless 'em, I have to work with them. And there are some really good people. They're doing some really good things and helping me innovate. That want to innovate, right? Yes. But they are slow moving beasts, but they insist on the tail wagging the dog. You want my music in a thing, it's going to cost this. Well, that makes it unviable as a business. I don't care. That's your problem. Right.
Roberto Blake (00:23:03):
So they're using the leverage.
Paul Sampson (00:23:05):
Correct.
Roberto Blake (00:23:06):
Because there's not an
Paul Sampson (00:23:07):
Alternative. Correct. And if that is the only game in town, forget it. You may as well be back getting claim. It'll go up to 90% and 95% and then you be back using stock. I call it stock music Stockholm Syndrome, because creators have been forced to use stock music exclusively for so long that they go, well, my captor, I am captive to them, but they have treated be okay.
Roberto Blake (00:23:31):
Yeah. There aren't they benevolent? They're benevolent dictator. My
Paul Sampson (00:23:34):
Kidnapper gave me three meals a day, didn't leave me to rock. And that works quite well. Stockholm syndrome, because A, there's stock in it and B epidemics for Stockholm. But listen, the epidemic of those companies did a great job. They did a
Roberto Blake (00:23:47):
Great job. I've had a great relationship with them. I use it all the time. But I am looking more toward, especially with the data that I've seen and what I've seen from the creators and what I've been talking about with you, I'm convinced that there is, and what we've seen, even from creators and other short form platforms and Instagram and TikTok, this licensed music model is the future. I'm convinced of
Paul Sampson (00:24:07):
It. Yes. And look, you asked about the TikTok thing. How have they gone about doing it? How have they got those deals done when YouTube can't? There's a difference. You're not earning from your TikTok videos.
Roberto Blake (00:24:18):
Not significantly anyway.
Paul Sampson (00:24:19):
Well, I mean most revenue on those platforms is done off platform with brand. True. Right? Absolutely. So where there is a commercial gain by the publisher of the video directly attributable to the views, the adverts placed against that video, that really only exists on YouTube. There's a video every sixth video on TikTok or Instagram, right?
Roberto Blake (00:24:42):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:24:43):
It's not necessarily attributed to your video.
Roberto Blake (00:24:45):
I see. So the lack of attribution to an individual video in terms of the revenue
Paul Sampson (00:24:50):
Yes. Is don't sense of TikTok versus
Roberto Blake (00:24:52):
The pool versus the pool. No. Yeah. No. They do some kind of creator program that's a rev share pool of everything in a viewing session. So it's not attributable to an individual video. Okay. That makes perfect sense.
Paul Sampson (00:25:03):
Yes. Now think about this. You said how come they had TikTok get it done when YouTube can't? That's not true. YouTube has done it. It's called Content id and it's called copyright claims. The only difference is, and it's happening on TikTok, but you weren't ever eligible to earn that money. That's why you don't notice it. All that is that TikTok Hass done is these people are going to go and use your music one way or another. We can agree, realize this and I'll pay you, but they're never going to earn money from it. It's never going to be a commercial endeavor for them. Therefore, they don't need a sync license for it.
Roberto Blake (00:25:36):
Why did YouTube never solve the problem the way that you did with Vouch? Why was Vouch never even a consideration in the development of the content ID system that came from Viacom v, Google v, YouTube? I don't
Paul Sampson (00:25:48):
Know. Honestly, people at YouTube go, how does it work and what does it do? Oh shit. Okay. But I'll tell you this. When I first walked into the YouTube offices in 2017 with a deck and a demo of Vouch,
Roberto Blake (00:26:07):
This is three years after the Viacom litigation was settled and content ID was normalized.
Paul Sampson (00:26:11):
Yes. They laughed me out of the room and I don't blame them. He said, sorry, you are going to go and get all the world's distributors to integrate your software on their YouTube CMS and then deliver you all the music. They were good luck. And they kind of went, that's never going to happen. Right?
Roberto Blake (00:26:30):
Wow.
Paul Sampson (00:26:31):
And no one thought what we've done was going to happen. If I'm honest, my seed investor said, I'll give you the money on one condition. You stop messing around with these major labels, it will never. And now two of them are on my cap table. So it's insane what we've done. It really, I think that's wild. There's no way that they would come to the table. It's too difficult to get, you need thousands of companies to integrate your software and those CMSs and the software to be working across
Roberto Blake (00:27:05):
All of Yeah. Software adoptions.
Paul Sampson (00:27:06):
If you imagine how epidemic works, right? You sign up for a subscription, they own all that music. They are the only entity epidemic has to deal with is epidemic. Yeah. It's simple, right? So you sign up, okay, let's just whitelist Roberto's, and he's not going to get a claim from us when he cancels his subscription going forwards. He'll get a claim if he uses I'm using. Right. I have to do that with 10,000 rights holders.
Roberto Blake (00:27:32):
Okay. So it's the logistics. It's
Paul Sampson (00:27:33):
The logistics. I built software that has to be integrated with all the parties
Roberto Blake (00:27:37):
That are delivering this and compatible with the systems they already have in place. They don't want to adapt their systems, change their code base, anything. Correct. So you have to be the one that makes your thing able to work
Paul Sampson (00:27:47):
Universally. Exactly. Right. Our software has to spider out from our CMS to the CMS of every music rights holder and help co-manage the review of claims. That's what we're purporting to do for them. Wow. That's impressive. It's a behemoth. And I said to the first developer we ever hired before I ever started the company, we looked at it, I said, I bet you we can forge a path with software through the API through the CMS and into content id. And I think no one's bothered because there hasn't been a use case for it. But if we're thinking about this, if we're thinking about building a platform that houses the world's music with the rights for creators to use it, it has to sit on something magic like that. And we took all the certifications. We looked at it for days after we'd done the exams and one day he went to me, well, this works, but they would have to all integrate this software into the YouTube CMS and we're like, oh shit. That's a big ask. Right, right. But we pitched it well enough and slowly people started to do it.
Roberto Blake (00:28:53):
No, it makes total sense. Is there any reason why YouTube wouldn't acquire you now, considering that as an asset, you would be invaluable integrated directly into the platform at this
Paul Sampson (00:29:04):
Point? Yeah. I mean, well now they've started with creative music with their own offering. I won't say too much about it. I don't think it's been the success they had hoped for. I think they're finding it a lot more difficult to do the deals than they thought it might be.
Roberto Blake (00:29:21):
Yeah, that's my question. Why not just buy you?
Paul Sampson (00:29:23):
Right. Yeah. I mean, I dunno. I'll tell you this. Someone from YouTube spoke to me four years ago and said, where are you as a business? And we were pre-revenue weren't making any money. We weren't licensing lots of music. I didn't have the hits, which we have now. You go on Lick today.
Roberto Blake (00:29:43):
Oh yeah,
Paul Sampson (00:29:43):
Coldplay Dua Lip or Bruno Mar Lizzo. I mean, it's just ridiculous. So Bruna carpenter's, two current vial songs are on lick, right? In real time. That wasn't the case then. I think if we were then where we are today, they wouldn't have gone ahead with creative music. Possibly. They may have. I think that conversation was You worth buying now? And I think that shit may have sailed. I don't know. But it depends what happens with that. Listen, I don't believe in rev share. I don't think it's viable. I think it's unfair on creators.
Roberto Blake (00:30:18):
I think that just paying outright for the service you want to get is much better than giving up a 30% or higher. Essentially equity in your own IP that you worked hard on for something that utilizes maybe less than 10% of contributes 10% to the outcome. Agree. I agree. I just don't think it's reasonable. Agree. I think as it is, I think as it is in general, that as much as rev share is a really great entry point for creators to make some revenue because they're afraid to sell to their audience for whatever reason. I understand. And I'm glad that we have ad revenue, red sharing, at least I'm glad. But I think Rev sharing for everything is just a misnomer. Agree. And I would just prefer to just pay for services outright. That's why I'm partnered with Kajabi. For example, I could do any number of membership things and give up 10 or 30% or 50%. I'd rather just pay outright and host my own membership
Paul Sampson (00:31:05):
Site. Understood. And look, here's where I think it could work. This is what I could be wrong, but if I had a crystal ball, here's what I would see. And I'll be telling you,
(00:31:13):
Okay,
(00:31:13):
I think creative music is going to end up being really good for shorts, right?
Roberto Blake (00:31:17):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:31:17):
It's ephemeral throwaway content. And if it's 60 seconds or less, and I want the song in it, the video's probably about the song. The song is probably integral to it,
Roberto Blake (00:31:28):
And it gets the music industry to play ball. Yeah.
Paul Sampson (00:31:31):
And if I'm not currently earning from shorts, then giving me 20% of what the music industry would've got, it works. I can make 10 of these a day. I'm not setting up cameras, I'm just shooting on my phone. Right,
Roberto Blake (00:31:43):
Right.
(00:31:43):
Scale.
Paul Sampson (00:31:44):
Yeah. I think they might end up enabling people that create, and the music industry calls it song UGC,
(00:31:51):
Things
(00:31:51):
Like lyric videos, art Tracks, choreography, where the video is about the song, where the video is about the song. Right?
Roberto Blake (00:32:02):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:32:02):
Then those people aren't currently owning anything.
Roberto Blake (00:32:06):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:32:06):
Now, if you said to them, okay, you can use creative music if it's song UGC, if your video is about the song and we'll give you 20% of the revenues, but the song is the star as opposed to fully claiming you, I think they would add nutrition to the soil of that. They would make that scene more fertile. I think they'd see growth in that field. But for background music in mid to long form content, which is what our customers, that's what I see People are making five to 25 minute videos and potentially using five minutes of music across the whole thing. You can't ask people for 30 to 80% of their revenue for
Roberto Blake (00:32:48):
That. No, you absolutely can't. Well, what about reaction channels that do reactions and music reviews? I have a client Anwar with Mogan Reacts. He likes to do reviews of actual songs that people would know from Spotify or the radio or what? What is the best option for him in terms of moving forward? Is it to try to get a license for those songs for Licked when he wants to do a music review? Or is it creator
Paul Sampson (00:33:16):
Music? I believe so. Well, I don't think he's going to find, probably not the music he wants in Creator music. He may not even find it on Licked if we're all on. If he wants the latest song that's come out,
Roberto Blake (00:33:31):
It won't always be the latest. No. He actually does cover a lot of things that have been out for a while or what have
Paul Sampson (00:33:35):
You. I think I would argue that he should use licks. Right. I'll tell you again, transparently, the music industry would call me and go, we think that's song UGC. And I would have to fight 'em on it right now. He would've had his claim cleared already. But I wouldn't be surprised if they call me and said, well, this considers, and I would go to them and say, look, this is what we defined between us as Song UGC. And I can tell you vouch looks for attributes of a video and reports back on policing and tells me this video has the three red flags that might make it song UGC and a creator has licensed the song into it. Right. Okay. So what would those three, four breach? So when we see all three of these on one video, and it was licensed by leads, we are alerted artist name and track title in the video title, video length and song length are within 90% of each other and more than 90% of the song in the video.
Roberto Blake (00:34:39):
Okay. This wouldn't hit the song length thing at all, is videos would be more than three to five times the length of the song.
Paul Sampson (00:34:47):
Yes, exactly. And that's why I would go back to 'em and go, it doesn't match the definition. And actually what they're scared of is what YouTube, the music used to hate YouTube. They used to hate them. I know. And the reason they used to hate them.
Roberto Blake (00:35:00):
So did television and film. Viacom tried to literally marry them. Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:35:03):
But the reason they used to hate them was because they were backdoor music streaming. People were not paying for Spotify and not paying for Apple music because I could just go and look up the music video or the lyric video on YouTube and use that as a free streaming service it. But I could just keep typing in the songs I want. And I would say to them, that's what they're concerned about with Song UGC. And I always say to them, no one in their right mind that wants to hear that song is watching this video to do it.
Roberto Blake (00:35:33):
Watch it every 20 seconds. No one's going through that level of effort now. Exactly. And then there's the ads part of it, interrupting this. So can you actually tell me some more inside baseball and your thoughts around even YouTube music, because YouTube music is very interesting to me, and how are artists and musicians earning from YouTube music as opposed to regular YouTube?
Paul Sampson (00:35:55):
Of course. Yeah, absolutely. So I mentioned that they had a problem. The music industry had a problem with YouTube. The problem was commonly referred to as the value gap. You went to music industry conferences between 2015 and 2020. That was the only words you heard. Fucking YouTube and the fucking value gap. Right. Okay. And the value gap is this. People are streaming music on regular YouTube and the claiming revenue on YouTube is significantly lower than what the music streaming platforms are obliged to pay us per stream under a streaming contract. So
Roberto Blake (00:36:34):
Even if you claim it, you're getting a pitance anyway
Paul Sampson (00:36:37):
Compared to the streaming revenue. And you know how they feel about streaming revenue, right? Yes. They think that's too low already.
Roberto Blake (00:36:42):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:36:42):
So take that down another 90%. And so when they were new deals with YouTube about the claiming revenue, they insisted that YouTube create a music streaming platform and then drive people into music streaming. And that's why YouTube music came about.
Roberto Blake (00:37:00):
I see.
Paul Sampson (00:37:00):
It was duplicate the music industry and be collaborative with 'em and say, okay, we are going to start a streaming platform. It will include video because that has to be our USP as a video first platform. Yes. And we would charge subscription rates and we will pay out as per what the music industry defines as a subscription license agreement with you.
Roberto Blake (00:37:18):
Seems to have worked out since there's now 100 million users globally for YouTube music, which I believe now puts them right on the heels of Spotify. Spotify has how many? I think?
Paul Sampson (00:37:30):
Oh no. Spotify is still the number one by some distance. About 140 million. I think it's more, I don't know the number. I think it's quite a lot more. But then there's Apple and YouTube and Amazon, I think in that order, I think, I dunno, don't quote me on that. Sure. But now I'll look at the numbers later. Yes. Now they're looking at YouTube and going, well, I'm getting two big checks from you. Now
Roberto Blake (00:37:51):
Suddenly
Paul Sampson (00:37:52):
You're not
Roberto Blake (00:37:53):
A bad guy because in aggregate that's better than just Spotify because now it's both.
Paul Sampson (00:37:56):
Absolutely. So that's interesting, which is why Spotify started to do video.
Roberto Blake (00:38:00):
Yes, yes, yes,
Paul Sampson (00:38:01):
Yes. So we sit in this sort of nexus of all of them and it's just really exciting and really interesting times. I love what I do. I want creators to understand they can in a very real and very visceral way, be part of the change they want to see in their community. Every time I send a check to the music industry, they release more music. Shit's working, this check's bigger than it was last month. Let's stop giving him such a
Roberto Blake (00:38:31):
Hard time. Where's this resistance with all the proof and all the data and everything that you've shown is working? What's the resistance still remaining? Where are the holdouts coming from? The holdouts? What is their argument at this point? It seems to me the writing's on the wall. You have the data, you have the money, the checks, everything's coming in, everything's coming up. Roses. You've aligned to the future of the market and the future of consumption instead of alienating consumers, instead of attacking consumers for the way that they want to consume, you've aligned yourself to the consumer. You've aligned yourself to the creator. What's the holdout for the copyright holders? Now
Paul Sampson (00:39:04):
A big label that is yet to sign with us says, I think YouTube's model of claiming revenue doesn't pay enough. And your model, Paul pays me less than that. Right Now I'm saying to them, yes, but you are not touching this market at all.
Roberto Blake (00:39:23):
So it would be something you're complaining about not getting money that they aren't. Wait, is the argument that
Paul Sampson (00:39:32):
The money I'm not getting, that you are aiming to get for me isn't as much as I'd like it to be?
Roberto Blake (00:39:37):
So I'm already going to make $0 and something is not better than nothing for
Paul Sampson (00:39:44):
Me. But this is what happens, right? When you get these deal makers, like I said, their method, their MO has been saying no so that you can always drive the price up.
Roberto Blake (00:39:59):
Leveraging scarcity.
Paul Sampson (00:40:00):
Exactly. So what they really want, that deal maker there who wants to make his name within that label is going to say, I'm going to pay the hard baster. That just keeps saying no until a company that can pay me nine figures just comes and advances it to me. Not going to go through the pain of working with Paul and testing. And so you are left with, I mean we have one and a half million songs on L.
Roberto Blake (00:40:27):
Yes,
Paul Sampson (00:40:28):
There are nine and a half million songs delivered to us on top of that that I can't get on the platform yet. That means I've signed the labels, but I'm missing 1% or maybe up to a hundred percent of the other side of the right side. I need the publish
(00:40:44):
Publisher.
(00:40:45):
Every time I sign a publisher, we cross-reference that publishing ownership across the 9.5 million songs and it unlocks another 20,000. A hundred thousand songs, right?
Roberto Blake (00:40:57):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:40:57):
And they go and makes 1.5, 1.6
(00:41:01):
Scales.
(00:41:01):
9.5 becomes 9.4 right before. But we're on a constant mission to keep signing right. Keep signing rights holders so we can get as much of that
Roberto Blake (00:41:09):
Live as possible. And how much is the licensing for an individual song generally or
Paul Sampson (00:41:14):
LICKD? The average price point for our customers is 10 pounds. So $12, it starts at $8, it goes all the way up to $330. And we are going to bring up new pricing for the really big creators.
Roberto Blake (00:41:28):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:41:29):
For the Mr. Beast of the world. I won't say what he's paying, but what he has a bespoke rate. Right. I see. And then now is the time to say, well, hang on, there's something between three 30. Could
Roberto Blake (00:41:37):
You hint at the amount of the figures in that bespoke rate?
Paul Sampson (00:41:41):
It's six seven. No, it's not six or seven. It's not that high. It's not that high. It's significant. It's significant.
Roberto Blake (00:41:51):
Okay.
Paul Sampson (00:41:52):
Fair enough. It's a really good deal for creators. The way I worked out the modeling when I first came up with it was let's work out what the CPM is, right? Yes. What the RRP M is actually the creator share take home revenue. Yes. And then I accounted, this is 2016, I accounted for 20% going to an artist an M cn. Remember them? Oh yes. Oh Lord. So I took 20% off that, right?
Roberto Blake (00:42:16):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:42:16):
And then I said probably there might be an agent fee. I take 10% off it, off the RRP M. And now of that, what does 10% look like? And so that's what our pricing in each price band looks
Roberto Blake (00:42:30):
Like. I see. It
Paul Sampson (00:42:31):
Works out about 8% of what we estimate you might earn,
Roberto Blake (00:42:34):
Which is about an alignment with what you said about what you feel the most realistic version of the contribution of the video to the content actually ends up
Paul Sampson (00:42:43):
Representing. Exactly. And you might, so you're looking for par, it might go up to 50% of your video, right. But it depends how much music you want to
Roberto Blake (00:42:49):
Use. But Yeah, but you were looking for parody.
Paul Sampson (00:42:51):
Correct.
Roberto Blake (00:42:51):
Okay.
Paul Sampson (00:42:52):
Correct. Whereas they would much rather hold out and not earn anything in the music industry for the next 20 years, but one day get a check for a hundred million
Roberto Blake (00:43:01):
Dollars so they're playing winner take all or winner take most. Exactly.
Paul Sampson (00:43:04):
Exactly. I see. And what we have to do, and that's why I say I've been fighting this fight for seven years. I can't tell you the arguments I've had in boardrooms and music execs on behalf of creators like you and everyone watching this video. Now I need them with me. We're just getting to a tipping point. I've just proven now, what I set out to do eight years ago was if I get the biggest artists in the world, the biggest creators in the world will license it. And now the smallest creators in the world can license it.
Roberto Blake (00:43:33):
And now they're actually feeling encouraged to do so.
Paul Sampson (00:43:36):
Every time someone licensed from lt, it's like adding your name to a signature of defiance to the music industry.
Roberto Blake (00:43:43):
I love this idea. I love this rebellion. This
Paul Sampson (00:43:46):
Makes sense to me. We're challenger brand, but people we're challenging, didn't even bother to do what we're trying to do.
Roberto Blake (00:43:51):
Fair enough. Could you talk to me about how the copyright and content ID system as it currently exists is sometimes weaponized and how false claims work?
Paul Sampson (00:44:04):
Yes. Content ID does miss some stuff,
(00:44:06):
Which for creators is quite handy. For rights holders. It represents some missed opportunities. There are as a result, essentially that's a definition of a gap in the market. And wherever that happens, a startup pops up. There's an opportunity. And so someone comes up with some software that will true content ID and work out what it's missed and then claim it. And they'll go up to people like Warner Publishing or Sony Publishing. And so we think content ID is missing 20% more revenue than you should be getting. And we can put systems in place to go and get it. And sometimes systems like that, miss claims, they would rather claim the revenue and make a mistake and get a slap on the wrist, then miss the opportunity, then miss another because that's what they're claiming to solve,
Roberto Blake (00:44:55):
Right? Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:44:56):
So that is a small part of the problem.
Roberto Blake (00:44:58):
So there's an incentive problem. There's a misaligned incentive to where the incentive isn't to operate fairly. The incentive is to maximize revenue.
Paul Sampson (00:45:06):
Correct. And then the other problem is the music industry is so fragmented, Roberto, I cannot tell you. For instance, there's a hip hop song delivered to L one label 17 publishers, and they're all multinational companies. So for me to get that one song live and available to you as a creator, I have to have been in 4, 5, 10 meetings in different countries. Yes. With all the parties involved with all 17 of those companies who want their own contracts. Now obviously I'm not doing that for one song when I do it, I'm saying and anything else that you represent, right?
(00:45:44):
Yes. So
(00:45:45):
Catalogs, yes, takes this really hard work anyway of that song. That label might only own it in North America and the uk. There might be a remix of the song where another label owns it in Germany or in Asia. There might be another remix where someone owns it in Australia, if they sound alike because it's a remix. But the core song and sounds are there and it's owned by different content ID administrators. Someone might not claim it, but the other person might. If I clear the claim from the label that gave me the music, the official claim, that doesn't mean that content. Id might not think it's the remix from Australia because it's 80% match. And so we occasionally suffer from that where someone will go, you said there one's going to be a claim, there's a claim. Well, it's not my fault I cleared the claim that you got, but stay calm. It's illegal. We'll deal with it for you. We'll reach out to them and say, get your hands off this person's money. And we always do that and it always works. So that's what's happening. Sometimes you get bad actors very rarely, but they just go, they'll school or scrape all of content idea and go. They haven't put policy on that song. Guilt guilty
Roberto Blake (00:46:59):
Until proven innocent. Exactly, yes. How much money a year does the music industry make from content claims through the content ID system?
Paul Sampson (00:47:10):
So essentially, what's the check size from YouTube to the music industry? For video?
Roberto Blake (00:47:15):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:47:18):
I don't know. Don't, obviously they're all individual checks, but in aggregate it's nine figures per major label.
Roberto Blake (00:47:29):
Nine figures is
Paul Sampson (00:47:30):
Per major label
Roberto Blake (00:47:31):
Per major level does. So that's a billion's billion. Nine is in billion. Well, I think of major
Paul Sampson (00:47:35):
Labels is getting a minimum of a hundred million a year. And then there's publishers and then you've got all the indies underneath that. I see somewhere up to about a billion a year I would guess. I said I'm
Roberto Blake (00:47:47):
Not probably theoretically minimum per major label. And then there's all the other,
Paul Sampson (00:47:52):
The publishers. The publishers, and then the smaller ones,
Roberto Blake (00:47:54):
The small fries. So then they're getting their little nice little eight figures here or there. Okay, I see. No, that's significant. That's amazing. That's wild to think about just how much money there is in this. I heard an industry rumor from multiple people, I don't know if you're able to substantiate this in any way, but I'll ask
(00:48:18):
Anyway.
(00:48:19):
David Dobrik, at the peak of his fame and his celebrity, I heard that he lost maybe eight to 10 million over the lifetime of his YouTube career through music claims because he just refused to go through the bother of licensing
Paul Sampson (00:48:37):
And he also refused to lower the value of the production value of his content.
Roberto Blake (00:48:41):
Correct.
Paul Sampson (00:48:41):
There was integrity there. Yes. But he could have just also licensed. But that is the definition of integrity. I gave up 10 million pounds to make the content as good as I could for you.
Roberto Blake (00:48:50):
Right. So you've heard that as well, where you're familiar
Paul Sampson (00:48:53):
With, to me, that's out of order.
Roberto Blake (00:48:54):
But you're familiar with that and that happens. Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:48:55):
Okay. So that happens. That's also part of my problem. They'll go, well, we actually, people are using our music and we do earn from it. So I don't want to give it to you because then I won't get 10 million from David dod brick. And I go, there's 10 million David dod bricks. Right. And what you want, I promise you what you want is 10 pound a month of each of them. Right. That's the way to do it.
Roberto Blake (00:49:15):
True.
Paul Sampson (00:49:15):
But again, that's scale.
Roberto Blake (00:49:17):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:49:17):
That's liberation of assets, liberation of there's not monetizing scarcity. It's the opposite.
Roberto Blake (00:49:21):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:49:22):
And that's difficult. So they always say to me, you are going to cannibalize our revenue on YouTube.
Roberto Blake (00:49:28):
I feel like it's the opposite.
Paul Sampson (00:49:29):
It is the opposite. Where we've made progress recently is I've been able to go to those and analyze their data. Right. I go, okay, here's the definition of the market I'm talking about. I'm talking people that are earning money. Having said that, 80% of our customer base is not yet earning, but they are ambitious enough to know that one day they will and they want their back catalog musically hygienic and available to earn for them, which is smart. You should be telling people that one day you might enter the partner program and if all your shit isn't clean, you can only earn money going forwards when you should be monetizing your to
Roberto Blake (00:50:01):
Back capital. I know, I do tell people that all the time. It's also why I tell them, Hey, stop worrying about the short attention spans when you're trying to get up to monetization, make videos that are longer so that when you do get the ability, you can go back retroactively and put in a bunch of ad breaks and you can make money. Yeah. I have substantial
Paul Sampson (00:50:18):
Very good advice. So what we did, we went to one of the major labels and we said, well how about you give us your data from your YouTube CMS. Right? Let's some definitions, okay, we are going to see which channels are paying out on music claims to you and we'll define what they are. So artist channels, it's not our business. Take them out, right? Lyric videos, song, UGC choreography, not our business. Take it out. And then you've got the bottom end of the long tail that aren't monetizing. It's not supposed to be our target market. Take it out. What's left is our target market. Now, of all these hundred million rows or copyright claims, how many of them are on channels that meet this criteria of our target market? And the answer was 4%. That was a major breakthrough. When they were like, huh, okay, so we're missing all of this. Yes, you're missing all of that. And they've got the means, the will and the tenacity to want to go ahead and pay you some money. Let's make it available to them. Then they start to liberate assets, liberate assets a bit more. Every month we send them a check. That check keeps getting bigger.
Roberto Blake (00:51:36):
They are more, it's a revenue source they did in have
Paul Sampson (00:51:39):
Correct. And it ancillary, it's incremental to what they were earning. I'm saying to them, my software will determine what the legal ones are and what the illegal ones are. You'll keep claiming the illegal ones. I'm not going to touch it. I'm just making it possible for you to earn from the other ones they
Roberto Blake (00:51:57):
That you Well, they're also saving and billable hours for their legal, which is significant. So they're also getting the savings as an ancillary benefit as well.
Paul Sampson (00:52:05):
Yeah, agreed. And look, like I said, I think every creator in the world should want this to happen just from a principle standpoint, right?
Roberto Blake (00:52:13):
Yeah.
Paul Sampson (00:52:14):
In 10 years, we'll look back and go, do you remember when we couldn't use music and really?
Roberto Blake (00:52:17):
Exactly. Yeah. No,
Paul Sampson (00:52:19):
But we have to get us there. I can't keep doing it on my own. Right.
Roberto Blake (00:52:22):
Well, I agree. That's why I wanted to have you on the programs. Yeah.
Paul Sampson (00:52:24):
Listen, I've got the music industry now invested in the company, right? I've got Epic Games invested in the company. They use our vouch software.
Roberto Blake (00:52:35):
Makes
Paul Sampson (00:52:35):
Sense to me. Very strange. But
Roberto Blake (00:52:36):
No, it makes sense.
Paul Sampson (00:52:37):
They don't license music from us. They license our software. That's how good it's right that the biggest gaming company or metaverse company is using it. What I don't have is anyone from the creator economy invested in the company. Interesting. And I'm raising money right now and I'm here at Rid Con to meet with some people that might invest. I exclusively want this round to come from the creator economy because right now we're a two legged tripod.
Roberto Blake (00:53:01):
Alright, so some final thoughts. One of the last things I want to talk to you about, and we don't have to spend a lot of time on this, is AI music and the implications of that going forward for the industry, for the creator economy. There's this huge lawsuit right now around AI music, two prominent AI music startups being basically attacked by all the major labels right now. What's the inside baseball and this sort of thing. What do you think is the future when it comes to AI and music right now?
Paul Sampson (00:53:26):
I think that there's a major, major conflict coming. I'm not casting aspersions on any one company here. It's important to say that, but when I hear how good some of the AI generative music platforms are, I can only presume they were trained unethically. It's too good and on what was it trained. And the music industry is on a war path to find out if I find out you scraped my catalog and fed it into your AI and that's why it's so good, I'm going to sue the arse off you.
Roberto Blake (00:54:16):
I'm okay with if you can put fingerprints. The argument I've always had to some degree with the AI art communities, aspersion of that is I don't believe a lot of the independent visual artists that their stuff was used. I believe that it's the major IP holders like Warner
(00:54:33):
And
(00:54:33):
Disney and Marvel and Star Wars and such, because the average person isn't sitting there trying to copy an indie artist off of Instagram as far as the visual stuff. They're trying to copy Marvel and Spider-Man and Hulk and all of that. Because I mean, even when I was a kid, that's what you would draw in your notebooks. You draw the Tasmanian Devil. It's not about some original character that some obscure person with 2000 followers
Paul Sampson (00:54:57):
Is
Roberto Blake (00:54:58):
Drawing. So for that one, I felt like maybe the stuff was trained enough on the old masters because there's just so much stuff that would be, the public domain on visual art would be so exhaustive that there's no, and also the major IP holders be so exhaustive that there wouldn't be any reason to steal from any artist is just too
Paul Sampson (00:55:18):
Much. But current pop sounds are copyrighted. Right. They're not
Roberto Blake (00:55:21):
Domain but music that makes more sense and there's less of that. That would be public domain that would make sense to train off of, especially to get to the relevant style of AI music that we see today. There's not enough stuff that would be in the public domain. You're right. Absolutely. That one is where I can give you all of
Paul Sampson (00:55:37):
It. Yes. There are companies that are trying to teach AI meta composition theory. Right. Would that
Roberto Blake (00:55:45):
One be ethical if they did that? Yes. Yes. Because I think that makes sense.
Paul Sampson (00:55:49):
Yes. And then what you can add to that is here's public domain music and teach it what that music is, and then you can teach the AI what journey musicians went on and see if it can get there quicker.
Roberto Blake (00:56:03):
Then it's just doing a simulation.
Paul Sampson (00:56:04):
Yeah. That's the evolution of sound over the last hundred years or so. The AI will get there in a much quicker, much quicker time.
Roberto Blake (00:56:09):
Just guess it's going through a same process that human would to accomplish the same thing.
Paul Sampson (00:56:13):
Exactly.
Roberto Blake (00:56:13):
Right. But it never has to sleep.
Paul Sampson (00:56:15):
Exactly right. But it's not being played Taylor Swift or Fed Taylor Swift to sound like Taylor Swift. Right.
Roberto Blake (00:56:21):
Fair.
Paul Sampson (00:56:21):
So the music industry is on a war path at the moment, and it's doing its best to get behind companies that are trying to do it ethically, but those companies again, and it'll buy them. I would hope so. Yeah. I mean, the problem is the ones that people suspect aren't ethically trained are already first to market and already generating revenue
Roberto Blake (00:56:40):
A much longer road to teach with the composition center and they're the household name,
Paul Sampson (00:56:43):
Correct.
Roberto Blake (00:56:44):
Oh, that makes sense. Correct. It's first mover advantage. Early mover advantage.
Paul Sampson (00:56:47):
Yeah. Like better to ask for forgiveness than permission, that sort of thing.
Roberto Blake (00:56:50):
Sure.
Paul Sampson (00:56:50):
I mean, if I had gone that route, I might've been at market several years ago, but so it'd be interesting to see how it goes. My position on it in context of our business, I think AI is really revolutionizing or will revolutionize how doc music companies grow. Right? The model is, doc music is, I commission you to write some music. What I like from you, I will buy off you and I own it forever
Roberto Blake (00:57:18):
In perpetuity, which means it's ethical to then train on that then.
Paul Sampson (00:57:22):
But let's say it's $3,000. I think most stocks come to paying about three grand a track for the lifetime ownership of the song they commissioned. So to get to 30,000 tracks is $19 million. So if I want to get to 60,000 tracks, I either pay another $90 million or I pay a small amount and get a young AI company and say, this is what's being used a lot. Create more of it, right?
Roberto Blake (00:57:45):
Yes.
Paul Sampson (00:57:45):
And do that for me for way less. So it's going to have a big impact on scaling stock sounds. I could see it and SFX, it will create more commercial sounds. Right. We know the companies we're talking about that we've all tried out the make pop hits. Listen, if you send me a song and I absolutely loved it, and then I found out you'd made it in 30 seconds, it'd lose all its value because I'd be like, well, I can make it in 30 seconds. What was the prompt? Right.
Roberto Blake (00:58:16):
Well, I think there's a sophistication in that because actually everyone thought that about Photoshop. Everyone thought that about video editing tools. Even now with ai, video editing tools, everyone thinks that they, oh, if I did that too, even with the video being more affordable to make, oh, if I just had this fancy camera gear, I could do the same thing. I'll know. I don't
Paul Sampson (00:58:38):
Know. Well, look, for me, when I listen to a song and I fall in love with it, I play it a hundred times. I play it until I know almost every word. I love singing along with it,
(00:58:51):
Right? Yes.
(00:58:52):
When I learn every word, I understand the story and then it makes me think about what the fuck was that person going through? They wrote this that led, and then I learn about the artist. Right. You can't do that.
Roberto Blake (00:59:03):
Fair.
Paul Sampson (00:59:03):
Right. So I'm not saying it do you think's no value in it. I just mean what it won't do for sync is provide nostalgia, great memories or emotions, but I think there's a place for it.
Roberto Blake (00:59:14):
Do you think for the average consumer that they're sophisticated enough to sense that difference?
Paul Sampson (00:59:19):
I think the average consumer use of full generative music creation will be novelty and it will be fun.
Roberto Blake (00:59:30):
Oh, interesting.
Paul Sampson (00:59:31):
Like sharing stuff and creating, write a song about my mate and how stupid it's memes and such. What I think is going to really be impactful is there are lots of companies looking at building tools to make wannabe aspiring producers not have to learn the entire skillset. Here's a mixing ai, here's a keyboard, ai, here's everything you need to do it just at the click of a button to create a song or to help me master, to help you do all the stuff that would've happened in the studio.
Roberto Blake (01:00:06):
Okay, that makes sense. Yeah.
Paul Sampson (01:00:07):
So bedroom producers, they're going to have their workflow diminished greatly and they'll be very grateful for that.
Roberto Blake (01:00:13):
Okay. That makes a lot more sense. So that even kind of parallels the journey that video has taken to some degree with the sophistication of editors
Paul Sampson (01:00:24):
And
Roberto Blake (01:00:24):
Things. Cap cut, for example, bringing down the learning curve of actually learning the mastery, video editing significance.
Paul Sampson (01:00:31):
Exactly right. You
Roberto Blake (01:00:32):
Basically cap cut for music when you get to cap cut for music, that's like game over time.
Paul Sampson (01:00:35):
Exactly. And those companies, the few of them starting up, I'm quite excited about that.
Roberto Blake (01:00:40):
Okay. No, that makes sense. Well, thank you so much for taking the time.
Paul Sampson (01:00:43):
Thank
Roberto Blake (01:00:44):
You for having me, man. Yeah, no, this has been a great conversation.
Paul Sampson (01:00:46):
Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I think what you do for creators, I think you're brilliant. Oh, thank you. And I think what you do for creators is so important and they're so lucky to have someone like you who's been there and done it, guide them. And I wanted to wait until we were in the right place to even contemplate this conversation because I think we had to mature as a company. You were very clear with me in 2019. You were like, this is what you need to do with your business. You were right. We weren't there. We weren't ready. I had a great idea.
Roberto Blake (01:01:18):
I'm very direct. I don't pull punches. I know, but I see potential and that's why I'm glad that we've continued the conversation, kept in touch, and I'm very happy to see where it is. And it's in a place that I feel where it's not only great for careers, I think it's vital for the creator economy at this
Paul Sampson (01:01:33):
Point. Yes, I agree. Well, it's been a pleasure.
Roberto Blake (01:01:36):
Yes, absolutely.
Paul Sampson (01:01:37):
Thank you, mate. Thank you. Take care.
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