What up STB Squad!
I hope you had a good weekend and spent time with those you love - and who love you.
This week is going to be a light week from me. I’m headed out to San Francisco and Los Angeles. If I have any readers in those parts - link up.
Now, let’s get to it.
MUSIC AND MEDIA
SoundCloud and Warner Music Group announced a global licensing deal
This is an interesting one. This highlights the “artist-centric” royalty payment model, used by Soundcloud, in which artists get paid based, proportionally, based on the number of times their fans streamed their music as a component of the fans’ total listening time.
This is contrasted with the traditional method in which fans get paid per stream, and in proportion to the streaming services' total streaming consumption.
If this sounds confusing, I’ll be doing a deep dive into this in the coming weeks.
Variety published an article detailing an interesting point of contention between Hollywood actors, directors, producers, and writers - and streaming services such as Netflix. This could become a focal point in the 2023 round of negotiations with the Writers Guild of America, the Directors Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA. Namely, this article centers around the payment of streaming royalties (aka ‘backend’) by the streaming services.
Traditionally, in the old world, top actors, directors, producers, and writers (often) participated in profit sharing arrangements with movie studios and distribution companies. And even though this could get kind of tricky, just ask Eddie Murphy - if negotiated right, it could be (and for some, still is) very profitable.
An example of this is Tom Cruise, who was reportedly paid $12.5 million up front for ‘Maverick' plus over 10% of so-called “first-dollar gross”. This means, if the math is correct, Tom Cruise has (personally) grossed over $50 million (and could potentially gross over $100 million) from the ‘Top Gun’ sequel.
The article details that, with streaming, these backend profits have diminished (and is often, maybe mostly, nonexistent) for most except the 1%. There are strong arguments to be made on both sides; but to me this article is interesting because it shows that the music business is not the only business adjusting to this new streaming era. Streaming, in all forms, is simply the “new normal”.
Streaming provides an efficient method of content delivery and performance for the everyday consumer, who as I mentioned is the ultimate customer - not the artist.
One point is clear for all media sectors (whether sports, film, or music):
“We need to move to a world where clients and talent representatives have access to the data around how projects are performing on the various platforms so that we have insight into what’s working and what’s not,” says Dan Limerick, WME’s chief operating officer and head of business affairs.
SPORTS
This weekend saw the finals of the World Athletics Championships, the highest track and field event - next to the Olympics. There were several record-breaking performances. You can see the full result list here, but these are some performances which stood out to me:
Sudanese-American Athing Mu became the first American woman to win the 800m.
American, Fred Kerley, won the Men’s 100m.
Shelley-Ann Fraser-Pryce, of Jamaica, won the women’s 100m, breaking the previous world record.
Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan won the women’s 100m hurdles, breaking the previous world record. “NAIJA NO DEY CARRY LAST!” YA DIG!?
Personal and Business Development
Last week, I talked about the importance of “disrupting yourself”, both personally and professionally.
Here’s Whitney Johnson, an executive coach and author of "Disrupt Yourself speaking with ‘Harvard Business Review’ more on the topic.
Weekend Thoughts
In closing, something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is the importance of focus and alignment. In life, it’s very easy to get distracted - especially in this algorithm-driven world we live in.
But there’s a proverb which says,
“Sensible people keep their eyes glued on wisdom, but a fool’s eyes wander to the ends of the earth”
To me, part of this speaks to the importance of focusing on what serves you.
In other words, what actually drives forward your life and the lives of those you care about?
Another way of saying this is “the grass is greener wherever you water it”.
When I read the stories of great men and women, there’s usually one common thread (among others) which unites them. They had a singular vision, and were committed to a specific purpose. They didn’t get bogged down in millions of ideas and opinions. They weren’t distracted by what was happening in various parts of the world - especially not social media.
They stood ten toes down wherever they were located and applied themselves, in wisdom, towards fulfilling their purpose, enriching their lives, and lifting up those around them.
They were focused on their own people and places.
To me, that’s extremely powerful.
See, we live in an era where many expect for everything to be instant and handed to them on a silver platter; but life doesn’t work like that. Nature doesn’t work like that. Nature operates by systems, processes, principles and time.
The seed you plant today doesn’t sprout tomorrow. You water it, expose it to light, and let nature take its’ course.
I encourage you to do a deep dive, and think earnestly, about those things that you deeply care about - that you would spend the rest of your life fighting for.. that you would even die for. That’s where your success and fulfillment lies.
Everything else is smoke and mirrors.
I wish you all the best this week, go after IT relentlessly.. whatever “IT” is.
- Elijah
Elijah Adefope is a media, entertainment, and technology attorney and consultant. He is a Commercial and Product Counsel at Substack, a media technology platform for creatives - and has written two books on the music and sports industries. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia. He can be reached at LinkedIn or at elijah@thrivesportsent.com