Business
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It was a year in which Rammstein blasted plumes of fire from a backpack, The Weeknd destroyed a miniature city in a hurricane of black smoke, Pepe Aguilar sang on horseback amid Aztec warriors and equestrian acrobats and Elton John gave a “Rocketman” tour of space from a video screen that bled into the stage. artists provided fans with endless stadium explosions and other over-the-top spectacles. Even though Inflation and supply-chain issues considerably jacked up expenses for 2022’s biggest tours, cutting corners was not an option. “It’s really important that we don’t short-change anybody,” David Furnish, John’s husband and manager, told Billboard in November, just before the singer’s final U.S. farewell tour show.
And in 2023, stars who continue or return to stadiums after emerging from COVID-19 quarantine are unlikely to scale down. “Our show is evolving,” Aguilar says from his Mexico City home. “Once I experimented with it, it’s hard to go back.”
Here are the stories behind five other ground-breaking concert special effects in 2022:
Bad Bunny’s floating dolphins and live-video merry-go-rounds
Befitting the year’s highest grossing tour, Bad Bunny went big with stadium special effects. The giant dolphins floating above the crowds were the most instantly eye-catching, but Bunny also integrated video into the shows in new ways. During “Callaíta,” he built on the merry-go-round imagery of his 2019 video and projected a 3-D live feed of his performance, as well as captured shots of individual fans and other elements of the show, into the frames of the rotating structure on stage. “There’s a lot more to it than meets the eye,” says Adrian Martinez, creative director for Sturdy, the production company that created much of the tour’s visual imagery. “A lot of shows just use loops and clips here and there and kind of just repeat. We wanted to make sure people were looking at something new pretty constantly.”
Coldplay’s LED spheres
After Coldplay‘s designer approached Frederic Opsomer with the idea for a new effect— hovering spheres festooned with LED strips— his staff at PRG Projects began two months of problem-solving. First, they considered “hardshell with a trussing system inside.” But that could have required seven or eight trucks with a crew of more than 60, which was unsustainable given the band’s mandate to be environmentally conscious. “We have to come up with another way,” Opsomer, PRG’s vp of global scenic, told the staff. So they concocted inflatable spheres, tested lightweight fabric coatings and determined they could fit in a fractional portion of a truck with just one crew member for maintenance. After accounting for rainy and windy stadium conditions, they built structures for the tour that began in March and tested them in factory settings, but didn’t feel fully comfortable until they lit up in bright colors on the first date. “How did we celebrate?” Opsomer asks. “I think we had a big smile on our face.”
Kendrick Lamar’s shadow play
During Kendrick Lamar‘s The Big Steppers tour, which ran from June to December, the rapper hunched over with his microphone, creating a big-screen shadow during “Count Me Out” with arrows wedged into Shadow Kendrick’s back when they did not actually appear in Real Kendrick’s back. “It’s this little photogenic moment that plays with reality,” says Mike Carson, one of the tour’s show designers and show directors, who helped coordinate choreographers, directors, lighting designers and video programmers to make it work. “It’s like a magic track. I read reviews and people describe what it is and still can’t pinpoint how he did it.” (Watch the whole show here.)
Adele’s piano on fire
It was Adele‘s idea last May to light her piano aflame during “Set Fire to the Rain.” That prompted five months of designers and crew members plotting and building a faux white Yamaha grand piano that bursts into flames while Adele sings during a manufactured rainstorm at her Caesars Palace residency in Las Vegas. Those flames spread more than 100 feet across the stage, part of an effect that involves a high-tech fire suppressant and huge troughs of water. The piano, says Paul English, Adele’s production manager, is “like a bath. It contains a load of water, so there’s a moment where [the piano] falls over and the water spills out. Then it sets itself on fire.” The flames heat up to 300 degrees, which means everything around it is at risk of melting or burning – which requires an elaborate rain “curtain” to keep in check. “So, yeah, it’s been challenging,” English adds.
Lady Gaga’s flaming cannons
For her Chromatica Ball stadium tour that kicked off this summer, Lady Gaga contrasted a brutalist-architecture set design inspired by 1920s German expressionism with non-stop explosions. Her “cold, very stark feel” in the set created a gray landscape that allowed her longtime production designer, LeRoy Bennett, to go crazy with orange-and-yellow pyro, aided by Rammstein’s special-effects company, FFP. (The flaming cannons are technically known in the special-effects industry as “liquid flame giga,” or LFGs.) “We’ve always had some pyro here and there, but never really went full-on big metal or Rammstein-style flames,” Bennett says. “She loves those kinds of effects. She’s a big fan of fire and the power and drama of it.”
Since the business of Christmas music is growing so fast – it occupies five of the top 10 places on the Billboard Hot 100 this week – we are re-presenting some of our stories from Christmas past. This piece, about the role streaming playlists play in this growing sector, originally ran last year
If you search “Christmas 2021” on Spotify, the top result will be a massive playlist—124 tracks and six hours long—that opens with Queen’s “Thank God It’s Christmas,” then dips into a range of old and new holiday songs from Bing Crosby, Katy Perry, Ella Fitzgerald, Kacey Musgraves and others before landing on “I Want You Home (#heimnachten),” a track from last year by European relative unknowns Bowie & Pyrah. It’s not user-generated. Rather, it’s carefully curated by Universal Music Group, using “data, insight, analytics,” according to Mike Biggane, UMG’s executive vp music strategy and tactics.
“Our hope is somebody’s going to discover our playlists by the holidays, put it on and just let it go,” he says. “They won’t have the urge to change.”
The holiday-music streaming season, which unofficially begins the day after Halloween, is big business for labels. Last year, Universal’s more than 500 holiday playlists, created by 200 curators in 67 countries, generated over 120 million streams from Nov. 1 to Dec. 21, according to Biggane. In the CD era, some 20 years ago, labels’ fourth-quarter strategies centered on turning superstar releases into stocking stuffers. Now that streaming accounts for 83% of industry revenue, as of 2020, however, holiday-music clicks are a bigger focus of fourth-quarter plans. Holiday music generated $177 million for the U.S. music industry in 2018, Billboard estimates.
Vinnie Freda, a former Warner and Universal digital music executive, isn’t surprised by UMG’s six-hour playlist since holiday music is often a lean back and listen experience. “People put that stuff on repeat,” he says, adding that it’s a win when listener can essentially set it and forget it, that’s a win. “Generally, Christmas music is fungible: ‘If I can get you to listen to this thing for the next six hours, that means you’re not listening to Sony Music.’”
Because the holiday-music streaming numbers are so massive, labels now have year-round project teams and staff to promote catalog evergreens, from the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas to Bing Crosby’s Christmas Classics to Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift to You. They also encourage contemporary stars to record new holiday albums, like Dolly Parton’s A Holly Dolly Christmas last year or Kelly Clarkson’s recent When Christmas Comes Around, whose “Christmas Isn’t Canceled (Just You)” went viral and generated 1.5 million Spotify plays and 1.2 million YouTube views by early December.
Ariana Grande performs “Last Christmas” and “Santa Tell Me” during the taping of the Disney Parks “Frozen Christmas Celebration” TV Special in the Magic Kingdom Park at the Walt Disney World Resort on Dec. 9, 2014 in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
Mark Ashman/Disney Parks via GI
Even if a recent recording gets lost amid the annual avalanche of holiday content, its use in a Christmas movie or TV special could promote streaming for years to come. Amazon Music has noticed recent streaming spikes for Faith Hill’s “Where Are You Christmas,” from the 2000 soundtrack to the Jim Carrey movie Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, as well as Ariana Grande’s 2014 single “Santa Tell Me.” “Holiday music can grow,” says Karen Pettyjohn, Amazon Music’s senior music curator. While new releases are expected to deliver instant hits, “that same expectation doesn’t apply here, because it’s about nostalgia and memory.”
In the few days before Christmas 2020, Alexa requests for festive songs on playlists like Merry Mix totaled more than 15 million per day. “People use it to soundtrack things, like a party or gingerbread-house making,” says Pettyjohn. “It’s long listening and it’s lean-back listening.” Adds Universal’s Biggane: “Voice is a major driver of streams for us, and our artists understand what a huge opportunity holiday music is for them.”
Craft Recordings, the catalog label owned by Concord Recorded Music, doesn’t have to do much to market its biggest holiday release, the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s classic A Charlie Brown Christmas. According to Concord’s vp streaming Andrew Woloz, however, label reps try to ensure Guaraldi (and Craft’s other holiday songs), wind up on important streaming playlists. Sometimes that’s as simple as a label-generated playlist, like Jazz Christmas. It can also be a matter of finding the right playlist title to activate in response to a keyword in a common Alexa request. “People tend to search what they want to hear thematically. They drink hot chocolate, they sit by the fire, they’re wearing sweaters,” says Woloz. “You hone in on those words and build in those schematics.
“Holiday is such an evergreen genre, so catalog will take up so much of the real estate,” he adds. “New songs, even if they don’t hit an algorithm this year, maybe they’ll hit a wave in years to come. Artists have to keep feeding the content machine.”
Labels tend the content machine as well. Concord’s Craft, for example, pitches holiday music to music-streaming products like workout giant Peloton, which has a roster of holiday-themed classes and a new Holiday Collection playlist; Sony studies voice-activated streaming requests, looking at how to combine music with popular Alexa games or place strategic Amazon Music advertisements. And every label focuses on pitching holiday songs to top playlists, from Spotify’s Christmas Classics, which has 2.3 million likes, or Amazon Music’s Merry Mix, which hit the streaming service’s list of the top 10 playlists after launching in November.
Sony Music’s holiday-music project team is 10-15 employees, drawn from the company’s content, A&R, marketing and international departments. Unlike the project teams that focus on Valentine’s Day and Halloween, the holiday-music team works year-round, with one exception. “They have January off,” says Lyn Koppe, executive vp global catalog for the label’s catalog division, Legacy Recordings. “It’s not like on Halloween, suddenly we say, ‘We better start thinking about Christmas!’ We think about Christmas all year. We gather data and learn from it and experiment.”
Read more about the Booming Business of Christmas Music here.
Sameen Singh was named chief strategy officer & chief digital officer at 88rising, reporting to CEO and founder Sean Miyashiro out of Los Angeles. Singh will lead global strategy, negotiate partnerships, further digital business development and shepherd inorganic growth in the role. He will also lead the development and implementation of strategic initiatives and commercial innovation. Singh comes to 88rising from Create Music Group, where he served as chief strategy officer for two years. He can be reached at sameen@88rising.com.
Capitol Music Group (CMG) has promoted six employees in its marketing departments. They are: Jessica Eason to vp of marketing for Capitol Records; Zoe Gillespie to vp of brand partnerships and strategy for CMG; Kate Haffenden to vp of international marketing for CMG; Chris Kershaw to vp of marketing for Capitol Records; Byron Miller to vp of commercial marketing, streaming strategy (urban) for CMG; and Alex Williams to vp of gaming strategy & business development for CMG. Eason can be reached at jessica.eason@umusic.com, Gillespie can be reached at zoe.gillespie@umusic.com, Haffenden can be reached at kate.haffenden@umusic.com, Kershaw can be reached at chris.kershaw@umusic.com, Miller can be reached at byron.miller@umusic.com and Williams can be reached at alex.williams5@umusic.com.
Kurt Deutsch was named senior vp at Warner Music Entertainment & Theatrical Ventures, a newly created role. Deutsch will oversee the development of new theatrical productions and investments while continuing to be a connector with songwriters, artists and catalogs via collaborations with Warner Chappell Music and the various Warner Music Group (WMG) labels. He will continue to work closely with songwriters he has signed or re-signed to Warner Chappell, including Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty, Joe Iconis, Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss, Alan Menken, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Eddie Perfect and Shaina Taub. Deutsch, who has been with WMG since 2017, will continue to be based in New York and report to Warner Music Entertainment (WME) president Charles Cohen. The theatrical music label he founded, Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight, will continue as part of WMG’s portfolio of labels.
Universal Music Group (UMG) hired Alvaro Galbete-Velilla as senior vp of new business, a new role that will see him develop opportunities in the Web3 and metaverse sectors as well as other emerging areas of digital development for the label. He joins the company from SoundCloud, where he was director of business development. UMG also promoted Kristen Bender to senior vp of digital innovation strategy & business development; she will continue to play an important role in implementing digital business partnerships with UMG operating units and directing UMG’s engagement with entrepreneurs worldwide. Her previous title was senior vp of business development & strategy. Both executives are based in Los Angeles.
Rachel Chernoff was named senior vp of data science & analytics at Sony Music Entertainment (SME), a newly created role; she was previously senior vp of partner development at the company. Based in New York, Chernoff will lead a newly formed team that brings together the global digital business (GDB) group’s strategic analytics and data science functions to continue growing SME’s data capabilities across the globe. Chernoff will work in partnership with the SME partner development, global product and sales & analytics teams to enhance and develop analytic- and science-based tools, techniques and expertise supporting the needs of Sony Music’s labels and businesses around the world. She will also lead the evolution of SME’s data capabilities with external partners globally. She reports to Dennis Kooker, president of global digital business at SME.
BMG appointed Pierrot Raschdorff as senior director of global diversity, equity and inclusion out of Berlin. In the role, Raschdorff will be responsible for developing and accelerating BMG’s global DE&I goals, working with international teams across the company’s 12 core music markets. He joins from Penguin Random House — also a division of BMG’s parent company Bertelsmann — in Germany.
Beau Benton was promoted to senior vp of media & operations at Republic Records. Benton, who will oversee operations for Republic in Los Angeles in the new role alongside co-president Wendy Goldstein, will continue handling media strategy and orchestrating campaigns for Republic artists. He will also serve as the liaison for internal Los Angeles team communication overall.
Karl Skoog joined Amuse as CMO, tasking him with leading the Swedish music company’s marketing and communications teams with a focus on global growth. Skoog was previously CMO at both Fotografiska and NGO The Swedish Brain Foundation. He has also worked at Tele2 and EMI Music Publishing. Skoog can be reached at karl@amuse.io.
Range Media Partners hired Jared Cotter as vp of A&R and Federico Morris as director of A&R. Both will join vp of A&R Sam Drake in supporting Range Music’s management talent, label joint venture with Capitol Music Group/Virgin Music & Artist Label Services and Range Music Publishing. Colter arrives from his multi-faceted entertainment company The Heavy Group. He will continue to manage Bazzi and co-manage clients Rose Betts, Ben Kessler, Boston & Pat, Veyah and Jay Sean with Jeremy Skaller while working to expand Range’s roster of artists on the label side. Morris most recently served as publishing A&R and manager at Electric Feel Entertainment. Cotter can be reached at jcotter@rangemp.com and Morris can be reached at fmorris@rangemp.com.
PPL named Titania Altius as head of member services and Dan Millington as senior vp/head of client services. Altius will oversee the delivery of the member services team’s operational activity and build and foster productive working relationships with PPL’s key stakeholders and industry partners around the world to develop the organization’s neighboring rights collections and distribution service. Millington will lead PPL’s member relationship management and recruitment to its international collections service. Both Altius and Millington will report to chief membership & people officer Kate Reilly. Altius can be reached at titania.altius@ppluk.com and Millington can be reached at daniel.millington@ppluk.com.
Naomi Asher was named vp of songwriter services and neighbouring rights at Sony Music Publishing UK. In her new role, Asher will be the go-to contact for SMP UK’s catalog songwriters and clients and will be tasked with expanding opportunities and driving success for their songs both locally and internationally. She will also continue overseeing the company’s neighbouring rights division. She will remain in the company’s London office, reporting to SMP UK co-managing directors David Ventura and Tim Major.
Rhea Ghosh was promoted to chief marketing officer at copyright protection service Cosynd, where she will lead all marketing and communications initiatives and consumer brand strategy. She will also head up Cosynd’s advocacy efforts with its partner network, which includes CD Baby, A2IM, the Mechanical Licensing Collective, Repost by SoundCloud, Symphonic Distribution, BookBaby, DiscMakers, AdRev, Soundrop and BeatStars. She joined the company in 2020. Ghosh can be reached at rhea.ghosh@cosynd.com.
Artist manager Keith Hagan joined MNRK Music Group, bringing his clients The Afghan Whigs, Robert Finley, Cymande, Ondara, The Whitmore Sisters and The Mastersons to the company. Hagan will be based in New York, reporting to MNRK president & CEO Chris Taylor. He most recently founded and led Skylark Artist Management. Hagan can be reached at khagan@mnrk.com.
Kate Loesch was named senior director of creative at Kobalt. The Los Angeles-based executive will sign artists and writers and with the global creative roster at Kobalt. She arrives at the company from Capitol Records, where she served as director of A&R.
CAA promoted Kate Arenson and Ron Jordan to agents in the music touring department. Jordan will continue working with ARDN, Jean Deaux and tobi lou, among others. (via THR)
Glenn Briffa was named CFO of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, effective immediately; he’s served as interim CFO since July. His responsibilities include overseeing the organization’s financial, information technology and office administration functions.
Arno Van Berkel was appointed managing director at Fruits Music, a music and tech company specializing in music playlist promotion. He started his new role on Jan. 23. Van Berkel — who joins Fruits Music from Warner Chappell Music, Benelux, where he served as managing director for 15 years — will be based at the company’s headquarters in Oosterhout, Netherlands and report to Fruits Music founder & CEO Stef Van Vugt.
Centricity Music hired three new employees: Tyler Osswald as digital marketing manager, Sarah Shinn as marketing manager of radio and Camy McCardle as senior manager of finance/business affairs.
Violinist/composer Curtis Stewart has been named artistic director at the American Composers Orchestra (ACO), effective immediately. Stewart will overlap with outgoing artistic director Derek Bermel, who is concluding his 10-year tenure but will remain on ACO’s board of directors. In the position, Stewart will be tasked with conceiving, curating, selecting and programming ACO performances, readings, recordings and other programs. He is also responsible for creating programming that expresses the ACO vision, developing and maintaining relationships with individual and institutional artistic partners and setting the artistic strategy for the organization in partnership with ACO president Melissa Ngan. He will additionally work with ACO director of artist equity Garrett McQueen to offer artistic oversight to the organization’s EarShot composer advancement initiatives. Stewart can be reached at curtis@americancomposers.org.
Full Coverage Communications named Melissa O’Toole as director and Avery Robinson as senior publicist in Los Angeles. O’Toole has worked at companies including 42West, Scoop Marketing and ID PR along with several talent agencies and record labels. Robinson joins from BECK Media & Marketing. The company also announced the signing of several new clients, including Adam Lambert, Alicia Keys, Kid Harpoon, The Kid LAROI, Little big Town, Michael Buble, Ozuna and TXT.
Songwriters have something to celebrate this holiday season. Though it seemed rulings on royalty rates for the period of 2018-2022 (Phonorecords III) and 2023-2027 (Phonorecords IV) would not receive final judgement by the Copyright Royalty Board in time for Christmas, there is finally clarity about at least one type of royalty. The board on Friday (Dec. 16) accepted a proposed settlement to hike the royalty rate for U.S. mechanicals for physical products (like vinyl records, CDs, cassettes), permanent downloads, ringtones and music bundles.
Taking effect on Jan. 1, 2023, as part of Phonorecords IV, songwriters will earn 12 cents per track or 2.31 cents per minute of playing time or fraction thereof, whichever amount is larger for physical products and permanent downloads. This will also include inflation-based adjustments for subsequent years of the rate period, a major change for composers who have historically been locked into stagnant penny rates for sales, despite the increasing cost of living. Ringtones will remain at the same rate as they were previously, and the money earned for each element of a music bundle will be decided according to the rates for that element.
The new ruling today approves what is known as “Settlement 2,” which was formed by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI), as well as the major music companies: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group earlier this year.
As the name of the settlement implies, there was one that preceded it. In 2021, the same parties proposed “Settlement 1” which would have upheld the long-standing 9.1 cent penny rate for physical goods and permanent downloads. That proposed settlement was sent to the Copyright Royalty Board judges for approval last year, but it triggered backlash among some in the independent writer community.
The 9.1 cent rate has been in effect since 2006 and has not risen with inflation. George Johnson, an independent songwriter who often pushes back against settlements at the Copyright Royalty Board in favor of higher rates, and other interested parties objected to continuing this 9.1 cent rate for another five year period. They also noted other issues with Settlement 1, like the lack of adjustments for inflation, and questioned a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the major labels and the NMPA, which could have provided waivers on late fees the U.S. Copyright law allows when payment deadlines are missed.
In response to concerns, The CRB judges concluded the proposed settlement did not provide a reasonable basis for setting statutory rates and terms as stated in proposed settlement 1.
For many years, the CRB rate proceedings have primarily focused on achieving fair compensation for streaming rates. In 2021, audio digital services paid out about $1.3 billion to publishers and songwriters, according to data from the Mechanical Licensing Collective.
While sales formats comprise roughly 15% of the recorded music market, the NMPA estimates those formats produce just 5% of U.S. publishing royalties. If streaming continues to grow at its current pace, some say that within three years these sales formats that are covered by the subpart B configurations might only account for 1% of publishing royalties.
The NMPA has also pointed out in the past that rate litigation is expensive — often in the tens of millions of dollars — as a reason why they have focused on fighting for high streaming rates rather than what formats are covered by subpart B, noting that the cost of litigation could end up equaling or outweighing whatever additional money a higher subpart B hike could achieve.
In Friday’s ruling, however, the court notes that the royalties generated by vinyl, CDs, downloads and other formats covered in subpart B “should not be treated as de minimis, or as a ‘throw away’ negotiating chip to encourage better terms for streaming configurations.” They also noted the improvements to Settlement 2 as “distinguishable” from the first proposed settlement.
The event marks the biggest rate increase for songwriters for physical goods and permanent downloads in almost two decades.
Now, just one final step remains: the register of copyrights has to check and make sure this is compliant with the copyright statute, and if approved — which is typical — this will go into effect at the top of the year. However, participating parties also have 30 days to file an appeal to the CRB’s determination.
There are few more sacred spaces in the music world than the recording studio, and fewer still that evoke the kind of emotional reaction that Abbey Road Studios in London does. Inextricably linked with The Beatles, the studios have been the recording home for the likes of Pink Floyd, Aretha Franklin, Buddy Holly, Radiohead, Frank Ocean and Adele and has been one of the most storied places in music history since its inception in 1931.
Now, 90 years after Abbey Road first opened, Universal Music Group’s Mercury Studios is releasing If These Walls Could Sing, out today (Dec. 16) on Disney+. Directed by Paul McCartney’s daughter Mary McCartney, the documentary is a love letter to the studio that helped birth one of the greatest albums of all time and nurtured one of the most significant acts in music history. The release of the documentary helps earn Mercury CEO and co-president Alice Webb the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
Here, Webb discusses the making of the film, her three-year tenure atop the UMG-owned studio and the evolution and explosion of music documentaries over the past several years, with artists seemingly releasing a companion documentary to each major new album. “Much has changed in how fans consume content over the past few years that has enabled us to elevate the medium of music documentaries,” she says. “I think there is a diversity in the documentaries being made more now than ever before — from issues-led projects to ones that are easily consumable but offer great insight and information.”
This week, Mercury Studios released If These Walls Could Sing, the Abbey Road Studios documentary directed by Mary McCartney. What key decision did you make to help see this come to fruition?
Every decision starts with the story, and with this one we had a hefty responsibility to do it justice. Recruiting Mary McCartney, who is the heart of this film, was an incredibly easy decision to make given her unique perspective having grown up at Abbey Road. She is an amazing talent and as this was her feature directorial debut, our job was to build the best team to support her vision and the story of this magical place. If These Walls Could Sing is the result of a myriad of considered decisions — every film is a carefully crafted work of art and there’s no cookie cutter approach to breathing life into it. In the end, I think the key consideration is, are we doing right by the story, the artists and the fans around the world?
How did this project come together?
This was a story that had to be told and a project that had been gestating for several years, in several different incarnations, before I became involved. So, it was about putting the pieces together in the right way. My co-president, Marc Robinson, along with John Battsek and Ventureland, were key to building the foundation, along with Mary at the helm. When all of those elements came together, we felt confident to greenlight the feature.
What makes this topic in particular so important, both in general and for Mercury?
Abbey Road Studios is like nowhere else on earth. The walls rattle with stories; the magic of what was created within the studios still lingers all these years later. This year marked the 90th year of Abbey Road Studios. Looking back at the roster of artists including The Beatles, Celeste, Depeche Mode, along with scores such as Star Wars, was incredibly special; the music that was made there still connects with fans everywhere.
Part of the promise of the studios is the unconditional freedom provided to artists to find their sound — to be their unvarnished authentic selves. Doing justice to the artists, technicians and producers who’ve accomplished their best work at Abbey Road Studios is both an honor and a pressure that we felt keenly. With Mary’s vision and judging by the overwhelming support from luminaries such as Paul McCartney, Elton John, Roger Waters, Ringo Starr and others who attended the premiere this week, I think we may have pulled it off.
This film is being released with Disney+. How do you choose which distributor to go with, and which films see a theatrical release vs. a streaming one?
Your films are a bit like your children. Heaven knows some of them take as long to create as children do growing up. For that reason, you want these projects to go to the best home, which is why we couldn’t be prouder to have Disney+ as our partner for If These Walls Could Sing. In our experience Disney+ cares about artists, creators and storytelling — which is very much in line with everything we do at Mercury. And of course Disney+ has a massive global footprint. As soon as they knew we were making the film, they wanted it. They made it clear it mattered to them, just as it matters to us. That’s a persuasive combination, which as a filmmaker is what you hope to find in your distributor: someone who is as passionate about your film as you are and who will treat it like they made it themselves.
You’ve been running Mercury for three years now. Which projects have stood out for you that you’ve worked on during that time?
If These Walls Could Sing is an obvious highlight for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, but so is My Life As A Rolling Stone, the premium limited series we produced this year. It was an intimate, first-hand account of life as a Rolling Stone by Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie and was special to me because I don’t think anyone thought there was anything left to say about these titans of music. But we knew different, and our faith was rewarded with four captivating films that were enjoyed by audiences in 96 countries. At the other end of the spectrum, I’m extremely proud of Mars, the short film we made with Yungblud. It’s about the life of Charlie, a transgender teenager growing up in the north of England. Not only was it a heartwarming film about self-acceptance and youth, but we made sure the story was told — on and off screen — by people whose lived experiences were LGBTQI+. We were dedicated to and deliberate about authenticity and although there were challenges, I wouldn’t change anything. Mercury Studios is driven by our values, and we’re proud to wear them on our sleeves, in the stories we tell and the way we make our films.
There seems to have been an explosion in artist documentaries in recent years, often produced by and in conjunction with the artists themselves. How has the music doc world changed during your career?
I think the fact that music documentaries have always been special is a reflection of the timelessness of music stories. Some of the best directors of our lifetime have committed their passions to this medium. Documentaries have always been a popular format to tell stories; there’s a rich history of storytelling from VH1s Behind the Music to our own series, Classic Albums, and so much more. Much has changed in how fans consume content over the past few years that has enabled us to elevate the medium of music documentaries. I think there is a diversity in the documentaries being made more now than ever before — from issues-led projects to ones that are easily consumable but offer great insight and information.
Great examples are our recent film, Shania: Not Just a Girl on Netflix and Interscope Films’ Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me on Apple+. There’s a level of honesty and authenticity in music documentaries that resonates with audiences. We’ve also been able to indulge in huge feasts of musical testimony with the likes of Amy, The Defiant Ones, Get Back, Moonage Daydream, in recent times. I’m excited to see how documentary projects continue to evolve.
What are your dream music projects with Mercury?
It’s endless. Mercury Studios’ core has very much been unscripted productions, but that’s starting to change. We’ve just announced our scripted co-production with Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders, SAS: Rogue Heroes) and Kudos (Broadchurch, Utopia, Spooks) which will bring This Town to our screens in 2024, and you can expect to see more scripted projects from us soon. Just as you can expect to see more premium audio projects, like our recent Audible limited series Crush Hour. It’s jam packed with characters, story, original new music, and is guaranteed to put a smile on your face. I’d say that’s definitely a dream project.
When Taylor Swift sells the remaining 170,000 tickets for her 52-date Eras tour later this month, the U.S. trek will have generated $591 million in sales, Billboard estimates. The average ticket price is $215, according to concert business sources.
This total will make Swift the highest-grossing female touring artist of all time, according to the Billboard Boxscore chart, topping current title holder Madonna whose Sticky & Sweet Tour (of 2008 and 2009) currently holds the No. 1 slot with a gross of $407 million. Swift’s U.S. tour will also put her in fourth place on the all-time Top Tours chart, which is currently led by Ed Sheeran, whose 2017-2019 Divide shows grossed a total of $776.2 million.
Normally with a tour of this scale, artists share some revenue with a promoter and an agent. In this case, Swift will presumably keep a higher share of revenue, because she’s not represented by one of the major booking agencies and because independent promoter Louis Messina is booking the entire tour and providing some of the services an agency normally would.
Other companies involved in the tour won’t do as well as they normally do, either. Ticketmaster and SeatGeek, which handled sales for the tour, normally allow ticket buyers to sell tickets on their secondary markets and take a percentage of that revenue. (Ticketmaster handled sales for 47 shows, while SeatGeek sold seats for the remaining five.) But Swift would not allow the companies who handled primary ticket sales to also sell secondary market tickets. As well, Swift asked Ticketmaster to help make sure tickets went to fans, rather than scalpers, and the company says it used its Verified Fan technology to reduce the number of tickets on resale sites by 75%.
That’s an expensive decision. Ticketmaster makes a much higher margin on resale tickets than primary tickets, since it keeps all of the fees it charges — typically 10% of the sale price for the seller and another 20% for the buyer. The company still charges a 25% service fee for all primary ticket sales. However, it only keeps a small percentage of that money, $3.50 to $5 per ticket, which for this tour will come out to about $7.6 million to $10.8 million. The rest of the fees normally go to venues and promoters. (Ticketmaster, like most ticketing companies, also charges 2.75% for credit card processing, of which it keeps about 10% and pays the rest to credit card companies. The Eras tour generated approximately $13.8 million in these fees, Billboard estimates.) All told, by the time Ticketmaster sells the remaining 170,000 tickets, the company’s total revenue will add up to between $9 million and $12.9 million.
Ticketmaster’s efforts to fight scalpers means that relatively few tickets wound up on the secondary market – but the ones that did are expensive. A month after the presale, on Dec. 14, the average resale ticket price was $1,425, according to TiqIQ, which tracks secondary ticket sales across multiple marketplaces.
TiqIQ estimates that about 1,100 resale tickets are available per show, out of an average of about 50,000. At an average price of $1,425, that would work out to about $1.6 million worth of tickets per show on the secondary market. Assuming that Ticketmaster would have captured about 15%–20% of those purchases, based on 2018 estimates by the United States Government Accountability Office, that means that the company could have brought in an additional $12.5 million to $16.4 million in revenue, of which Ticketmaster would have kept $3.8 million to $5 million in fees, if Swift had allowed the company to sell tickets on its own secondary market.
SeatGeek, which has a 12% share of the secondary market according to its April earnings report, agreed to turn off resale for the five shows it ticketed on the tour, but not the 47 shows sold by Ticketmaster. (Ticketmaster blocked secondary sales for the SeatGeek shows.) That means SeatGeek could make about $9 million from the Ticketmaster shows it lists on its secondary market, although it missed out on about $960,000 in revenue for not allowing secondary sales on the five shows for which it initially sold tickets.
Working with Swift has benefits beyond the financial, of course. In addition to the prestige of working with an artist of that stature — and enduring the embarrassment of the flubs around the Nov. 15 presale — Ticketmaster will presumably see an increase in app downloads and usage of its digital ticket platform, which has been a priority for the company.
While the downfall of FTX and the Crypto Winter that saw NFT sales drop 90% dominated Web3 headlines this year, for many creators there was a bigger issue at play. Their royalties have been under attack, undermining a central promise of Web3 as a sustainable model for musicians.
Creator royalties on NFTs ensure that artists get paid a cut of revenue every time their work is sold on a secondary market. As the music NFT market has matured since multi-million dollar sales attracted widespread attention, these royalties have been a central part of the Web3 proposition — presenting musicians with a possible alternative to the major label system and allowing them to generate meaningful revenue over the long term. Only now, that promise is being pulled from under them as several new NFT platforms effectively or explicitly cut out creator royalties — even though it was a core part of the Web3 promise when they originally listed their NFTs for sale — in an aggressive bid for market share.
Even OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, briefly considered changing its policy before a deafening backlash from artists forced the company to double down on its commitment to royalties. OpenSea also introduced an “enforcement tool” allowing artists to blacklist rival marketplaces that don’t honor creator royalties. It’s a small win for creators although some have called it a “bandaid” as many growing platforms including Blur, Magic Eden, LooksRare and Sudoswap still do not enforce royalties by default. In some cases it’s a hardline policy, in others the royalty is “optional” allowing traders to opt out of paying the artist when they sell an NFT. Most traders opt out, making the effective royalty rate close to zero.
Creator royalties are the beating heart of Web3 and the primary reason why artists flocked to NFTs in the first place. “Coming from the music world, the promise of being able to earn royalties in perpetuity without the interference of middlemen, was something I could only dream about,” says Illa Da Producer, a 12-time platinum-certified music producer credited on Eminem’s “Killshot” and community lead at Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club. The artist can choose their own royalty rate — typically 2.5% to 10% — and they are lucrative, earning more than $1 billion for creators on OpenSea in 2022 alone.
But there’s a problem. These royalties are not coded directly into the NFTs themselves. They were introduced by marketplaces like OpenSea, originally to attract artists to the space, which means they can be removed just as quickly.
None of this was an issue during the bull-run where cartoon animal JPEGs sold for over a million dollars a piece. Collectors were flush with crypto, happy to pay the artist royalty whenever they made a winning trade. But now the bubble has popped. The price of Ethereum has dropped by 75% and NFT volume is down 90% from the highs in January. NFT platforms are left fighting for market share in a shrinking economy and traders are trying to save as much money as possible.
In a desperate bid to attract users, rival marketplaces like X2Y2 effectively cut out creator royalties by making them “optional” — traders can choose not to pay the artist royalty when they sell their NFTs, therefore pocketing more money from each sale. Other platforms including Blur, LooksRare, Sudoswap and Magic Eden followed a similarly aggressive policy.
Creators were blunt in their criticism. “In many ways, it amounts to theft by the marketplace,” says Jeff Nicholas — founder of WRVPSound, a collection of 9,999 AI music NFTs and the biggest Web3 music project ever by volume at 6,115 ETH (~$7.15 million at current prices) traded, “If a project sets royalties in their terms of service and those royalties are not enforced.”
Nevertheless, it worked. Traders abandoned OpenSea in droves. The platform’s market share dropped from 80% earlier in the year down to 45% in November according to crypto research company Messari. As a result, OpenSea claims that more than $1 million of creator royalties was effectively bypassed in the first week of November alone. At risk of losing even more market share, OpenSea was forced to act quickly, launching a tool that allows artists to blacklist those rival marketplaces.
But there’s a catch. The tool only works for new NFTs. It would not work for the thousands of existing NFTs and projects. The future of royalties on these collections — including the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Doodles and Azuki, was left wide open. In a blog post, OpenSea put all options on the table, including the potential of optional royalties.
The backlash from artists was fierce. “The message to trading platforms like OpenSea is this,” says Gino the Ghost — a Grammy winning producer and founder of Web3 music project Blocktones — “You either stand firm to support the ethos of of Web3 as the creative revolution or you lose the trust and business of the very creatives that make you successful in the first place.”
Many artists spoke out about their fear of losing their livelihood if OpenSea followed through. “I am a transgender teen that escaped an abusive household through the power of NFTs,” wrote Fewocious — a 19 year old digital artist who’s built a massive following in Web3 — in a statement on Twitter. “And there are probably so many more artists, many of whom may not be as fortunate as me, who live off their artist royalties … Please reconsider removing royalties.”
Fewocious’ statement quickly spread across social media, garnering retweets from Snoop Dogg (“Power to tha artists”) and prompting further discussion from industry execs like Lady Gaga’s former manager Troy Carter, “Fucking over creators is very Web2.”
Founders in the space also warned that it would threaten the future of NFT companies, given that many projects rely on royalties to fund their business operations. “None of the top NFT projects you see would be where they are without them,” says Betty — founder of Deadfellaz, an NFT project that partnered with Steve Aoki in October for a Halloween merch drop and has generated more than $37 million in total volume since launching in 2021. “It’s why most of us flocked to this industry and it’s what platforms like Opensea were built on.”
After engaging with the community in several heated public debates, OpenSea clarified its position and promised to enforce creator royalties on all existing collections going forward. Speaking to Billboard, OpenSea admits they could have communicated better during this time. “We own that,” says Shiva Rajaraman, vp of product. However, he affirms that OpenSea has always stood behind artists and, while all options were discussed internally, OpenSea never truly wanted to cut out creators. “Honestly, the idea of just getting rid of creator fees made no sense.” Instead, OpenSea wants to put the power in the hands of creators, he explains. “We should respect, as platforms, that choice that is made [by creators], rather than make that variable.”
Meanwhile, the new on-chain enforcement tool — which Rajaraman describes as a “healthy tension against other marketplaces” — is beginning to work. At least one rival marketplace X2Y2 has backed down and conceded that it will also enforce royalties on all existing collections. OpenSea has since handed over ownership and control of the tool to a collective of several NFT platforms so that the community can be more involved in how it develops.
Artists have mostly responded positively. “This is actually a really good start to enforcing royalties,” says Nicholas. And it’s proof that artists can still make themselves heard, force change and define their terms in the nascent Web3 space. However, he also admits that this solution might just be a “bandaid.” Despite the progress made by artists in the last month, the final decision still appears to be in the hands of the marketplaces.
Some creators are therefore fighting for a complete change to the system. “[We need] a creator focussed and led solution,” says Deadfellaz’s Betty. “We’ve needed to come together for a long time … and work on solutions outside of centralized marketplaces.”
In the meantime, artists and OpenSea do agree that creator royalties should be enshrined as a social and cultural rule, even if they are not always honored by some marketplaces. “If we don’t,” says Nicholas. “Web3 runs the risk of going the same way every other technical innovation has over the last 20-plus years and squeezing the artists and creators yet again.”
LONDON — As the world’s first purpose-built recording complex, Abbey Road Studios has a long and storied history of pioneering technological innovation.
Opened in 1931, No. 3 Abbey Road is indelibly associated with The Beatles, who recorded most of their catalog there and named their 1969 album after the tree-lined road in London where the studios are located. The first ever stereo music recording also happened there, in 1934, and artificial double tracking was invented in the studios three decades later. Pink Floyd, Aretha Franklin, Amy Winehouse and Adele have laid down tracks at Abbey Road, which has also recorded movie scores for blockbusters such as Return of the Jedi, Raiders of The Lost Ark and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Today, the studios remain a popular destination for recording artists, composers and orchestras, and thousands of tourists make the pilgrimage to the English Heritage-listed site every year to recreate the image of John, Paul, George and Ringo striding on the nearby pedestrian crossing, immortalized on the Abbey Road album cover.
Abbey Road’s illustrious history is profiled in a new documentary, If These Walls Could Sing, directed by Paul McCartney’s daughter Mary McCartney, which premiered globally on Disney+ on Friday (Dec. 16).
But it’s no longer only musicians making noise inside the famous facility.
Since being acquired by Universal Music Group in 2012 as part of its £1.2 billion (then equivalent to $1.9 billion) deal for EMI, a steady flow of tech entrepreneurs, researchers and developers have also been interfacing with Abbey Road, enticed less by its cutting-edge recording facilities than by its burgeoning success as a technology hub through its Abbey Road Red program.
Launched in 2015 and billed by the studio as Europe’s first music-focused technology incubator, Abbey Road Red — named after the studios’ REDD mixing consoles used by The Beatles — is now building momentum in the hyper competitive music tech space. In February, Apple acquired London-based AI Music, which was part of Abbey Road Red’s 2017 intake, for an undisclosed sum.
Other Red alumni include music video licensing platform Lickd, which has signed deals with Universal, Warner Music Group and Merlin to provide their catalogs to online content creators — and last year secured around $7 million in funding with Warner Music and Fortnite creator Epic Games among the investors.
In March, AI-augmented adaptive music platform LifeScore Music, which was part of Abbey Road Red’s 2019 cohort, raised £11 million ($14 million) in Series A funding, with Warner again providing financial backing. Another graduate of the program, London-based Audoo, which tracks music played across public performance locations, counts among its investors ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus and Paul McCartney’s MPL Group.
Of the 19 businesses that have been enrolled on the incubator so far, two have folded while 17 have raised over $80 million among them. Collectively, the 17 companies are valued at more than $325 million based on their investment rounds, says Abbey Road Studios.
At the time UMG took over the facility, Abbey Road had been losing money for years. Like many other prestige recording studios, it was finding its business under threat from bedroom producers and micro-studios able to create professional-sounding songs at a fraction of the cost.
That prompted its new owners to begin diversifying the studio business to attract a wider range of clients. In 2017, UMG opened two smaller, less-expensive-to-hire studios, the Gatehouse and the Front Room. Abbey Road Institute, a specialist music production school, opened the same year as Red. In addition to running a start-up incubator program, Red is carrying out research around immersive spatial audio listening.
Isabel Garvey, managing director of Abbey Road Studios, says the Red program has transformed how the facility is perceived by executives both inside and outside the music business. It’s “not just a room for hire,” she says.
The Beatles pose outside Abbey Road Studios in London.
Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/GI
“There’s a wonderful halo effect from Red in terms of being at the forefront of technology and being able to share that with the artists in the studios and share that with our parent company,” says Garvey.
Like other tech incubators, Abbey Road Red provides early-stage companies with access to the studio’s experts and facilities, including mentorship advice around business development, brand partnerships, securing finance and commercial strategy. It also enables start-ups to tap into UMG’s global network and consult with senior management and label execs, as well as with other major and independent labels and publishers.
In return, Universal receives a 2% equity stake in each business it backs and a participation right to invest in the company’s future financing rounds. By comparison, Y Combinator, a successful Silicon Valley start-up accelerator that gave early backing to Airbnb, Dropbox and Twitch, invests $500,000 in every company that enrolls in its three-month program in return for 7% equity. LA-based TechStars’ music tech accelerator program, which counts Warner Music, Sony Music Entertainment and Concord among its partners, offers start-ups up to $120,000 of investment for 6% equity.
James Shannon, co-founder of metaverse platform XONE, which joined the Red program in July, says the incubator’s close integration with the world’s biggest music company distinguishes it from other accelerators and provides a “fast-track towards getting a product into market.”
Neither UMG nor Abbey Road Studios gives start-ups any capital investment as part of the incubation process, although Garvey says it is an idea under consideration to grow the division.
Abbey Road Red currently takes on between four and eight businesses each year with each intake lasting six months. Last month, DAACI, a tool that uses AI to assist composers, became the 19th start-up to join Red. Start-ups can apply to Abbey Road for consideration, although the majority are scouted through the team’s technology network and connections.
“We set out to find the best quality start-ups that bring value back to the music industry, whether that’s [a platform] that helps artists get paid or new technology that empowers them to create,” says Karim Fanous, innovation manager at Abbey Road Red.
Following Abbey Road Red’s lead, other music companies, as well as UMG, have ramped up their presence in the tech incubator space.
In 2017, Universal launched a tech incubator program, Accelerator Engagement Network, followed a year later by the Capitol Innovation Center, which is housed in Hollywood’s historic Capitol Studios. In 2018, Warner Music Group announced a multi-million-dollar seed stage investment fund called WMG Boost, while Sony Music Brasil recently launched a digital accelerator program to drive artificial intelligence innovations.
“We are meaningfully thinking about where the music business is going in the future,” says Garvey. “That really excites artists, the industry and the people that come through the doors every day.”
The Recording Academy is celebrating a “major global victory” for music as the PEACE For Music Diplomacy Act passes through the House and the Senate as part of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The Senate voted Thursday (Dec. 15) to approve the massive defense bill, which includes The PEACE (Promoting Peace, Education, and Cultural Exchange) Act. This follows the House’s bipartisan passage of the paperwork last week.
The Recording Academy has thrown its advocacy efforts behind the bill since it was first introduced January in the House by 2022 Grammys on the Hill honorees Rep. Michael McCaul and former Rep. Ted Deutch.
The act, it has been said, would use music and music-related global exchange programs as a tool to build cross-cultural understanding.
Specifically, the Recording Academy notes, the bill leverages partnerships with the private sector when designing and implementing its music-related exchange programs, and authorizes music-related exchanges that “advance peace abroad.”
At October’s District Advocate Day, almost 2,000 Recording Academy members met with Congressional reps to discuss pending legislation affecting creators, including the PEACE Through Music Diplomacy Act.
The behind-the-scenes advocacy work and passage of the bipartisan $858 billion defense bill is a reminder of “the power of music and its capacity to increase understanding between diverse cultures and people around the world,” comments Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr.
The legislation is now on President Joe Biden’s desk awaiting his signature.
“The Recording Academy is grateful to Rep. McCaul, former Rep. Deutch, and Senators Leahy and Tillis for their support of this important legislation, and we look forward to championing future cross-sector partnerships that will allow music creators to promote peace across the globe.”
Read more here on the NDAA.
JKBX, a start-up offering retail investors fractional shares in thousands of hit songs, said Friday (Dec. 16) it has hired executives from Spotify, NTWRK, Comcast and others as it builds out its executive team and aims for a mid-2023 launch.
Pronounced “jukebox,” the new investment platform founded and led by former Warner Music Group chief innovation officer Scott Cohen hired Whitney-Gayle Benta to be its chief music officer from Spotify, where she was global head of artist & talent relations, and Jason Brown as chief marketing officer from the livestream commerce platform NTWRK. Brown previously held top marketing roles at Foot Locker and PepsiCo.
JKBX is part Robinhood, the popular online brokerage, and part Spotify. Cohen says it will offer bite-sized investment stakes in hundreds of thousands of No. 1 songs by current artists and back catalogs belonging to rock legends for a price starting at around $10.
While several start-ups offering fractional share investing in music copyrights have launched in recent years, JKBX aims to differentiate itself with its scale, as well as by packaging the investments in SEC-registered entities and creating a platform welcoming of investors confused by blockchain and NFT jargon, says Cohen.
“This is about the interest in owning a real asset that is something you love, a piece of music,” he says. “This is a wide-open market now because retail investors have never had an opportunity to get involved. We’re creating a new asset class, building something at scale and … I think it’s going to explode.”
Cohen declined to name any of the artists or songs to which JKBX has acquired rights. But Benta, who was featured on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players list this year, brings numerous artist relationships with her. In her previous role, Benta curated events including Spotify’s presence at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, which featured Kendrick Lamar, Dua Lipa and Post Malone.
Building out the technology supporting the platform will be Matt Brown, JKBX’s new chief technology officer, who previously co-founded the web3 startup Arthur, and worked at the hedge fund Citadel and the Blockchain company Ripple; and Madhav Gopal, who worked in cybersecurity operations at Comcast Cable and now serves as JKBX’s chief information security officer. Jacqueline Ortiz Ramsay joins JKBX as its chief communications and public affairs officer, having previously helmed public policy communications at Robinhood.
JKBX is structuring its offerings by putting the rights it buys into special purpose vehicles — such as an LLC — and registering them with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a step that adds an extra layer of protection for rights holders, investors and the company.
Investors can then buy and trade stakes in those entities, with the share price being determined by the song’s valuation. The entities will gain value as they are streamed, synched and played, with that revenue being paid out intermittently to investors and other JKBX partners.
JKBX is still hammering out the technology and mechanisms that will be used for its public offerings, but the company is following all existing securities laws, Cohen says.
“We believe that everything should have this regulatory wrapper because this isn’t the first time for me,” says Cohen, who founded The Orchard with Richard Gottehrer in 1997, just a few years before the dotcom bubble burst in early 2000. “There were a lot of companies that IPO’d with these silly business models and they all disappeared. But what remained was people doing business by the fundamentals leveraging the technology of the day.”
“We will use blockchain technology, but as far as the consumer knows you want to buy royalty streams, click buy, enter how much and it goes into your account,” Cohen adds.
The company has not yet picked a date for its 2023 launch, but it is “fully capitalized,” says Cohen, who is bullish about the promise of the fractional shares market.
“This is the only area where I see explosive growth. I don’t see explosive growth from VR, AR, blockchain and NFTs, gaming,” Cohen says. “We’re not substituting anything the way albums replaced singles, or cassettes replaced albums. We’re not replacing anything. We are building an entire asset on top of it. We [fractional shares investing platforms] can add billions and billions of dollars to the ecosystem.”