The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 15 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Mestel: Music royalty collection and administration is a commodity
“We want to be a company that delivers opportunity for artists, not focus on what we think is a commodity, Which anybody can do well, and which a lot of companies do do very well, which is collecting and administering. We want to focus on marketing and promotio…”
Mestel: Recorded music revenue has bottomed out and started growing again
“Wasn't until relatively recently that mechanical revenue, which is physical sales of physical CDs, downloads, coupling with digital streaming now really started to level off and now is starting to ascend again.”
Mestel: Major labels neglect legacy artists to chase high-margin new acts
“Major labels tend to be much more interested in frontline product and in new music and young artists that they can develop and break and the margin is, and the upside is enormous if you break a new act and major labels typically don't spend a lot of time or al…”
Primary Wave's first major deal was 50% of Kurt Cobain's catalog
“Well, the first really big deal that we did was for the Kurt Cobain Music Publishing Catalog. We partnered with Courtney Love on that. We bought a 50% interest in the music publishing assets.”
Mestel: Primary Wave holds thousands of copyrights, not millions like majors
“Unlike the Warner chapels of the world or the universals of the world, the Sony's of the world, the BMG's of the world that have millions and millions of copyrights. We only have thousands of copyrights, but all of our copyrights are exceptional.”
Mestel: Primary Wave avoids auctions to focus on artist partnerships
“Frankly, we do not like to buy at auction. We almost never Participated in auction every once in a while. If the assets unique, we will, but we are really focused on artists that want the service that we have because we like to partner with the artist.”
Mestel: Primary Wave avoids buying music younger than 7-10 years
“In our case, we like older music. We don't like to buy music that's younger than, let's call it, you know, seven to 10 years, because we want historical, predictable income streams. And the newer the music, the less predictable, more likely the revenue is decl…”
Mestel: Non-Wealthy Artists Must Still Trade Catalog Rights for Capital
“Well, the smart artists of today are putting themselves in a position to own their own music, their own copyrights. I think that it depends on the resources that the artists themselves have. Most artists aren't wealthy to the extent that artists need money. Th…”
Mestel: Pure Financial Capital Cannot Win Music Deals Without Added Value
“If you, if it's only a check, And the artist doesn't need a check, then it's going to be very hard for you to be associated with the artist unless you have a special service.”
Mestel: Primary Wave's $5B hedge fund backer collapsed overnight in 2008
“And the hedge fund that had Been supplying us all of our equity capital ended up literally going out of business overnight. I mean, it was really one clean swoop and they were amazing partners and they were just absolutely fantastic. But you know, they went fr…”
Mestel: Primary Wave licensed Cobain lyrics onto Converse sneakers
“One of the things that we did very early on with the Kurt Cobain catalog was we did a deal with Converse... We put Kurt's artwork and lyrics On the side of these niche Converse sneakers, and they became a very successful niche Converse sneaker. And it was grea…”
Mestel: Primary Wave created multi-state lottery game using Aerosmith's 'Dream On'
“We approached GTech with the idea of doing a lottery called Dream On... We approached GTech with just doing it in Massachusetts, and the company loved it so much they rolled it out in multi-states. I think there were over 10 states that this rolled out in, and…”
Mestel: Music catalog assets trade between 5x and high-teens cash flow
“There's a big range of what assets trade for as little as five times and as high as the upper teens.”
Mestel: Financially Backed Independent Competitors Have Flooded Music Publishing Since 2006
“Well, when we started in 2006, there really wasn't as much independent competition as there is now over the last few years. A lot of independent financially backed competitors have come into the marketplace”
Mestel: Primary Wave evaluates iconic status over target genre quotas
“We don't look at it and say, oh, we're light in country music or light in hip hop or light in R&B. We want to be diverse in terms of artists. And when I say genre diverse, I'm talking about we don't only want to have rock and roll music. We don't only want to …”