Recording - February 2016 - 65

Continued from page 62
against your rights want to conflate what is a technological distribution mechanism with a
self-serving corporate business model that undercuts your value and your labor. What we are
arguing against is not a technology or company or
distribution mechanism, we are arguing against
economic exploitation. You are human beings, you
need food, you need shelter, you're raising kids,
you've got a mortgage to pay. It's your labor, it's
your bills, it's your life. If you don't stand up for
what is rightfully yours in your labor, than you'll get
rolled over. Like you can go back, there's a reason
why the phrase being railroaded has a negative connotation. So today you're being Spotified, okay?

Look, if we were on this panel 120 years ago and we
were all saddle makers and leather workers, we'd say,
"Oh crap. The car industry is coming up and what
are we going to do?" Everybody rode horses back
then! The world is changing faster now than it did
back then. There's more transparency, people learn
faster, things move at a greater change of pace, and
you kind of have to make a choice.
I listen to what Brian is saying and I agree
wholeheartedly, and I think that part of what you
have to do is say, "Yes, I'm gonna back these things
that are gonna make a difference in the industry."
And I think the other side of it is you have to ask,
"Well, am I going to where the water is flowing, or
am I waiting for the water to flow to me?" And the
definition of insanity is doing the same thing over

and over and expecting a different result, right? So
it's really important to ask, "Well, how am I going to
change and adapt, and how am I going to continue
to find ways to add value every single day and get
ahead of the curve? How am I going to do something
different?"
And, you know, there's that scene in some Monty
Python movie. Like the guy on the stage says, "We
are all individuals." And then everybody in the audience goes, "We are all individuals." You know, if you
do the same thing that everybody else is doing, you
are going to lose.
Words of wisdom.
Don't miss Part Two of this Keynote Interview in next
month's TAXI Insider!

Jeff, last night at the top of the escalator in the mezzanine, I was talking to TAXI members and talking about
this very topic, about how fees have dropped. Hell, I
know music supervisors that used to have three or four
shows, and they're now driving Uber cars to make ends
meet, because their fees have dropped so much. And
these guys said, "Look, a bunch of us have been talking
about holding...drawing a line in the sand. We won't
take less than this!" And I said, "That's noble, that's wonderful and needs to be done." Sadly, there are a million
in people standing in line behind them that will do it
for nothing.
Jeff Freundlich: It's tough. I do not control the market. I do not control the market, right? So I have to
make personal choices for the business or for our
writers, and I have to sleep at night feeling good
about what we're doing for our writers. I know, at
least on the library side, there are a lot of libraries
that have said, "We're not going to pay any money
up front for you to create your work, and you're just
going to give it to us," and our fees have gotten
squashed. For me personally, I can't go to sleep at
night. It's kind of like what Brian was saying. I'd
rather pay you something, even if it's insulting. If
you are creating value, then you deserve some kind of
value for that value. And I have just found that when
you kind of give, you get back like a hundredfold,
right? So what happens is people become more emotionally invested, they do better work, they do more
of it for you, they trust you, and maybe they go out
on a limb for you a little bit more later on.
I mean, it's really tough. We've seen on the library
side fees go way, way down. You know, 10 years ago
we'd do blankets for a TV show and they would pay
us like a nice chunk of change to use the entire
library, right? Everybody wins. We've got money to
go pay songwriters and composers to create content, and there's enough left over to pay the
electricity bill. Now networks have the ultimate
libraries. They're doing gratis deals, so there's no
upfront money. And then some libraries are giving
25% of the publishing on a retitle to the production
company. So it's like, well, I don't want to do that.
I'm not interested.
65

http://www.kiqproductions.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - February 2016