Negotiation and Deal Making

Negotiation and deal making are essential business skills that enable entertainment business professionals to grow companies, establish a strong business presence, and enhance product development.

 I chose to interview Producer/A&R/Operations Manager Yazid Britt. Yazid is the Operations Manager for Midi Mafia, a hip-hop and R&B production duo located in Los Angeles, California.

Q: How do you become Midi Mafia’s Operations Manager?

A: I started off as an intern, just doing their social media, after awhile I noticed certain things that needed to be done and I would get it done. So I became a web designer, graphic artist, video editor, motion graphics, whatever they needed. Because of everything I knew from working on my own at Hampton with Blake Kelly, they trusted me to get it done.

Q: What are your duties as Operations Manager?

A: I handle Administrative duties, handle all contracts, negotiating, scheduling meetings. I do so many different things it is hard to describe all that I do.

Q: What kind of negotiating that you do?

A: Production and Licensing Agreements between the publisher, label, and music library. If there are no publishing, the production fees are a lot higher because there is no back end pay. Just basically a lot of negotiating the Production fee based upon, if there are going to publishing, and how much publishing there is going to be.

Q: What role does emotions play in negotiations?

A: People are very emotional. I use all kinds of negotiation techniques, Affiliation, Status, Role, Leverage and Power, BATNA. In negotiations is about offering something that is beneficial. Find your strengths and weaknesses are to barter your position. I believe that honesty is key. I am very blatant, this is business, and it is nothing personal.

Q: Do you think your education at Hampton prepared you for negotiating?

A: I learned a lot of things as I went, a lot of things I started seeing over and over again. It would have been cool to have negotiations in class to at least get an understanding of what to expect. But no class can ever prepare you for real-life contracts.

Spotify: A Lifetime or A Season

Is Spotify in danger of becoming just another blip in pan music service? Information about Spotify is hard to track and inconsistent. Many users find the catalog selection insufficient and there is little evidence that users will be willing to pay to stream music. And if more people pay for a subscription to avoid the ads, the service would become less attractive to potential advertisers. Also, the more ads it runs, the less attractive it becomes to music lovers. In fact, granting free access to users in the hope of attracting larger pools of subscribers is probably unsustainable, as advertising in the ‘free’ version is unlikely to cover costs.  Finally, even though the company may be generating money for Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal, its long-term benefits for artists and independent labels are less clear.

History and U.S. Market

Well what exactly is Spotify? It is an online music service offering users the ability to stream selected music from a range of major and independent record labels, including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group and Universal. Launched in October 2008 by Swedish startup Spotify AB.

In July 2011, Spotify launched its US service after delays and years of negotiation with the four major record companies.  Music can be browsed by artist, album, record label, genre, or playlist as well as by track name.  Users can register either for free accounts, supported by visual and radio-style advertising, or for paid subscriptions without ads and with a range of extra features such as higher bit rate streams and offline access to music. Spotify is funded by paid subscriptions, pop up advertisements for non-subscribers, and music purchases from partner retailers.

Currently, there are three Spotify account types: Spotify Open, Spotify Unlimited, and Spotify Premium.  The different paid subscriptions are free of ads and for the first 6 months the listening time is unlimited. However, they only allow 10 hours of listening time per month after that.  A paid  ”Premium” subscription of $9.99 per month is the only account type that allows users to access Spotify on mobile devices.

Facebook

One of the reasons behind Spotify's growth and success in Europe has been its strategic deals with Internet Service Providers. Spotify is currently the second largest source of digital music revenue in Europe after iTunes and is the largest digital music retailer in Sweden and Norway. Digital music revenues grew by 20 percent in Europe in 2010. Spotify's success was noted by the business and paved the way for US startup and partnership with Facebook.

The Facebook partnership is noteworthy. The idea is that members that listen to music from Spotify can share a constantly updated playlist of tracks. Facebook friends who have access to the same music service can also play this music simply by clicking on a link to the track. New Spotify members require Facebook accounts to log in and access the service. Although it early to judge the impact of this partnership on listeners, Spotify has brought Facebook squarely into the music business. Spotify is arguably going to become a significant music distributor, and will be in a position to make demands from music companies as well as promote particular labels, artists, and publishers to million to Facebook users. Facebook has more than 800 million active users and Spotify can add ten million registered users across seven countries in Europe, including the U.S. In the meantime, social media continue to grown in importance for the record industry. 

Song Selection

Spotify might be the right for tech-savy listeners. However, Spotify's logo "All the music. All the time." is not accurate. Well-known artists such as The Beatles, Metallica, Pink Floyd, AC/DC and Led Zeppelin are absent from the service. Adele's label named Spotify as one of their top digital partners globally by revenue. But Adele's album '21' not available, while Rdio, MOG and Rhapsody have it.