Jeffrey Burrill

it’s those little imperfections that makes us unique!

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

@AndrewAndyc0463 @LingerRon @Sonos Have 7 speakers across my house. It sometimes takes multiple tries to add speakers to playing music. They drop in and out all the time. Sometimes song just skip automatically or it just stops playing completely. I’ve had Sonos for many years. All the problems came with new app.

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Universal Music is selling $1.4 billion in Spotify shares. It paid nothing for them. Spotify handed the shares over in 2008 just for letting Spotify play music, and the deal was set up so almost none of that money would ever reach the artists who made the music. Taylor Swift's 2018 contract changed that.

Back in 2008, Spotify was a small Swedish startup that needed songs to play. The big record labels had the songs. They had no reason to hand them over cheap, so the two sides cut a deal. Spotify gave them shares. The labels gave Spotify the right to play their music. Universal walked away with 5%. That stake later grew to 7% when Universal bought EMI and rolled EMI's 2% into its own. Then it drifted back to 3% as Spotify took on more investors and shrank everyone's slice. At today's prices, 3% of Spotify is worth about $2.7 billion. Universal sat on those shares for 18 years and never sold a single one. Until yesterday.

Most artists never see royalty money. When a label signs you, it pays you an advance to live on while you make the album. It also covers your studio time, your music videos, your marketing, your tour. All of those costs go on a tab. The label keeps every dollar your music earns until you clear that tab. Berklee, the music school in Boston, says as many as 96% of major-label artists never earn enough to clear it. They stay in the red their entire careers.

Sony moved first in 2018. It sold half its Spotify shares for $768 million and paid $250 million directly to its artists in cash, no matter how much each one still owed. Warner followed a few months later. It sold all of its Spotify shares for $504 million and said $126 million would go to its artists too. Warner played it differently. Most of that money went to pay down what those artists already owed, instead of putting fresh cash in their pockets.

Taylor Swift was negotiating her own deal with Universal that same year. She refused to sign unless Universal put the Sony version of the rule in her contract. Cash to artists, no matter what they owed. She wrote at the time that the clause "meant more to me than any other deal point." Universal had said publicly in March 2018 it would share Spotify money with artists. But it had not put the cash-not-credit rule in writing. Swift's contract, signed eight months later, did.

Universal is finally selling. Hundreds of millions of dollars in cash are about to land in artists' bank accounts, including artists who have spent years or decades in the red and would otherwise get nothing from a sale like this.

Most of those artists have never met Taylor Swift. All of them benefit from a single line she insisted on eight years ago.

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

@GPhilly120 @Phillies We did that last year and we saw one hitter then it was over.

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

@claudeai has become basically unusable with the new limits. I don’t want to get halfway through a project only to have to wait 4-5 hours for usage to reset. Give me all my usage for the week and if I use it, that’s on me. These blocks are awful. What am I even paying for?

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

@claudeai was really cool until all the sudden the most simple tasks hit the usage goals making it almost useless. What is the point of paying for something that you can't use? This will be my last month as a subscriber most likely!

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

@JClarkNBCS And Topper will platoon him all season.

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

@TimKellySports https://t.co/4EmBGo6Rln free game of the day.

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

Hey @elonmusk If @grok confirms posts are fake or misleading shouldn’t it automatically put a community note on it or flag it? It’s annoying to have to click multiple times to find out. But then again I guess you are all about clicks.

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

Life was so much better when the only things in life that were political were politics!

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

@SleeperHQ Nick Foles

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

@AccuRayno Fair enough! Great report!

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

@JimmyKempski He is the Eagles version of Roy Halladay!

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

Funny how this @YouTubeTV–@Disney standoff made me realize I don’t actually need @Disney’s channels anymore. Already cancelled my @DisneyPlus, @ESPNPlus, and @Hulu bundle — turns out there are plenty of other ways to watch sports.

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

All the complaining and whining about the tush push feeds my soul! Go Birds! #FlyEaglesFly

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

Figured tonight was a great night to try @drinkgaragebeer! Have to say it is pretty damn good! Go Birds!! @JasonKelce #FlyEaglesFly

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

@MattGelb Nothing in this post excites me even a little bit. I guess they need someone to bunt?

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

Funny thing about the Micah trade is that even though he is making $47M with the Packers, he will still be taking home almost the exact same amount of money that he would have with the $40.5 that the cowboys offered due to the lack of state income tax in Texas. He wanted out.

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

@YouTubeTV Do we get access to Fox One in your new deal?

[Jeffrey Burrill @burrill11]

I’ll be honest, I think it is so funny how people get so bent out of shape and worked up over any type of sports rankings! Why do you think they put out so many? It is engagement farming! Why does it even matter to you? Laugh it off and move on!