With the rapid growth of technology, media has long since evolved from what it used to be. These days, it rarely suffices to view media from one perspective; you need to be multidimensional or even beyond. This episode’s guest does that. Peter Csathy is the creative force behind Creative Media, where they are revolutionizing tech, legal, and business with their unique 360-degree approach. With his diverse background in entertainment, law, and technology, Peter dives into the world of Web3 and NFTs and their impact on the creative industry. In particular, he highlights how NFTs engender disintermediation between artists and their audiences. He also talks about the challenges these technologies present from a legal and regulatory standpoint, citing high-profile cases like the Warhol-Prince dispute and the Birkin bag. What is more, Peter joins our hosts in a discussion about the latest stories happening in Web3—from FC Barcelona partnering with World of Women for an NFT auction to the German intelligence agency using NFTs. Tune in to this jam-packed episode and learn more about Creative Media and the intersection between entertainment, legal, and the tech world.
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Peter Csathy Of CreativeMedia - The Highly Customized And Connected Media, Music, Entertainment, TechAnd Legal Business Advisory Services
This is Peter Csathy of Creative Media, the venture where we're revolutionizing tech, legal, and business with our unique 360-degree approach. I'm thrilled to be on the show that is equally trailblazing and showcasing top-notch Web3 projects with its 360 audio goodness. Keep tuning in.
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Stay tuned for this episode to learn how NFTs engender disintermediation between artists and their audiences, and how our super smart guest can throw around cool vocab words like that.
Plus, hear how skydiving inspires one leader in Web3 to explore new terrains on the outer edge of this planet's atmosphere.
Finally, German intelligence is spying on Web3 through the intriguing world of the Dogs of BND NFT collection. All this and more on this episode. Before we move on, don't forget that our Outer Edge LA event returned to LA from March 20th to the 23rd, 2023. You can catch up on all the discussions, presentations, and more by heading over to Watch.OuterEdge.live and registering. If it's your email address, then you'll have access to over 60 captivating conversations and performances. Binge watchers are welcome. Netflix, watch out. We'll see you inside.
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This episode’s sponsored episode is part of a media partnership with our guest, and that's Peter Csathy, the creative force behind Creative Media, a novel venture pioneering in media, music, entertainment, and tech advisory services. Navigating the crossroads of traditional and tech-driven media, Peter's global reputation is anchored in his unique expertise and his ability to fuse these two worlds seamlessly.
His illustrious three-decade-long career is studded with high-stakes deals, leadership roles in trailblazing media tech companies, and strategic tenures in major studios. Spearheaded by Peter, Creative Media is not just another advisory firm. It's an innovative venture shaping the landscape of legal and business services in the media and tech spaces.
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Peter, welcome to the show.
It is great to be here. Thanks for having me. What an introduction. I got to live up to it.
That's what a lot of our guests say. It's like, “I'm feeling competitive now.” For the reader at home, it's always fun to give them a sneak peek if we have an interesting background visually. You've got some guitars out there. It looks like you're a very musical person. That's a fun reason to check out the YouTube video and see where you're hanging out.
There's a lot of music in my world. That's for sure.
It sounds like it.
I know a little bit about your background, Peter. We've known each other for a little while. I was excited to have you on the show. You look at the world of Web3 through an interesting filter with your music background but also your legal background. You take a 360-degree approach through Creative Media to how you view the world. I don't have a deep legal background. Eathan doesn't either, but you do. Let's go into that, but first, share with us how your unique venture was conceived and how you go about looking at this space that we call Web3.
Thanks for having me. Three decades is insane at this point to even think about it that way. I've worn about every hat in the world of entertainment. I started off as an entertainment IP lawyer back in the day. One of my early clients was NWA, which, in an interesting twist of fate, led me to my wife. That's pretty wild that NWA led me to love.
I then went into the studios where I became more of a business guy. I was at Universal and other places. I negotiated deals from $1 to multi-billion dollar joint ventures around the globe. I was then a serial entrepreneur that was running tech-forward media companies as a CEO for a number of different companies, including one that was Spotify before Spotify. We were acquired by Yahoo! back in the day. It was a company called MusicMatch. We were on the cutting edge of streaming. We were amongst the first to create on-demand streaming, and then a couple of other companies.
For the past years on my own with Creative Media, I'm a deal maker, connector, external general counsel, advisor, and board member. I wear a lot of different hats. The reason why and what Creative Media really came out of was the fact that I have worn all these hats. I understand technology pretty deeply because I ran technology companies that were always in the content world.
I'm not a lawyer in the sense of being a non-operational guy. I've found that from Creative Media, the help for clients and those who I advise is the fact that I can bring this 360-degree background together. I understand how entrepreneurs are when they're building companies. I've been there trying to raise capital. I've been there on the M&A side, so I know what the ride is like. Hopefully, I can help them be a problem-solver.
360 is great. We have a little bit of that at Edge of Company as well, but it might take three people to get the 360 view. You got me, Jeff, and Josh at the helm here.
You guys don't have three decades. You're younger than I am.
At that point, we might have some beyond 360 multidimensional things going on because there are even more domains at play. I get that and the value of that. It's so rare for people to be cross-disciplinary. It's hard to calculate the value because it's so easy to get siloed within a specific domain. It's even hard to succeed within a specific domain if you don't go too deep. You're doing things in NFTs, which is its own domain. It may benefit from the diversity of your experience as you're navigating this and doing this with the people that you consult with and work with. What are the most significant legal developments and general developments you're observing?
First of all, I'm going to step back a second. The whole idea for what you mentioned is staying on top of everything. No matter what role you play, it is so critical to stay on top of where technology is taking the business. I'm in media, entertainment, content, creators, and audiences. NFT is, to me, naturally the ability to, for the first time, have a direct connection between the creator and their audience, create communities that way, take out the middleman, and have a mechanism to be able to do that.
Before even the name NFTs, I believed in that idea. I am seeing it come to fruition through NFTs or whatever you call them. They may be digital tokens. NFTs have almost gotten, in the entertainment community, a bad name because they've been mixed in with crypto, crypto winter, and all that, which is fundamentally not the same. There is that high level where the idea of direct connection is something that is obvious.
The changes that I've seen since NFTs and what they represent on the legal side or on the business side, because business and legal go directly together, is that everything is happening in real-time. This was coming to light in the last couple of years in terms of content creators generating NFT opportunities. There were few rules of the game and few people who understood them. It was the Wild West.
With any new technology, AI or whatever, you see the evolution of it where people are trying to figure it out. You have the early cases where there's a problem that comes up, and then there's a janky solution that courts or the litigation system come up with. Ultimately, there is a call for regulation. Regulation is created by those who don't understand what's happening, but they do their best, which creates more problems and disputes.
I've seen that evolution in the Web3 space, with NFTs, and the media business. They are all happening very fast. No matter what role you play in this world, you need to stay on top of this stuff because it impacts everything, how you create, market, and sell. In the last several months, there's been a hell of a lot of activity from the calls to regulation where regulation is beginning to pick up steam, but also some resolutions of some highly watched cases in the NFT space.
Andy Warhol will talk about that and how it impacts some of the other cases that I've been tracking. That's the high level of this natural evolution of a new technology where people are trying to figure it out, so the courts end up doing the best they can. Everybody who's in the ecosystem looks at the clues that have been created and tries to mitigate the risks that they have as they go about it.
It's a mantra. It's a good one to have. We're all doing the best we can with the resources that we have and compassion.
It's gotten a lot more difficult to keep pace legally and from a regulatory perspective with the pace of technology. Look at what's happening with AI in terms of folks saying, “Stop the presses. Hold for it here.” If you've listened to any of the congressional testimony on AI, you realize there's a major educational gap when it comes to folks that are making these decisions and their relative knowledge of the domain. That is the case with Web3 as well. You have folks like Yat Siu that spoke at our event, the Chairman of Animoca Brands. He is all about the right regulation at the right time. Is that what folks want on the regulatory side? Some of them don't want regulation because then, it legitimizes this industry.
First of all, you're so right about those who are trying to create the regulations. You look at the Senate and Congress and the median age. It makes me look like a young man. There is very little understanding and depth of that understanding for the world of Web3 and NFTs or AI. It does move too fast. It's the typical conflict where there's a new technology that butts up against people trying to figure it out and being afraid of it. It tries to work itself out the best it can by creating some general guardrails and then bobbing and weaving.
In the Web3 space, there have been some real pronouncements though in the last few months that are significant. Some significant cases have come down that have made conclusions that weren't there before. If you guys are interested, I can mention a couple of them. Certainly, then, there is also the Supreme Court case that does impact the way that artists and creators in the Web3 world are on either side. It is those who are content owners and creators and those who are creating other works that may be derived from or somehow built on top of them.
You mentioned that court Warhol case previously. I'm looking over it. You've got a photo of Prince, which appears to be taken by someone else besides Andy Warhol, and then an Andy Warhol print there, which is pretty much clearly a few strokes different than the photo. If you have to translate something from photo to image, you can tell one thing came from the other. Tell us about this and how this is related to NFTs. Tell the audience about it a little bit more so they understand what's going on.
In the Warhol case, there was an original photograph. Andy Warhol did use that as the basis of creating a series of works based on prints. Although it's a couple of brush strokes, it's very Warholian in its style. It's like if Andy Warhol did the Campbell’s soup cans, which were very literal depictions of it. Here, you have Prince. One would typically say it was a transformed piece of work going from the photograph to the artwork.
What happened was that Warhol's work was put on the cover of Vanity Fair Magazine after Prince's death because it was a collector's issue. In that particular case, there was no permission sought by the underlying photographer of the work, only from the foundation that owned and retained the rights to Andy Warhol. The photographer was not happy about that. The photographer felt like it was stealing an opportunity for her, a commercial opportunity. It was where if Warhol's work wasn't there, then maybe Vanity Fair would've licensed her and paid her to use her photograph, but Warhol's work disrupted that chain.
To clarify, is this something where it's very openly clear that these two things are connected and maybe Vanity Fair should have known that they should have cited the photo and they didn't happen to, or did it come out in this whole thing that it came from the photo?
It was very clear. What's interesting is that Vanity Fair or one of the publications in Condé Nast several years before that did license and did pay the photographer. In this case, fast forward several years, it didn't happen. It was probably a slip-up, but whatever. It didn't happen. When the photographer then went to seek some compensation, Vanity Fair said and the Foundation for Warhol said it was fair use. This work that Warhol created was a transformational use.
In the world of copyright, typically, if you create something on top of somebody else's and transform it, it's transformational. That's a term of art in the legal world. Typically, it's found to be non-infringing as fair use because you've created it into something different. In this particular case, many were surprised that the Supreme Court came down and said no.
Even though this is Andy Warhol and he is famous for doing these kinds of works where they're built on top of things like the Campbell’s soup can and things like that, what you did hear is, “You took this business opportunity for this photographer. You competed with this photographer directly to be on a magazine cover. You weren't paid and Warhol was paid.” It was found to be an infringing use. That was a very seminal case.
I would disagree. Looking at it, having something that says Warhol-Prince is way different than having a photo of Prince. That's my opinion. I'm not in the Supreme Court.
You hit the nail on the head. It is everybody's opinion. You can be on one side of the fence. What's interesting about that Supreme Court case is that you have two of the most liberal justices who were on opposite sides of that decision. Sotomayor and Kagan were on opposite sides. Sotomayor wrote for the majority. Kagan was on the opposite side. They're never separate from each other.
What was so fascinating here was that Kagan had the same reaction. She said, “Are you kidding me? What are you doing here?” They were coming at each other in a way that was very surprising because of that. The reason why it ties into NFTs is that there are a number of cases, and I alluded to them, where there is an NFT that's created that is based on something else that's owned or created by somebody else. There's an infringement case that was brought against the person who created this work on this NFT that was on top of this other person's work. There was a fair use defense.
I'll give you an example if you want one. You may have heard of the Birkin bag case with Hermès and Mason Rothschild. I'm not a Birkin bag guy, but for Hermès, the fashion brand, Birkin bags are a big deal. Apparently, they are very expensive. There's an artist, Mason Rothchild, who created what he called MetaBirkin. They were these little digital bags that were in the metaverse and he sold them. He created them where they looked like physical Birkin bags, but they were little depictions of them.
Hermès sued Mason Rothschild saying, “You can't do that. We're the creators of the Birkin bag. If we want to create NFTs on that, that should be up to us. That shouldn't be up to you.” Rothschild said, “That’s fair use. I created something that was a commentary on your Birkin bags. Your Birkin bags are meant to be only for the privileged. My commentary is that it's available to everybody now, so it's fair use.”
Interestingly, there was finally a jury verdict against Mason Rothschild in Hermès’ favor a couple of months ago. That was kicked out. There was another one that was analogous to that that was against the NFT creator for similar reasons. It was where there was a fair use that was claimed, and the court had found that it was bogus. All they were doing was trying to monetize the IP or the creativity of somebody else.
It doesn't help that he called them MetaBirkin.
It is so interesting when you break it down like that with how complex these things are and nuanced. I remember early in this Web3 boom moderating a panel with four different lawyers on the metaverse. I don't think there was actual consensus on any one question that I asked the group around, “What happens when a company based in one country sells an item to someone in another country? It is co-created by people in three other countries and it's a mashup of some other items, and AI was used to create that mashup.” You get chaos on wheels at that point in time.
If you add the geographic elements of it, the different territories around the world, and there are over 200 of them, all have different rules of the game, then you've opened up something completely different. Everybody thinks that the law as being black and white, but it isn't. There is subjectivity in all of these kinds of things. That's why, ultimately, it's critical for everybody to follow this stuff closely. Otherwise, you're opening yourself up to a lot of risks. You want to be able to at least understand what the legal landscape and business landscape is shaping into. You can then make your decisions where you are like, “If I do this, maybe it's a little bit more risky. If I do this, it's a little bit less risky.” That's such a critical part of being in any business.
Let's switch gears a little bit and talk about the intersection of Web3 NFTs in the entertainment industry, which has created a lot of promise for these new artists. By artists, we don't just mean digital artists or painters or mixed-use materials like musicians, you name it. Could you elaborate on what you think the opportunity is there that this intersection presents and maybe how that opportunity has evolved as you've been looking at it?
I mentioned a little bit earlier that I believed in the idea of NFTs for years. I wrote an article in Variety several years ago about the concept of the beautiful thing about streaming is that it allows a direct connection between the audience and the musician. It opens up a world where it expands the audience, and it's up to the artist to then take that expanded audience and find new ways to monetize. I believed in that concept.
In the entertainment world, I am tremendously bullish, always have been, on what NFTs represent for the creative community. It's an amazing opportunity to disintermediate or take out the middle person. You have the creator and the audience that have a direct connection where your fans can support your work and they know that it's going directly to the creator. The creator can create the value that they want their fans to have. It's this living, breathing organism that supports each other, and each gets direct benefit out of it. That's the beauty of this direct connection that's enabled by what NFTs are.
The high-level concept is that it's a direct connection. It can create a real community around the artist but also the community around those who appreciate the artist. What does that mean? It means whatever the artist wants it to be. The beautiful thing about an NFT is the act of creating an NFT and the benefits that flow from that are an act of creation in and of itself.
Through NFTs, you can create, let's say, a song. The way I always tell people to think of it is you pay admission to a club or this community through your NFT. If you’re a member of that club, you have exclusive access to that song, to that added benefit, to that meet and greet, to that special merchandise, or to whatever you may want it to be as the creator. We've thought of some things so far up to this point in the world of NFTs and artists, but it's a constantly evolving thing where it's a creation to come up with what that package is.
The opportunity for the creator to monetize directly through their audience and give them benefits and for the audience to feel special and connected with that is a great thing. NFTs can uniquely ensure that the creator gets an ongoing share of the value that's generated from their original work. Through secondary markets, for the first time, you have the creator being able to get a continuing share anytime there's a resale that works.
You did except Blur changed that tune a little bit.
They did, and OpenSea followed. I wrote about that. That happened a couple of months ago. A huge promise and something that excited me in the entertainment world with NFTs was the fact that the creative for the first time would benefit from ongoing secondary sales of their original work. I'm a painter. I sell it to somebody or to you, and you're a collector. For me, the artist, I'm done. That's all I get. I get my $1 million for selling you the painting.
Five years from now, you sell it for $5 million. You get that $4 million of excess value in it, but the original painter, me, I get nothing. With NFTs and the secondary sales where I get an ongoing share of that as the artist on and on, that was a huge promise of going into the NFT world. With OpenSea and Blur changing the game, ultimately, that will change back. It will have to because that's such a fundamental value in terms of what NFTs can represent to the artist.
There is one more part that I find to be interesting. We talked about getting benefits in secondary sales. NFTs can also enable something that is a direct investment in financial participation with the artist in the work that they create. I'm in the music catalog world, too. I'm involved in a lot of big music catalog sales. Speaking of Prince, I was associated when Prince sold the music catalog and Divo, Boston, and a number of others. That's a big part of my world, but that's a world that's only open to private equity money for the most part. Billions of dollars of institutions are the ones who are buying these music catalogs.
With NFTs, you have companies like Royal who are in the world of making music IP. Those are songs and catalogs available to you and me to be able to get a piece of. I can buy a small share in the intellectual property or the song itself, which are the composition and the master recording. As it generates royalties over time, I get economic participation in that. I get a share of that ongoing money that's being generated by that. That's pretty exciting.
If I'm a super fan, NFTs, for the first time, allow me not only to do all the other stuff we talked about. It's the cool factor. I get to invest in your songs. I get to have a piece of it and I can tell my friends about that. As I tell my friends on all my social networks and whatever, that is amazing marketing. First of all, I get my bragging rights. Secondly, the artist gets the benefit from all that. Thirdly, I get my economic benefit, too. It's like an investment to me. You get all of that. I love that. That's a huge opportunity, and we're in the very early days.
That's a fascinating example. You're a lawyer. You're paying attention to IP and all this stuff. I don't know that you necessarily plan to be a securities lawyer, but it seems like this is all playing such a huge role in things. To me, when I look at it, and we're all doing the best at the resources that we have, it has become a demonstration of the nuances of all of this stuff.
Whether people are breaking the law or not, we're ending up probably vilifying a lot of people that, unfortunately, might not need to be. It's new and different. There's vagueness. There are things to be explored. There is certainly wrongdoing in a lot of cases. Do you have any thoughts on the securities law side of things? What do you think about it?
I have a lot of thoughts. Any time there's a new technology, it goes back to what we were talking about. There are going to be those who are going to be grifters. You're going to have pump-and-dump schemes and all that, but that doesn't take away from the underlying promise and reality of what these things can be. It takes time to evolve.
In the world of securities, when you buy a piece of something, like the song example where you are buying a piece of IP, that would be a security transaction. It would constitute that. How do you solve that? Just because there is an issue of securities it doesn’t mean that that opportunity goes away, that business opportunity. It's up to the entrepreneurs out there. I was one of them to figure it out.
Those who are bold go to figure it out. They're not scared away by the fact that there are securities issues so they are hands-off. Most people, but not all, see the big opportunity. What do they do? You have a company like Royal that raised $50 million. I've talked to these guys. They put blue-chip lawyers on it. They are churning and burning to make sure that they're mitigating the risk.
Nothing's risk-free. You're breaking new ground, so there's going to be a risk in what you do. They're mitigating the risk. They're doing it smartly. There are securities issues. They address them as best they can to mitigate risk. They talk to regulators out there. They educate them that this is for everybody's benefit if it's done right. The opportunity ultimately is seized by those who are bold and who are smart about it or who went about it smartly.
You got to be working with top advisors and top lawyers to figure it out as well as top entrepreneurs and top teams. It’s not because there are securities issues that it means that it’s anything different than when you’re creating any other business. That's the philosophy. Some are going to be scared away because they’re not entrepreneurs and some won't be. Some grifters are out there, but there are going to be some good, legitimate people who understand this is a massive opportunity for investors and all the participants or the audiences in there. Go for it. Be the first movers. The first movers who do it right will succeed greatly. Those who follow them and learn from them can also succeed. They just may not succeed to the same extent.
It is the risk-reward ratio. Let's delve into AI a little bit more. It came up previously. It does add some extra wrinkles to Web3 from a regulatory perspective. There's a lot of generative art being created using AI. I went to a symposium on AI with a major talent agency. They were talking about the complications of mashups and how those mashups are often derived from other mashups and how folks are using AI. Where's that point where it becomes transformative versus not transformative? How do you see artists leveraging AI in their work? What impact does that have on the industry?
I work with artists all the time in different mediums, like a lot of musicians, but not just. You see the full gamut, as you can imagine. You see some artists like Grimes who embraces it and is a first mover, which is not surprising given the fact that she's always been a very tech-forward artist. I've known Alex Ebert who's Edward Sharpe of the Magnetic Zeros. That's Alex. He's this smart savvy guy and great artist. He's horrified by what AI represents. You have the gamut.
I believe that AI presents a real risk to jobs in the entertainment community as any new technology does. When Pixar hit the scene, it changed animation forever, hand drawing, and all that. You lost a lot of jobs that way, but it created a whole new world. It was seen as a different kind of tool. We see that happening with AI but at a very different pace. AI is moving so fast.
Fundamentally, on the copyright side, there's a big case. Getty Images is against Stability AI, one of the big visual AI generative companies. It's about how AI's training on all of these Getty Images that are out there. It is training its large language model. It is a copyright infringement case. It gets to your point. Let's say you're scraping and training off millions of images out there and a new image is created. Is that a copyright infringement when it's such a micro infringement? How do you answer these questions? You have the Getty Images case. That's a huge case out there. Everybody should know about it. People are tracking it.
There's AI scraping publicly available stuff out there, much of which is copyrighted. Many in the entertainment community would say that's an infringement. You have certain artists who have embraced AI and seen it as more of a tool. What they do rather than allowing the world to figure it out that way is to make their creative works available to their fans and the community out there to do what they want with it.
They are like, “Go ahead. Play with my songs. Play with my music cues. You can even use my voice, but give me a share. If you use it and it generates some money out there, then I get 50% of it.” That's what Grimes is doing. Grimes created called Elf Tech. She created her own generative AI platform where you have the right to use her songs and her voice to create new songs, including one she called a masterpiece, so long as she gets paid 50% of that. You can imagine how NFTs come into play to enable that payment or mechanism.
You have that thing where one artist embraces it and then some who are horrified by it. Peter Gabriel's another one who's talked about it a lot. This is what I tell people all the time about new technology. You may be horrified, but that doesn't help you. This is the world we're in. You have to accept it. What are you going to do about it? It's not going to go away. You can't regulate it away. It's not going to be regulated away nor do you want it to be regulated away. You need to educate yourself. Understand it, play with it, experiment with it, and try to find a way like Grimes did to use it to your advantage.
I want to give you one other approach. There is the Getty Images against Stability AI that was scraping this entire body of work on the internet. There's another company that is cool called Lore Machine. They are based out of Los Angeles. They are smart people coming out of the creative community. What they do is enable people to create visual landscapes around stories.
You can take a script that's sitting on the shelf and collecting dust. Through AI, you can create a new work that's a visual story or a story scape as they call it that's based on that work that otherwise is sitting on the shelf. The visuals that they use are artists that they license, so all the visuals that are scraped to create those works are via artists who are participating. They get their own shares. These visual artists and graphic artists choose to be part of this community. They are happy for their work to be created and scraped in this way because they get to get an economic benefit that comes from it. That's an interesting approach, too, where it's an opt-in system rather than, “We're taking your stuff.”
Let me add one more example of an artist that's embracing it. That's Will.i.am. He has a new company, FYI. This FYI.ai is your creative co-pilot to draft stories, song lyrics, product descriptions, and any written content and riff. It's like your co-pilot. He's so bullish on accepting AI and using it that he is advocating for starting a new likeness and essence industry, which I will give you something else to talk about, Peter.
I've been doing this for a long time. It never gets old. It's fun. It's exciting stuff if you look at it that way. For artists, because I write a lot about this from the artist's perspective, it's a new palette. It doesn't take away from the palette you already have. Let's go back to Grimes because it's a concrete example. Just because you can have millions of fans creating millions more songs that are flooding the market with her voice on them that doesn’t mean that the audience for Grimes fans goes away. In fact, it's great marketing for her.
It raises the value of the true original Grimes works. It elevates humanity in a way. That's the way I look at it. Rather than seeing it as a negative, AI is underscoring the unique humanity that comes with creativity. I believe that human creativity can never be replicated by something that's artificial. An AI may be able to do this interview with you, but it wouldn't have determined exactly what this next word will be. It may be a better interview without me there. Do you know what I mean?
Don't say that, Peter.
You got to keep it real.
There are patterns when you watch how the way the world works for several decades. You see patterns here. There is one that you're highlighting. Whenever these new technologies come on board, there's always this place where something happens. People get disrupted. You get all freaked out, and then somebody turns its head and makes it into an advantage. There was a famous case of Metallica punishing their fans for sharing the music freely, all of a sudden, there came this movement that was, “If you share it freely, they come back to you in a positive way.” I don't know. We have to be careful with it, too.
I had a great conversation on stage at Outer Edge LA when we were talking with the music and creative artists and industry panel. People listen to Spotify. They hardly listen to artists. You walk into a shop and say, “I like that music that you're playing. It’s great. Who is this?” They are like, “It's Spotify.” It’s not. It's a band that made that music. They put their heart and soul into it and it's Spotify.
I want to say a couple of things about what you said. I remember the Metallica thing well. I'm very artist-first. They were slammed. They were attacked and vilified for saying, “That's my music. That’s my livelihood.” I understood that. The economy has changed. I don't know if it's the left brain, the right brain, the creative brain, or whatever, but one of those brains truly doesn't understand technology.
The writer's guild is striking. They are right to have trepidation over what AI could do to their livelihoods. They are right to feel that way. I write about that. That's not enough. You got to act. They are acting. They struck. They're striking to put some rules of the game down. You got to take action. They're taking action. You have to learn about it. Don't just talk about it. Experiment with it. Play with Stability AI. Play with this stuff.
I have one last thing on your Spotify point because it's a good one. The great thing is if you do it right, you don't need to have millions of fans. You don't have to be able to have a career. You can be a working artist. There's the whole rule of 1,000 super fans. With NFTs, if you can create a direct connection and you have 1,000 super fans, and they each decide to support $100 a year, then what is that? It is $100,000. NFTs are exciting. Technology enables things that weren't enabled before. The way people make a living changes dramatically, but it also opens up new possibilities.
That's a great phrase to end on. It opens up new possibilities. We're going to go on to the Edge Quick Hitters segment. That's going to be fun with you, Peter, I'm sure. It's a fun, quick way to get to know you a little bit better. It is ten quick questions. We're looking for a short or few-word response, but we can feel free to expand if we get the urge. Are you ready?
I am ready.
What is the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?
Football cards. That's what I remember as a young lad.
Question number two, what is the first thing you ever remember selling in your life?
As a little kid, I was one of those terrors in the neighborhood. I'd go knocking on everybody's doors. Every day, I'd be selling something else. Seriously, I created a bakery with a neighbor of mine where we sold vanilla wafers. We stack them on top and we'd say, “A quarter for these.” I went to a local radio station. I was probably eight years old. I said, “I got advertising. I can advertise your radio station. I can create little signs and pound them into the telephone poles.” That's the way I was born. I sold everything and scared the hell out of neighbors. They're like, “This guy again?”
Did you get the door-to-door sales idea from like selling chocolate bars or something for the school or the Boy Scouts where you were like, “I could turn this into my own business?”
Exactly. Back in the day, there was this crappy little newspaper that kids were there to sell. We had the chocolate bars. We had all that stuff that we sold.
Let’s go to the next question. Why don’t you hit it, Josh?
What is the most recent thing you purchased?
The most significant recent thing I purchased is skydiving. I went skydiving for a big birthday. It is more indicative of the things I like to spend my money on, which are experiences. That was the last real experience that I bought.
I won't be joining you on that adventure.
I'll join you.
Skydiving, hot air balloons, and trips under the sea, no, thanks.
Bungee cord jumping, I wouldn't do that, but I'll tell you one quick thing about skydiving. I'm not great with heights. I had no idea how I'd react. You're so high up. It's all like, “This doesn't seem real.” I had no fear.
That interesting. It's almost an existential experience.
I have to say this. I'm sorry. It's worth mentioning. It's funny. There is this YouTube channel I've only seen a few times. I forget exactly what the theme of the show is. It's people pretending to be other people. He's got a business where they get doppelgangers for yourself or for an individual. I could find somebody that looks like me to do something. This guy's girlfriend wants him to go skydiving with her and he doesn't want to do it. They hire a guy that looks like the boyfriend to get dressed up in the suit. They hide all of the details to go skydiving with the girlfriend so that he could salvage a relationship without going skydiving, and it works.
That's not a very close relationship.
It’s pretty funny.
It's creative.
Here is the next question. What is the most recent thing you sold?
This isn't that exciting. The most recent thing I sold is an experience, which is a new client.
That is probably exciting for them. It is going to help them move whatever they're doing forward a little bit more.
Let's hope.
Question number five, what's your most prized possession?
Possession, I don't know if it's the right word, but I'm a huge family guy. For me, everything that I do is about my family. It is all for that. My most prized are family and experiences. It gets back to what I spend my money on. I spend my money on experiences.
When you say family, how big is that? Is that your little family? Is that all the cousins you have, like the big family party with 1,000 people in the picnic thing? What constitutes your family?
Our family is the core squad of my wife, 2 kids, and 2 dogs. We have an expanded family that was coming for a reunion, but it's my immediate squad. It’s the Csathy crew.
I love it. Question number six, if you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service, or experience that is for sale, what would it be?
I don't know if it's for sale, but I would like to think everything has a price. I would buy the chance to put on a reunion of Pink Floyd.
You're a little bit too close to home here.
We've had Scott Page as a guest on the show. He's the saxophone player of Pink Floyd. He's one of our biggest fans, self-proclaimed.
He plays in the Wisdome.
You may have a shortcut here. Do you know him as well?
I do not know him.
We'll have to make an introduction.
He is a good guy. He is a very big believer in the potential of Web3. He has been a disruptor his whole career, so we love Scott. Peter, if you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would it be?
Passion/curiosity. It never gets old. It's fun.
We'll have to ask AI what a word is for the mix of passion and curiosity. At least if it's not in the English language, there's a word for it in some other language.
Maybe some could call it manic. I don't know.
I wasn't going to go there, Peter. I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt on that one.
AI has produced a definitive answer. Zeal.
That is a powerful four-letter word. If you could eliminate one of your personality traits from the next generation, what would it be?
I have too many to say, but I'll throw one out there. It's a mixed bag, but intensity. I'm intense, so the engine runs hot.
What does your wife do to cool down the engine?
She’s steady. Too much of a positive could be a negative and vice versa. It's finding the right balance.
I appreciate that. My girlfriend's my steady rock when it comes to how things rub off on her. She has a marriage and family therapy background, so she's heard it all and seen it all. That gives her some valuable perspective.
Next question, number nine, what is it that you did before joining us on the show?
I had a great little tri-tip lunch while I was watching the latest of what Putin had done. That was my little pre-show break.
It sounds like something that happens in this decade, for sure. Let’s go to the final potential question. What are you going to do next after the show?
I'm going outside right after. You guys are in Los Angeles, right?
I'm typically in Chicago. I have to be in San Francisco. Josh lives in Los Angeles himself.
I live in San Diego. As Josh knows, for the last couple of months, we've had terrible weather in Southern California where we have not seen sunshine. The last few days have been the first days of it where it's beautiful, gorgeous days again. I know I sound like I'm whining. I understand that, but I'm going to go outside and enjoy it.
Let’s go onto the next segment, Hot Topics. We got a little bit of time for this. This should be fun with you, Peter, such a knowledgeable fellow. Hot topic number one is FC Barcelona and World of Women Reveal ‘Empowerment’ Soccer NFT Auction. The Spanish soccer giant, FC Barcelona, has teamed up with WoW for the second release of the club's ten-part masterpieces collection which artistically spotlights the achievements of iconic players, past and present. Titled “Empowerment,” the digital artwork created by artist Rhi Madeline celebrates women's club captain, Alexia Putellas and symbolizes “transformation and a catalyst for progress,” according to the club.
It's so fascinating to see these brands that are very central to Web3 and that have their own community or own movement going on establishing these relationships with other brands that are, in some ways, distinct. You see things happening between the Bored Apes and other brands. It's so fascinating to see how large they can grow and what partnerships they choose to create.
We released a video on YouTube with Shannon Snow. She's the CMO of World of Women. I'm impressed with the direction they're taking to balance that tight wire when it comes to not alienating their traditional Web3 community, broadening that community, and then finding the right brand partnerships that elevate their ethos and support broad adoption. This is an example of one of those that land for me in a positive way.
It gets back to some of the themes. First of all, big brands are experimenting with new opportunities and ways to build communities. This is yet another way. If you're cross-pollinating with another brand and have a chance to take those various circles and connect them, then you're accelerating the growth that you have. You can also create perhaps a combined bundle or package of value that you sell together. That's interesting. You’ve seen Nike has been such a successful fashion brand in the whole world of NFTs, selling over $200 million worth of NFTs. Starbucks is doing its rewards program with NFTs and all that. What you said makes a lot of sense.
When you think about NFTs, you think about passionate communities because passionate communities can be monetized. They're hungry to support what they love. Musicians are one area. If you're a super fan of Grimes, you're going to support whatever Grimes does. It is the same with sports teams. For example, Barcelona. If you have a passionate fan base, here's another way for them to get excited about doing something. Sports teams are a natural.
It certainly makes sense seeing that we've seen action in both of the different spaces, for sure. For me, I've never been a huge sports card collector. I do remember having basketball cards and. I remember that particularly. Those were fun as a kid. It's been a while since I was into it, so these ones are interesting to watch.
For the next story, let's check it out. German Intelligence Agency Releases NFT Collection to Recruit Talent. The agency, Bundesnachrichtendienst, has released a non-fungible token collection to recruit talent through a gamified blockchain treasure hunt. The agency released Dogs of BND, a collection of 999 generative dog-themed profile pictures donning cybersecurity-themed wearables. The NFTs can only be acquired by completing a cyber quest and locating a hidden string of characters in order to mint into the collection.
That is very interesting. At first, it sounded strange, but it all seems to fit into what will be the next era of espionage, cybersecurity, and all these types of things. It's in the digital world. There's digital ownership at play. It makes sense to attract people that are interested and intrigued by all this, I suppose.
What you said about attracting people that are intrigued and interested, probably first and foremost, I would imagine that's what it is. It's a great marketing play. You have the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines with those famous commercials that are exciting. The whole point of that is to attract a new audience to come and check you out in recruitment. It is the same thing here that they're looking for that kind of tech-savvy person. They know that they have a new way to enter the conversation for that kind of audience and bring them in and recruit them. It makes sense to experiment.
It's pretty clever. It allows them to find people in the Web3 community that can help with important issues, which are cyber crime, hacking, and all those things. This one's a winner for me, too. It is an authentic entry into the space. I'm sure they'll get some intriguing folks open to having conversations with them based on this type of campaign. There's always this streak of independence in the Web3 community in terms of not your typical folks that would be interested in working with the government federales. I'm sure there are some that tow both sides of the fence. I've met many of those people in the space over the last few years.
I don't know enough about this particular one, but on your last point, to address that, maybe there's a way that there's an economic incentive, too. You're recruiting those people. They've created something that can then be available commercially, and they get some economic benefit. If that was part of the package, I could see that as turning it from a government thing to something that's like, “I can make some cash on this thing.”
The way you're speaking about it vaguely reminds me of there is a Navy SEAL culture that you see out there in popular media. Being a Navy SEAL is not just an honor in and of itself, but it is a bit of a ticket to other forms of profitability. You could write a book, have a podcast, or become a consultant or all these different things.
For example, you didn't become a Navy SEAL, but you passed a lot of the tests to become one almost. That's almost a credential in and of itself. In this case, it's the same thing. If you could answer the quiz, solve the maze, and all this stuff to get to at least a certain level with this, there's a certain level of prestige attached.
It’s bragging rights.
That's enough for our Hot Topics. Let's go on to our next segment. What we'd like to do next is a shout-out. Peter, I understand you have a bit of a surprise shout-out for us. Who would you like to call some attention to?
I'm a sentimental guy. My shout-out's going to be to my wife and two kids. My daughter, I'm so proud of her. She has a new place that she got in West Hollywood. We moved her in. She got her first job. She's working at WME. Hunter, congratulations to you. She did that all on her own. I love that. My son's at NYU Film School in his third year. He went back to New York City. He's on a music video shoot. I’m proud of him. For my wife who is amazing, shout out to her and all the stuff she does.
I'm going to throw out a shout-out to one of my favorite bands that you'll probably know or may not know. They're amazing. They're great poets and artists. They’re not huge, but not small either. They are Manchester Orchestra. They are an amazing band that has beautiful songs but also hard-rocking songs. They do it all.
I love that. You are very tastefully sentimental. I love NYU. It's one of my favorite schools. I love Washington Square Park. If you go to Super World, which is the NFT overlay on the real world where you can buy properties, I own the little plot of land above the Washington Square Park arc.
Good for you. NYU owns a ton of property.
It’s a great spot. It's a great university that has great education and all kinds of good stuff.
I'm glad you say that because it's ridiculously expensive.
It is a bit expensive and a bit pricey, but you love your child and you're showing it. The next thing to do is to wrap everything out. Before we officially do that, we want to know where the audience can go to learn more about you and the project you're working on.
You can go to CreativeMediaBiz.com. Creative Media Biz is my company. You can also follow me on Twitter at @PCsathy. I have a regular weekly column in TheWrap, which is a media publication. You can look up TheWrap Peter Csathy. I write a lot about Web3 and a lot about AI. It's all in the world of media, entertainment, and content, so you'll find it to be vaguely interesting. If you have nothing else to do, there's content there. Those are a couple of places.
I like your newsletter, Peter. I subscribe. I'm a fan. I know you subscribe to ours.
I'm a fan. Thank you for pointing that out because I do have an NFT and AI newsletter that's called The AI & NFT Newsletter. If you search my name and AI & NFT newsletter, you'll find it. Thanks for that shout-out. I appreciate that.
Go check him out. You are also contributing to a generous giveaway with us in addition to being a partner for us and helping us create this wonderful episode. It's a free 30-minute legal and business consultation. We will let people know on Twitter how to participate in acquiring that wonderful offering.
Thank you. I am happy to do it. Right back at you guys for the content you guys put out. It's important to get the latest and greatest from people who know what they're talking about. It's interesting and compelling. It gets back to educating yourself and keeping up-to-date. No matter what you do in the business, it is fundamental and critical.
Thank you so much. We have reached the outer limit of the show. Thank you to everyone for exploring with us. We've got space for more adventures on this starship. Invite your friends. Recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey all so much better. How? Go to Spotify or iTunes. Rate us and say something awesome. Then, go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. Look us up on all major social platforms by typing @EdgeOfNFT and start a fun conversation with us online. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great NFT content. Thanks, again, for sharing this time with us.
Important Links
- Watch.OuterEdge.live
- Creative Media
- Yat Siu - Past Episode
- Blur
- OpenSea
- Scott Page - Past Episode
- Shannon Snow - YouTube
- TheWrap Peter Csathy
- The AI & NFT Newsletter
- @PCsathy - Twitter
- Twitter - Edge of NFT
- Spotify - Edge of NFT Podcast
- iTunes - Edge of NFT Podcast
- YouTube - Edge of NFT Podcast & Outer Edge LA
- @EdgeOfNFT - Instagram
- FC Barcelona and World of Women Reveal ‘Empowerment’ Soccer NFT Auction - article
- German Intelligence Agency Releases NFT Collection to Recruit Talent - article
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