Music-Licensing Deal Could Be Good News For Musicians, Pornographers
Today’s Wall Street Journal notes that Getty Images–the very same photography service responsible for some of this site’s hee-larious, not-at-all-desperate caption write-ups–will acquire Pump Audio, Inc., a music-licensing company that works with artists who eschew standard publishing deals. One such artist is Chris Ballew, a.k.a. the bald dude from Presidents Of The United States Of America:
Pump splits the licensing fees evenly with its artists. Mr. Ballew’s arrangement with Pump earns him anywhere from $8,000 to $40,000 every six months, representing about 25% of his income. It’s a far cry from the world of pop radio and sold-out tours. The songs Mr. Ballew writes for Pump are often much shorter than traditional pop songs, and have goofy names like “You Broke My Monkey” and “Pink Passenger.”
“A lot of my early uses were in pornography,” Mr. Ballew says with a chuckle.
Other notable Pump clients include the Food Network and MTV, the latter of which also technically counts as pornography nowadays. The deal is for an estimated $42 million, and we’re assuming Getty is hoping that the combination of resources will be appeal to content-needy advertising agencies and TV producers, but we think they’re really thinking of the legions of kids who have discovered artful new ways to combine music and photography.
