How Losing Back-end Revenue Shattered Hollywood
The Untapped IP Goldmines Waiting to Be Discovered
When the elevator to my studio opened some years back, two producers stepped off: Sarah Ball and Don Toht. They had a show and were looking for music. I’ll get into Chuggington on another episode, but I’m talking about the backend. This story is about what happened to an artist’s backend. Chugginton had a backend, and I did a backend deal. I didn’t know then that it was the end of deals like that. I was lucky to catch one, but everything was going to change.
When I signed the contract to produce the soundtracks for the kids’ show Chuggington, the entire entertainment industry was about to undergo a disruption that would destroy the rights of artists we had worked so hard to achieve. Why artists became the low-hanging fruit for Silicon Raiders is unknown to me. I guess, as always, artists were vulnerable, easy pickings.
Many people tell me to move on, surrender, and get used to it. And I’ve had many people tell me it’s opened the world of creativity to all, like high-end creative work was some elite group hidden behind walls that the masses can now breach. It’s positively Karl Marx, the way some apologists sound.
But it’s simpler than all that. It’s just about stuffing massive amounts of cash into a few…
