Inspired the 30 Second Song Movie (2023)

Inspired The 30 Second Song Movie is a film that explores indie band The Pocket Gods' campaign for fairer royalties from music streaming. The band have been campaigning since 2015 with a series of 30 second song albums (100X30) which culminated in the release earlier this year of their 1000X30 album Nobody Makes Money Anymore. The idea of the 30 second song came about after a newspaper article in which New York Music Professor Mike Errico questioned why songwriters were still writing 3 minute pop songs when they should be adapting to the streaming media of today which pays out a royalty after 30 seconds of a stream. Pocket Gods' frontman Mark Christopher Lee saw this article and had an "inspired" idea what if he just recorded 30 second songs and put 100 of these on an album that would be different and would get the media attention that would highlight the lack of fair royalties that the likes of Spotify paid artists. Lee had worked out that Spotify paid a royalty of just £0.007 per stream in 2015 which has decreased to just £0.002 per stream in 2022. Since following this inspired thought the band have gained 11 Guinness World Record millions of streams, worldwide media attention, fans from all over the world and even a meeting with Spotify's head of music. The campaign culminated this year with the release of their latest LP of which there is only 1 copy on sale, on vinyl, in their local record shop for £1 million. With the proceeds the band will fund their own ethical streaming service Nub Play which pledges to pay artists at least 1p per stream - 50 times Spotify's current rate.