# AT&TWarner and Discovery networks to merge - There goes the good royalties



## gsilbers (May 17, 2021)

AT&T's WarnerMedia, Discovery to merge in blockbuster $43-billion deal


Discovery CEO David Zaslav will run the proposed new company, which would bring together some of the best-known TV channels and Warner Bros. studio.




www.latimes.com





The proposed media marriage comes amid upheaval in the industry as traditional TV giants grapple with declining ratings, consumer cord-cutting and the rising threat posed by Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ and other streaming services.



In other words, everything now will be going streaming. And we all know what that means for royalties. 


Im still amazed we cannot get BMI And ASCAP to Get more money out of Netflix and all these tech giants. 
Each tv show in streaming makes the same amount of money via ads or subscribers to be able to pay the composers the same amount of royalties. I know. I worked in distribution and saw those contracts. 

There is no real reason why streaming should be paying less. 

and now.. there might not be any network tv left.


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## Living Fossil (May 17, 2021)

Thanks for sharing this, allthough it's not good news!


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## Daryl (May 17, 2021)

Streaming is a bit like broadcast with a blanket. The streaming companies know exactly how much income they have. They know the number of streams. So the PROs need to negotiate a percentage of that income, which is hypothecated for royalties, and that gets split up a bit like a blanket does for broadcast.


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## gsilbers (May 17, 2021)

TigerTheFrog said:


> Back in those days you had a host of movie studios and independent production companies who created TV shows for the networks. There was such a thing as Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Fox, Paramount, Disney, and so on. And many indie producers too. I worked for those companies, on and off their lots. They were all different. And within them were smaller entities.
> 
> Like them or not, these companies were run by people who dedicated their whole lives to show business.
> 
> ...



I think it’s all headed to streamworld land where mega caps charge $15-60 a month for their app to watch these gate keeping shows. that way they can compete against Netflix.

which obviously means everything now will be part of the home entertainment mode and not broadcasts model. Which if course means paying much less royalties


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## Stephen Limbaugh (May 17, 2021)

TigerTheFrog said:


> these companies were run by people who dedicated their whole lives to show business.


🤷🏻‍♂️.... sounds like a pretty rosy harkening of the era, the output of which is unwatchable today except for a handful of films or Carson. Not that there isn't a plethora of absolute garbage being made today, but MTV/_et al's_ slide into cultural irrelevance due to mergers (and whatever else) should be welcome by folks dedicated to higher forms of art.


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## gsilbers (May 17, 2021)

Daryl said:


> Streaming is a bit like broadcast with a blanket. The streaming companies know exactly how much income they have. They know the number of streams. So the PROs need to negotiate a percentage of that income, which is hypothecated for royalties, and that gets split up a bit like a blanket does for broadcast.



yep.. they’ve been doing that. But the issue is that I know for sure that Netflix pays Disney the same as bbc for a move license for a year. Let’s say $100k per year for a 90s rom com. That’s because the sales People at Disney know Netflix can pay that.
Yet streaming royalties are calculated by what Netflix wants to pay based on some sort of wierd per stream math.

the main reason for this is because broadcast and home entertainment are two huge different worlds inside these mega distributors. Hundred of people wrk on each side.

but we are just seeing the royalties and seeing everyone is watching streaming more. And still wondering why getting paid less.


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## gsilbers (May 17, 2021)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> 🤷🏻‍♂️.... sounds like a pretty rosy harkening of the era, the output of which is unwatchable today except for a handful of films or Carson. Not that there isn't a plethora of absolute garbage being made today, but MTV/_et al's_ slide into cultural irrelevance due to mergers (and whatever else) should be welcome by folks dedicated to higher forms of art.



wait, so there is art in Hollywood?


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## mscp (May 17, 2021)

That happens in a world where the average consumer thinks paying for Netflix is already expensive enough.


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 17, 2021)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> Back to the 60s when there were only a couple companies controlled 100% of broadcast programming?





Stephen Limbaugh said:


> 🤷🏻‍♂️.... sounds like a pretty rosy harkening of the era, the output of which is unwatchable today except for a handful of films or Carson. Not that there isn't a plethora of absolute garbage being made today, but MTV/_et al's_ slide into cultural irrelevance due to mergers (and whatever else) should be welcome by folks dedicated to higher forms of art.



I welcome higher forms of art, and I'm not the only person to say we're in the golden age of television due to narrowcasting. Television is a different medium today - not that there wasn't some great stuff on in the '60s, in addition to all the garbage. Some of the more cinematic television programs today couldn't have been made in the '60s - they need today's high-resTV; and they're series, so too long for movie theaters.

There are two things I don't welcome: 1. having to pay to support filth as part of every cable/satellite bundle (and I'm not talking about sexual content, I'm talking about propaganda that is killing people); 2. that this is part of the increasing rule of money, causing people below the top to be unable to make a credible living. Thousands of people lose their jobs every time there's one of these mergers, never mind anything else.

It was a very different world in the '60s - which isn't to say there weren't different problems!


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## Soundbed (May 17, 2021)

gsilbers said:


> There is no real reason why streaming should be paying less.


Amazon and Netflix did not seem to be paying less than cable networks on my last ASCAP statements, based on the number of viewers.

Less than what? (Regular NBC ABC CBS FOX Primetime shows?)

note I’m not trying to contradict, only trying to understand which apples you are comparing.


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## jcrosby (May 17, 2021)

gsilbers said:


> Im still amazed we cannot get BMI And ASCAP to Get more money out of Netflix and all these tech giants.


I think at this point it's pretty reasonable to conclude that the majority of PROs cut some kind of back room deal. Nothing else really explains the lack of effort made. There's also the whole _terrestrial broadcast_ issue which is why Soundexchange has jurisdiction over streaming, and is partnered with PROs vs PROs making and/or being able to make any kind of weighted effort.

But overall I don't see how this would be much different from the what the major record labels did a decade ago. One of my publishers (sarcastically) called it "STFU and leave us alone money".... Plus you have neighboring rights, MCPS, etc.. It's all a messy shit sandwich that's kind of hard to wrap your head around, and is anything but transparent.

Who knows, maybe I'm just wearing a tonfoil hat.... But at this point it doesn't seem likely that things are going to change. Not in the short term at least...


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## gsilbers (May 17, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> I think at this point it's pretty reasonable to conclude that the majority of PROs cut some kind of back room deal. Nothing else really explains the lack of effort made other than private agreements to quietly look the other way. There's also the whole _terrestrial broadcast_ issue which is why Soundexchange has jurisdiction over streaming, and is "partnered" with PROs vs PROs making any kind of weighted effort to negotiate.
> 
> To quote one of my publishers, basically it's pretty likely that the major streaming platforms pay what the publisher called "STFU and leave us alone money" to circumnavigate striking a deal for streaming rates to loosely resemble something somewhat like broadcast rates...
> 
> Who knows for sure... But at this point it doesn't seem likely that they're going to change anything.


.
I have the same feeling . some sort of - here its something - and the PROS are like.. we don't really know much about streaming yet so sure. 

but I was amazed learning that Netflix pays the same license fee as BBC and skynetworks, nbc etc which are huge. not only that. it pays the same sometimes for all territories. so 100k for latinamerica, 100k for Asia and so on. so if your show its in Netflix its likely its all over the world. 

the history is mostly based on our apathy towards the home entertainment market. back then it was vhs and dvds which obviously it was impossible to quantify how many times it could be seen. 
or it would be bought outright. mechanical sort of thing. 

then same for video games. 

and no one cared since network tv and paytv where royalty kings. 

now that we care, Netflix and others are like.. hmmm... we can treat it like a dvd or some sort of blanket based on our formula. and PROs are like.. hmmm.. I guess.. its all so new lol.


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## gsilbers (May 17, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> Amazon and Netflix did not seem to be paying less than cable networks on my last ASCAP statements, based on the number of viewers.
> 
> Less than what? (Regular NBC ABC CBS FOX Primetime shows?)
> 
> note I’m not trying to contradict, only trying to understand which apples you are comparing.



its good to know every angle and different experiences. for different mediums shows networks etc. most people say its a lot less on the streaming side. it could be different for different shows. 

I think it was chillbot or other composers doing many tv network shows that notice that its about 20cents per dollar or something along those line.


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## Soundbed (May 17, 2021)

gsilbers said:


> its good to know every angle and different experiences. for different mediums shows networks etc. most people say its a lot less on the streaming side. it could be different for different shows.
> 
> I think it was chillbot or other composers doing many tv network shows that notice that its about 20cents per dollar or something along those line.


thank you, that's interesting. i have noticed that _sometimes_ there is disappointment with streaming royalties without taking into account the number of streams / viewers, or, comparing it to standard networks versus cable networks ... in my (albeit limited) experience, i find the larger streaming networks paying about the same as the larger cable networks, but not nearly as much as the big 4 (abc cbs nbc fox)

here is an older article i have been keeping in mind as i watch my statements come in ...


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## river angler (May 17, 2021)

...yes! Thanks for this informative post!

This shift is no surprise to most of us. However I don't think it necessarily spells doom and gloom for the composer.

I sense the current change that's going on to establish an efficient digital registration system of copyright, something that has up until now been extremely confused and sluggish to really get organised, will be the catalyst to a new era in securing fair composer royalty system payment.

The world has been going digital ever since binary form started and so logically royalty payment, if it is to remain the main source of a composers income will have to be addressed via a fully infallible meta tagging of both the music and films in which it is used.

If the streaming companies refuse to pay fair composer royalties or royalty payment disappears altogether they will have to expect a composer's up front production fees to multiply 100 fold in lieu!

I am sure something will get sorted eventually because without quality music film production quality simply plummets.


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## gsilbers (May 17, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> thank you, that's interesting. i have noticed that _sometimes_ there is disappointment with streaming royalties without taking into account the number of streams / viewers, or, comparing it to standard networks versus cable networks ... in my (albeit limited) experience, i find the larger streaming networks paying about the same as the larger cable networks, but not nearly as much as the big 4 (abc cbs nbc fox)
> 
> here is an older article i have been keeping in mind as i watch my statements come in ...





I remember seeing that article as well. and I thought for a while its how it is.

but then I worked at a distributor and compared broadcast vs streaming from a different point of view.

the article compares one stream or one quarterly statement. which therefore yes, broadcast might see more at once gulp.

I started seeing it from the point of view of a salesperson for movie distributor like disney or Sony.

they have to license the Mindy project to Netflix and also to fox (domestic network).

At the start of streaming Netflix was paying about $1000 per catalog title. Because that's what they could afford and also disney had thousands of random catalog titles no one looked at. Think cowboys movies from the 70s and 80s. Any come to mind? nope.... random and cheap.
movie guys where sure.. here are 20 random movies and rom coms etc at 1k a pop.
Then next batch was Netflix saying.. hey.. I need more current stuff. And disney sales people where like.. hmmm its about 20k for home entertainment windows for those old ones.
and Netflix was like sure. give me 40.
And disney is like wow.. these guys have money. lets up the price. maybe see what Sony and Warner are charging. and so on.

fast forward many years later and Netflix and other streaming giants now gets the same primetime and shows it in other countries at the same time that it airs in USA. Sometimes even sooner. Heck.. most of the times since its earlier in the day.
Yep, streaming giants are able to PAY for the same show, for the same period, which is a year, at the same time as any broadcaster out there.

They could only do that if the streaming giants like Netflix are able to generate the same amount of money for that show. Which they do. via subscription.

So its not comparing apple to oranges or apples to apples , which is the issue we always seem to be talking about. its why the heck aren't we getting some of that money to begin with. There are no apples anymore.. its one giant watermelon that has taken the whole fruit stand and we are not getting anything of that huge payday Netflix is getting.

now they have the money to pay for billions in new content, yet.. we are not getting more in royalties from previous content?

So imo, it should be counted per year. and composers should be getting a lot more from streaming royalties regardless of views. because no matter how many views, Netflix has paid enough money to justify paying for that show, which is the value of that show. and then turn around and say the value of streams is per stream and that's $0.005 or whatever. and PROs are oblivious as to how much money these tech companies have... well until recently when we where all hit by a bus by the big tech world and their market caps. And now its too late since Netflix is the big elephant in the room saying how much they are going to pay in royalties. and has lobby congress and laws and convinced BMI etc that the plan for streaming royalties is the only and the only reality. 

they have the money. they just don't want to pay up. same as uber, door dash, amazon warehouses and shipping, and so on. more like a gig economy where we are just the peons. 
but that's my point of view. its seeing it from a different view where its not exactly apple to apples. but how the fruit stand guy is selling those apples and how we should be doing the same.


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## gsilbers (May 17, 2021)

btw... 

seems amazon is about to buy MGM. 

yep. I think they have enough money to be paying a bit more for that stream


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## Soundbed (May 17, 2021)

gsilbers said:


> I remember seeing that article as well. and I thought for a while its how it is.
> 
> but then I worked at a distributor and compared broadcast vs streaming from a different point of view.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the perspective!


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## jcrosby (May 17, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> thank you, that's interesting. i have noticed that _sometimes_ there is disappointment with streaming royalties without taking into account the number of streams / viewers, or, comparing it to standard networks versus cable networks ... in my (albeit limited) experience, i find the larger streaming networks paying about the same as the larger cable networks, but not nearly as much as the big 4 (abc cbs nbc fox)
> 
> here is an older article i have been keeping in mind as i watch my statements come in ...



It's true the premium content pays more, sometimes fairly well. But as far as blanket cable placements...where the bulk of library music winds up.... The rates are way out of proportion.

On my last BMI statement 50 some odd pages of Amazon VOD added up to roughly the same amount as a handful of placements in the 1st run of a single show on a middle of the road blanket cable network.

As far as the 50+ pages of Amazon VOD, it consisted of 62 unique shows, each series having multiple episodes. Shows averaging (I'm ballparking) 8-10-ish episodes with a few tracks placed per episode, a small handful having between 25 & 140 episodes. The shows with higher episode numbers typically averaging several times more tracks per episode. (I use amazon as the example because it dominates the streaming section of my statements, and ultimately determines how streaming will shape the licensing market...)

Basically when it comes to the type of content where the bulk of library music winds up, Amazon VOD might as well be an Apple orchard that yields as much fruit as a single tree... Again, that isn't to say there aren't higher tier placements that do pay fairly well, but as far as where the bulk of a library catalogue tends to wind up, the rates are completely out of proportion in most instances.


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## Stephen Limbaugh (May 17, 2021)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> 2. that this is part of the increasing rule of money, causing people below the top to be unable to make a credible living. Thousands of people lose their jobs every time there's one of these mergers, never mind anything else.


Question though, is that rule increasing? Or, is it that a smaller relative revenue/cultural impact "pot" is requiring conglomerates to rescue names/catalogs, thus instigating the downsizing? MTV for example, probably could not survive by itself because nobody watches it any more.

Re; other folks' comments on streaming/netflix/amazon/etc.
There's a huge elephant in the room regarding what Big Tech should be paying: the nearly insurmountable _political_ problem regarding congress' neglect of Article 1, § 8, clause 8, and the obligatory cast of Wannabe-Machiavellian misfits. One side has taken their ball and gone home (what did the entertainment business expect?), while the other is totally paid off by the domestic abusers of Intellectual Property. The long and short of it, *domestic streaming royalties will never get fixed* the way things are currently constituted.


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## Loïc D (May 17, 2021)

FWIW, in France, the 2 biggest private TV channel have just announced negociations for merging. The goal is to create a “giant” european broadcast company to rival with streaming networks.


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## gsilbers (May 18, 2021)

Loïc D said:


> FWIW, in France, the 2 biggest private TV channel have just announced negociations for merging. The goal is to create a “giant” european broadcast company to rival with streaming networks.


Makes sense. These 2 networks pay for a few movies and tv shows a year to distributors while Netflix and others streaming companies pay for a lot more a year and only charging a lot less to the end user. Or not have very long Ads. 
And their overheads are huge. Those broadcast equipment and even dubbing studios are expensive.

the way for the them, as well as many broadcaster to compete IMO is to do local programming. Contests and reality. Plus sports.

i think many of these European networks have started making more scripted local programming. Sometimes even resold to Netflix.

so maybe it’s a good thing. As content seems to be coming out of everywhere now.


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## Soundbed (May 18, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> It's true the premium content pays more, sometimes fairly well. But as far as blanket cable placements...where the bulk of library music winds up.... The rates are way out of proportion.
> 
> On my last BMI statement 50 some odd pages of Amazon VOD added up to roughly the same amount as a handful of placements in the 1st run of a single show on a middle of the road blanket cable network.
> 
> ...


Does BMI indicate how many people watched those Amazon VOD shows?


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## mscp (May 18, 2021)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> There are two things I don't welcome: 1. having to pay to support filth as part of every cable/satellite bundle (and I'm not talking about sexual content, I'm talking about propaganda that is killing people); 2. that this is part of the increasing rule of money, causing people below the top to be unable to make a credible living. Thousands of people lose their jobs every time there's one of these mergers, never mind anything else.


exactly.


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## Loïc D (May 18, 2021)

gsilbers said:


> Makes sense. These 2 networks pay for a few movies and tv shows a year to distributors while Netflix and others streaming companies pay for a lot more a year and only charging a lot less to the end user. Or not have very long Ads.
> And their overheads are huge. Those broadcast equipment and even dubbing studios are expensive.
> 
> the way for the them, as well as many broadcaster to compete IMO is to do local programming. Contests and reality. Plus sports.
> ...


That said, I heard on the radio today than even after merging, their value will be worth... 1/1000 of the US streaming networks.


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 18, 2021)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> Question though, is that rule increasing? Or, is it that a smaller relative revenue/cultural impact "pot" is requiring conglomerates to rescue names/catalogs, thus instigating the downsizing? MTV for example, probably could not survive by itself because nobody watches it any more.



In the big picture the rule of money is absolutely increasing all across our society. Look at the capital/labor balance over the past few decades - which is what I meant when I said the 1960s were very different. That was during the golden years, between the end of WWII and 1980.

But that's more for the OT Politics section.

As to the music industry, there are a number of things going on. One of them, tragically, seems to be the lower importance of music in people's lives. But, for example, look how much money Spotify is worth vs. how much they pay in royalties.

It's not all just lower demand.


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## gsilbers (May 18, 2021)

Loïc D said:


> That said, I heard on the radio today than even after merging, their value will be worth... 1/1000 of the US streaming networks.



yes... seems everyone here has been saying wtf... how suddenly a little app showing old videos became the leader in entertainment. 
plus all the tech companies in general have become a colossal entity that now its too late to change any rule. too big to fail. 

But the main issue of course is that they get so much money but pay so little to their workers. they do have well paid people but its the keypoeple. then little royalties. or uber trying for AI self driving cars. 
and all sort of dystopian crap.


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## gsilbers (May 18, 2021)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> In the big picture the rule of money is absolutely increasing all across our society. Look at the capital/labor balance over the past few decades - which is what I meant when I said the 1960s were very different. That was during the golden years, between the end of WWII and 1980.
> 
> But that's more for the OT Politics section.
> 
> ...



that CEO of Spotify was trying to buy one major soccer league or something. I mean they do have tons of money. its obviously from our backs. 

at the same time, even if apple pays more, people will still submit to Spotify. mainly through ditrokid etc which is a survive. people are like meh, its digital, goes everywhere. but don't really think it though. 
imagine if everyone removes their Spotify content and only leaves it to Apple Music. or any other that pays better.


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 18, 2021)

river angler said:


> This shift is no surprise to most of us. However I don't think it necessarily spells doom and gloom for the composer


Like almost everything else, this is a matter of conscious policy decisions. Nothing here is preordained by the gods!


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## Stephen Limbaugh (May 18, 2021)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> But that's more for the OT Politics section.


I wish to avoid that at all costs 😂

On music business revenue...

I speculate the issue is not a demand problem, but a _revenue_ problem. Historically, revenue in the music business has been highly dependent on sales plus royalties, both of which I assert have suffered due to willful negligence by constitutionally-charged civic institutions, and subsequent bad faith negotiations between congress, the Performing Rights Orgs, dolts like Neil Portnow, and Big Tech.

Using the MTV example again, MTV was able to convince artists/labels to _pay_ for the content shown on their network. This was acceptable at the time because those eyeballs could translate into actual sales, plus the airtime meant some form of compensation for the song writers. Once record sales tanked, there is little to justify that working relationship as it was originally constituted…. Doubly so after social media gave marketing departments much more control than cable channels.

In other sectors of the economy, no doubt that aforementioned rule applies, hard to disagree. But for music, there appears to be a unique circumstance.


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 18, 2021)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> I wish to avoid that at all costs 😂


LIKE


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 18, 2021)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> Once record sales tanked


Okay, but why did record sales tank?

Steaming (sic).

Well, to be fair, everything now has to be louder, faster, brighter, and with sexy women to attract these kids today's attention.


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## Stephen Limbaugh (May 18, 2021)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Okay, but why did record sales tank?
> 
> Steaming (sic).


Yes! Exactly. My view is that it is the Article 1 § 8 duty of congress to *force* the Steamers (and non steamers like Facebook, who pay literally nothing despite music basically being broadcast on their site) to pay up.

The allies of songwriters haven’t done a very good job either, they seem in this constant placating PR loop that they are “really working hard.”


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