Letters of Intent

Pankaj Raval (00:03)
Here we are back again. We've got a special episode of Letters of Intent today where we are celebrating Latin America and what we just saw at the Super Bowl halftime ⁓

Sahil (00:14)
Muy bien, disfrute del Super Bowl y de Bad Bunny.

Pankaj Raval (00:18)
Yes, and don't worry everyone. not going to be doing the whole podcast in Spanish. We just wanted to give you guys a little flavor because we are still kind of feeling the vibe from this weekend. I've been blasting Bad Bunny all week in my car. How about you, Sahil?

Sahil (00:30)
absolutely. I've been blasting Bad Bunny since that Super Bowl halftime show. think we all got the benefit of the diversity of America, seeing the multicultural elements, seeing showcasing small businesses. think Bad Bunny really gave us the best of what America has to offer. And it was an amazing performance. Pankaj, what did you think? What were some of your favorite parts?

Pankaj Raval (00:54)
You know, it was amazing. thought, you the vibe, the Puerto Rican vibe, you him bringing all these elements of his culture and the island to the stage. I've been reading lot more about it and the meaning behind it, about how, you know, started off with sugar cane and how that was such a huge export and component of farming in the early years of Puerto Rico and in the history of Puerto Rico. So having him represent all these important elements and also even the

You know, I think the when the people are climbing the electrical poles and you see like sparks that actually has to do with massive powder outages that Puerto Rico had suffered a few years back and how they didn't get a lot of help deal with that. So, you know, I thought there's so much meaning, a lot of symbolism, so much meaning behind it. And of course, you you and I, we're seeing things you know,

Sahil (01:33)
Lot of symbolism.

Pankaj Raval (01:39)
blue colored lenses. is the blue is the color of deals, blue and green. And that's how we're looking at this too. And it's really fascinating to see it from that perspective because there's so much to be said about how this halftime show comes to fruition and the deal making involved to bring it to life.

Sahil (01:40)
Blue colored glasses. Totally.

the

That's a great point, Pankaj. I'm gonna take the pop star glasses off. I'm gonna get into deal lawyer mode here. Let's talk about the deal making here because Bad Bunny is an extraordinary business person. ⁓ But there's a huge paradox here. You would think he made a ton of money on the actual performance at the Super Bowl, but Pankaj, we were doing some research. He does not get a check for his performance.

Pankaj Raval (02:04)
Let's do it. Let's get serious. Exactly.

Yes.

Sahil (02:27)
That's really surprising, but why do think he would agree to that?

Pankaj Raval (02:31)
Yeah, it's a great question. You think he's performing on one of the biggest stages in the world, probably the biggest stage. Where else do you ever hear that someone is being watched by 128 million people at once? mean, that's insane to think about that. So probably no bigger platform in the world than the Super Bowl. And you would think, OK, for that, you probably should charge a pretty penny. the reality is that the exposure that these artists get

performing here is actually where the real value is. And I think that's an interesting and critical point to this deal.

Sahil (03:02)
That's a great point. This is such an example of how valuable the attention economy is. Bad Bunny's halftime show averaged 128.2 million US viewers outperforming the game itself of 124.9 million. And on top of that, the clips that come out of this social media game, you don't just have the performance, you have people clipping the performance. And so you're talking about streams that go into the

billions and then that promotes streaming that promotes views on YouTube and Ultimately that helps contribute to touring as well So this is really a kind of value arbitrage where the artist is giving up short-term cash for a much longer term play and that play is amplification And Pankaj one of the critical elements here are the IP rights. So we're talking about broadcasts. So the NFL owns

halftime show. Now there's a title sponsor, Apple. There are different kinds of brand partnerships involved here, but ultimately the NFL is basically making a deal with Bad Bunny. In terms of rights here, we know that Bad Bunny has creative control ⁓ over the performance and has rights to his name and likeness. there's a bundle of rights there that are being negotiated with the NFL.

Pankaj Raval (04:15)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Sahil (04:23)
And

at the same time, the NFL effectively owns that performance as it gets fixed into a medium. Can you talk a little bit about what are the IP rights involved here? What are Bad Bunny's IP rights and what are the NFL's IP rights here?

Pankaj Raval (04:38)
Yeah, there's a lot of IP going on here. There's a lot of copyrights, lot of licensing elements here that I think need to be deconstructed. So Bad Bunny, or Benito is his actual name, he's actually given up some rights, but he's also getting a lot of rights. So one thing oftentimes that the artists keep is they have certain public performance rights, sync rights.

the music with broadcast visuals, master recording rights, publishing rights, name, image, likeness rights for promotional materials. So all those rights have to be negotiated. And then on the broadcast side, there's a broadcasting rights where you talk about territories and do they have rights to all territories or can those rights be resold? But oftentimes, really big performances, really big specials will be...

licensed throughout the world and they make money off that. So they're exploiting this content. They're exploiting rights in many, many different ways. And that's something in mind as you think about the value and the deal making here. One thing that Bad Bunny really gets to keep and was really important for lot of artists is a creative control. So, you know, he has control and writes over this shows can be structured, the guest appearances.

We saw Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, a bunch of celebrities, messaging, cultural elements. So that was under, know, that was his decision. you generally most artists will not give that up, especially someone of bad bunny size. Now, if you're a small artist, maybe, you know, maybe they have more say over what you do. But if they wanted to pull such a big artist, they usually have to give up a lot of those rights, being the NFL. So these are things you have to think about. And also, the IP and how it's structured.

Even the brand promotion within the Apple show was really important, right? Like Apple is a big component here. So what's being showcased on behalf of Apple, the collaborations between different brands is really important. So that all comes into play in these halftime specials. And there's a lot of rights, there's a lot of licensing agreements, there's a of collaboration agreements that need to be negotiated.

Sahil (06:30)
Absolutely. And so this is less like a contract for services and this is more of an IP deal. So I think for all of our clients out there who are listening, one thing to remember is how valuable your IP is. And there is a lot of value locked into your performance. And oftentimes you might have to trade some short term gain for a long term outcome, but that can really play in your favor. And in today's attention economy,

Pankaj Raval (06:36)
Yes, absolutely.

Sahil (06:57)
IP matters a lot. So when you're negotiating, remember to negotiate usage, terms, territory. Those are three key components here that we want everyone to keep in mind. ⁓ Pankaj, I also want to ask, you talk a lot about how Carbon Law Group supports the American dream, how Carbon Law Group supports entrepreneurs, small to mid-sized businesses. What was your take when you saw Bad Bunny promoting small businesses on such a global platform?

Pankaj Raval (07:06)
That's silly.

I thought it was amazing. love seeing it. I love seeing the these important cultural elements to Puerto Rican culture, but also on a broader scale, just how small businesses, how local businesses are really the key to community and how they really allow communities to thrive and give them their vibe, their culture. It's these barbershops and even the boxing, they have these boxers there.

These are all critical cultural components and these are all elements of our local culture and American dream what it is, right? The fact that these small businesses, support their families, support others building businesses is really just paramount and critical to what our American dream is all about. And I love that he was really promoting that and Unity, he's promoting bringing everyone together.

And I do believe that, this whole isolationist thing we got going on right now, not to get political, but like, you know, how America first is not in the benefit of a global economy where we're working with each other and from each other. Rico has so much to offer, but also the Americas, know, Bunny talked a lot about the Americas and we are America and not just the United States is America, but it's United States of America and America is a larger.

talking about all the different countries involved they're trading partners. And that's something important to consider here as we think about the global economy. So not only is it local, he's talked about a lot of small businesses, but he's also brought the global mindset to the local, which I thought was beautiful.

Sahil (08:52)
Absolutely. think Puerto Rico is an important part of the United States. It's a part of American culture. It's a bridge between our culture and the rest of the Americas. And I think there is far more to be gained from unity and cooperation and collaboration. And I think that show was a reminder. And people from all over the world come to the United States, come with a dream, start small, grow big. That's what we're committed to. And I know, Pankaj, you talk about it all the time with Carbon Law Group.

That's what we're committed to. know it's difficult and complex to set up your business, but if you have that entrepreneurial spirit and you have a dream, we are here for you. So we thank you all so much for being a part of this journey with us, being a part of this community. We want to build a community of entrepreneurs, of people who are creative and innovative and entrepreneurial. so we really felt like this, we wanted to talk about this show because this show really felt like it embodied what the values are for our firm.

⁓ And so we're just very excited to share. hope you all enjoyed the show. ⁓ And of course, there are deal-making components in there we wanted to cover too.

Pankaj Raval (09:48)
Absolutely.

Yeah.

Absolutely, Sal. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of deal-making components here too that I'm sure we could get into in other episodes too. But I think, you know, just recognizing that Bad Bunny is going to be leveraging his tour. His tour is probably going to be the biggest tour the amount notoriety exposure he's gotten from this Super Bowl. So I'm sure we're going to see him for years to come as a huge cultural force and really promoting Latin American culture.

and Spanish speaking culture. know I've actually been re-energized to learn Spanish again because I studied it for many years, grew up in Arizona, around a lot of Spanish speaking people. I think it's so important to actually be able to speak at multiple languages and to be able to converse with others in their language. I think it means a lot. And I love that he promoted that. And I think we should see more of that in the future. There's so much to be said about what this American dream is and him being really an embodiment of that and also

how us at Carbon Law Group, we're so lucky that we also get to live that American dream. Both of our parents came over as immigrants, built this amazing life for us. And now we have the opportunity to kind of give back and help our clients realize that American dream. And I think it's been a real honor and privilege to be able to do that. And I can't wait to see types of businesses we help grow and scale to places that we couldn't even imagine.

Sahil (11:15)
Absolutely. Well, and for everyone who is listening to Bad Bunny, I'm about to put on Debi Tirar Mas Fotos and I'm going to get into some drafting for some clients. ⁓ Yeah.

Pankaj Raval (11:23)
Yes, yes.

All right, let's do it. Yeah,

let's have fun guys. Let's build and let's have fun doing it. And I think that's what this show was all about. That's what Carbon Law Group's all about. business can be fun. It can be great. It can be energizing and it should be. And I feel like Bad Bunny really gave us that vibe.

Sahil (11:42)
Absolutely. We will see you all next time on Letters of Intent. Thank you so much for joining us. Adios.

Pankaj Raval (11:49)
Adios.