The music equivalent of "I wear a mask to protect you; you wear a mask to protect me" is "I don't play overcrowded, understaffed rock gigs to protect you; you don't DJ pandemic-defying raves to protect me"—with the bonus factor, in this case, that you're not just protecting me, you're also protecting everyone who would have come to that rave and everyone they would have come into contact with for the next couple weeks. This goes double for Business Techno Industrial Complex events. And yes, full disclosure, I'm totally not fun at parties, not this year. Think of this as me subtweeting VAN MORRISON and giving a big thumbs up to every DJ that DAVE CLARKE is subtweeting in this FACEBOOK post while using this late summer day when we all should be on vacation somewhere to amplify this headline from dance-music writer SHAWN REYNALDO: "Please Stop Partying." This has been a public service announcement on behalf of science, medicine and it ain't over just because you're bored out of your mind... A good time, this is, to listen to recorded music, watch music documentaries and livestreams, dance on your own, make music of your own or, if you can find a buyer, consider selling your old songs for eight or nine figures. Did anyone else have "IMAGINE DRAGONS sell their songwriting copyrights for more than $100 million" on their 2020 bingo card? Does anyone want to guess what a 50 percent stake in RZA's songs went for? While the Imagine Dragons catalog went to CONCORD MUSIC, RZA's was swallowed up by MERCK MERCURIADIS' copyright investment fund HIPGNOSIS, which hasn't actually spent the past two years buying every successful pop, rock, R&B and hip-hop song ever, it just seems that way, because while not every perennial hit is in the Hipgnosis catalog (yet), just about every songwriter in the Hipgnosis catalog has at least a few of those. If it isn't a proven reliable, predictable, investible property, to use three of Mercuriadis' favorite words, he's explicitly not interested. If it's "DON'T STOP BELIEVIN'" (the JOURNEY catalog) or "UPTOWN FUNK" (MARK RONSON) or "RUN THIS TOWN" (NO I.D.), he's all in, at sky-high prices that prompted one anonymous publishing exec to say, "F*** that guy." (H/T DAN RUNCIE's TRAPITAL newsletter for reminding me of that quote.) I have questions that I plan to explore further sometime soon, but, for starters, in an era when artists and songwriters have learned the hard way, over and over again, that owning your masters and your publishing is the key to a happy, secure future, why are so many A-list artists lining up for buyouts? The upfront money is great, but who's going to be the winner 10 or 20 years down the line? Are they selling now because the market, disrupted by Hipgnosis, is at an artificial high and may never be this good again? Are they right? More questions stewing... JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE died of a "probable drug overdose," Nashville police said Tuesday... Good diversity goals from TECHSTARS MUSIC, to be implemented immediately (good social distancing, too)... RIP RILEY GALE, TOM RELLEEN and DAN PARISE.