Music Industry Says $1 Billion From YouTube is Not Enough

[MrSavage]

A couple quotes:

The IFPI singles out YouTube and similar services for contributing to a "value gap" where artists aren't paid as well as they are on dedicated music portals. Supposedly, they use their lack of liability for uploaded material as a "shield" that lets them avoid licensing music on "fair terms." This would be fixed by using liability laws "correctly and consistently" to force them to pay for music at the same rates as other services.

As with many others in the music business, Cooper [Warner chief Steve Cooper] argues that safe harbor laws (which spare companies from liability for content their users upload) have "hindered" musicians on YouTube.

I've said many times that companies will do whatever the laws allow them to do. Hey, if you can gain millions of customers and bolster ad revenues because people come to your website to watch thousands of hours of music and music performances that are pirated yet you have no liability? Oh goody! Can't blame Google right? However from an ethical point of view it makes me want to puke.

In a bigger sense, laws haven't come close to comprehending scale. Copyright laws? LOL. Owning content? LOL. Not when you have the scale of YouTube. It's damaging the music business, but the suits likely don't even realize to the actual extent.

No laws broken, but to own a piece of land and rent it out and have people developing illegal substances or illegal activities without recourse is interesting. You can inspect your land and the tenants using it, see that they are doing bad things, yet it's all good. Not my problem. I just own the land and rent it out. What they do on the land is your problem, not mine. All this regardless of the negative consequences on society. I digress but the idea that you don't have any liability is a bit comical. Takedown system? Right. If 100,000 videos go up every day illegally, is take down system broken? Duh.

[martinibuster]

RECORD COMPANY GREED
YouTube paid the Music Industry $1 billion dollars in 2016.

What's really going on here is that the music industry perceives that Google could give them more. They figure that if Spotify gives them $2 billion dollars that Google should be able to give them more.

But that's a ridiculous way to look at it because YouTube streams more than just music. The REAL story here is that the music industry feels that $1 Billion Dollars is not enough. [digitalmusicnews.com]

That attitude of greed by the music industry is why so many don't give a damn for the music industry and care more about the individual artists.

[MrSavage]

I think that's a very narrow perspective. There are how many live music venues in your city? There was a thriving industry where musicians could mold their craft. When the money goes, so does the support and infrastructure. Is that all Google's fault? Absolutely not.

I'm not posting about "greed" of the music industry. The music industry speaks for itself. You can make any accusation you want, but the facts don't lie. The industry is dead. The money for musicians is pathetic. We could debate all day long about why that is. The fact is the money dried up and that happened during the online transition.

I think it's funny to read the "$1 billion" dollars. I mean can we consider what those bootleg videos and other copyrighted performances brought in for Google? Ad revenue, users, share value?

If that $1 billion was so amazing, then people wouldn't be speaking up.

That said, what's your point? Greed says that it's okay to have copyright circumvention? So you're okay with skirting right/wrong, illegal/illegal so long as some equity is paid up? Seems like a shallow existence, but to each their own.

The facts are the facts. YouTube is a cesspool of piracy, but it's all good because well, they paid out $1 billion. That means that the content is not illegal...in some peoples minds.

[MrSavage]

I should also add that the complaints regarding content that the music industry owns and that isn't being compensated for adequately, we're going to have this discussion in the near future about news and websites in general. But I digress. It's called getting choked out.

[tangor]

The youtube reliance on safe harbor is the problem. The music industry is correct in pointing fingers at yt in that no matter how many DMCAs are sent, another "user" will post the same thing again 10 seconds later. In the meantime the Creators and the Industry are nickle and dimed because yt does not pay comparable industry standard fees for the material.

yt does have the ability (but won't use it) to prevent the repeated uploading of material. In recent months the site has taken some steps to prevent users from downloading the content, though the streaming remains a steady as ever.

Until that loophole is closed in the copyright laws, this will continue. yt has no incentive to change and every incentive to keep things exactly as they are.

[martinibuster]

yt does have the ability (but won't use it) to prevent the repeated uploading of material.

You are mistaken. YouTube DOES use it.

YouTube has a program that's called Content ID. [support.google.com]Music industry provides a sample of the music they want to protect and Google's algorithm identify it thereafter and takes down any infringement without anyone having to file a DMCA. It's not perfect but it does catch over 99% of unauthorized uploads.

[MrSavage]

Where can you source the 99% of unauthorized uploads? Does that technology include catching those bootleg live performances? I would say this though. If that 99% was true, then why would the industry be complaining and the industry shrinking by the day?

Copyright owners get to decide what happens when content in a video on YouTube matches a work they own.

So imagine your company and the staff on a daily basis you need to deal with those notices. Then tomorrow, same number of uploads, maybe more. Then day after day. So can said company send the staff bill to Google to cover the costs? Here is our mechanism, you monitor it, pay for it, and we will just grow more and more and make even more notices for you to deal with. It's not even a band aid solution. It's comical. What, companies will need to pay for the time and effort from now to eternity? Jesus.

Whether you care or not, it's your call. YouTube is not helping the problem here. They are merely deflecting. Music companies and artists would be praising YouTube if there wasn't rampant copyright issues (piracy).

If 99% is true, then explain a song search or band search and the thousand upon thousands of live performances and tv performances etc that exist. Let's dig on that 99% because the music industry to be complaining about 1%? That's LOL. Either that or 1% of 2 million still means a S-load of pirated content. So 99% maybe isn't good enough. On paper sounds great! Get that to 99.99999% then let's have a discussion.

[tangor]

Music industry provides a sample of the music they want to protect and Google's algorithm identify it thereafter and takes down any infringement without anyone having to file a DMCA. It's not perfect but it does catch over 99% of unauthorized uploads.

Chuckles. Practical experience on yt blows that fable out of the water. :)

And I'm not talking derivative versions (live, covers, etc).

It is an interesting and puzzling morass of compliance and non-compliance, that's why I keep the popcorn machine in full production and the butter hot.

[robzilla]

Funny how you get worked up over the ethics but then forget (?) to attribute those quotes to their source, Engadget [engadget.com], which now loses out on precious advertising dollars! Or would WebmasterWorld, the platform, be to blame for that? ;-)

</leg-pulling>

[not2easy]

Actually the ToS [webmasterworld.com] suggests a link to the quoted source:

A link to the content is acceptable and appropriate.

in case there was any doubt. :)

[MrSavage]

I don't dare put up a link.

So is that 99% number going to be explored, or is it just going to serve as a pointless stat drop? A convenient stat drop of course.

If the music industry was losing 1% of their revenues I'm sure they have better things to do than whine about what's fair. If I said to you, find a url for every bootleg live video for say, I dunno, pick any current artist, and I bet you will be doing that 10 hours a day for 10 years. And that's if the uploading stopped as of today. There isn't enough time in your life to make note of the videos in order to deal with piracy or other such non revenue sharing videos.

The only issue I see is that youtube is largely music piracy. Television shows? How about America's Funniest Home videos? There are too many players in that space to have a single voice on it. It hasn't affected their bottom line, therefore they let that cesspool continue. I digress, but music is obviously more problematic. I would suspect television shows get zero dollars and if that meant people stopped watching on television, then insert TV interests rather than music interests in this YouTube fairness/ethics/compensation discussion.

Anyways, let's digest that 99%. Or is that to say 99% of the videos will require a manual action on the part of the rights holder. Ah yes. Who foots the bills on that black hole of take downs?

The biggest online player pays the least of anyone and piracy on that platform runs rampant. It's amazing how the music industry lost its voice. Nobody cares which is about right for the modern day mentality.

[tangor]

There's a windmill that needs chasing. and with all possibility of being successful, but don't get distracted by the windfarm NIMBY to lose sight of that goal.

Content ID, if applied correctly, would dry up everything that is fun on yt. It is, however, applied only when requested and hoops have been jumped.

The USA copyright law needs to be changed to close loopholes that allow yt to operate as they do. Until that is accomplished it will be status quo for a while longer. And raging against the machine will only wear out the voice when it is the OTHER machine that needs to be raged. :)

[tangor]

Google wants you to believe that free music on YouTube doesn't deter people from paying for the same music somewhere else. Pull the other one, it's got bells on, the music industry has replied.

Google commissioned RBB Economics to produce a report, which we've seen in full, examining the effect of cannibalisation on paid music services.

YouTube benefits from exploiting an amazingly fortuitous loophole in copyright law, something not available to rivals like Spotify and Apple. It's a special protection for a class of material misleadingly called "user-generated content". The phrase was originally intended to cover things like your personal files on cloud storage services, but in 2017 it means individuals uploading other people's music, so a more accurate term might "user-uploaded content" – they haven't generated anything.

[theregister.co.uk...]

The fact that reports like these are generated on g's behalf indicates a continuing image problem, and the potential for government action. Warming up the popcorn machine to see how this movie plays out.

[edited by: not2easy at 3:13 pm (utc) on May 13, 2017]
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