Slashdot Mirror
YouTube To Block Music Videos In the UK
ChunKing writes "YouTube is to block all premium music videos to UK users after failing to reach a new licensing agreement with the Performing Rights Society. For many of us in the UK this is great news. The two main music licensing agencies in the UK — Phonographic Performance Limited and PRS — have a stranglehold on music use in this country and are stifling creativity."
This Jimmy Page is left intentionally blank
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
What am I missing? Is the idea that people are going to complain about it until something changes?
At least i won't be able to be rick rolled now
who knows what else, anyone got a half decent US proxy?
As seen here. I wonder how long it will be before this guy is banished...
You can't be creative because YouTube doesn't want to pay up for distribution rights in the UK?
Between your new "WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?" Firewall and this, it makes me wonder WTF is going on in the UK? I thought things were getting bad in the U.S. with the RIAA/MPAA and their thugs, but lately it seems like the UK and Australia are outpacing everyone on this sort of stuff.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Record industry (or their representative in some manner) gets stroppy, demands multiples of the usual licensing fee.
Google tells them to get stuff (made $7bn last year by NOT caving in to people like you)
Record industry up in arms, tries to gather sympathy
Everybody else in the UK goes on Youtube to look for the latest Rhianna, finds it's still online, it's just certain "official" and HD versions that you're missing, and carries on as normal (or, at worst, moves to a better video place if they REALLY want high-quality music videos).
Google carries on making $7bn a year
Record industry misses out on a share of Google's IMMENSE revenues.
Artists revolt and put their work on Youtube themselves.
Seriously, is it just me or is the record industry TRYING to commit commercial suicide?
Well done PRS, you managed shut out a big advertising opportunity to the artists to supposedly represent. I'm sure the record companies will be round later with a big bunch of flowers to say thanks!
Well done for now forcing people onto sharing sites to pick up ripped DVDs!
Well done for forcing people to go to dodgy malware ridden proxy sites to get around Google's stupid IP range blocking!
Well done for screwing the lesser known and poorer artists who really do get benefit from appearing on YouTube vids, getting some recognition and maybe a handful of those really important sales to keep going.
Big round of applause!
Windows guys please stop pissing on everyone and the Linux guys stop pissing in the wind, hoping to hit Windows guys!
Don't worry. You privacy is totally safe, Mr. Richardson. Just finish your bagel and stop worrying so much.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I think we need a new version of Godwin's law: With any Slashdot discussion concerning Britain, it's only a matter of time before somebody mentions Orwell. Look, have you actually read 1984, or any of Orwell's works? He was righteously angry about many things, but copyright law was not one of them.
...so why complain?
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Tell them they can't watch there favourite music videos due to "money issues", they'll cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
If youtube is blocked, then in some other site... But why blocked? Don't the people have chance to see those videos in MTV/VH1?
With any Slashdot discussion concerning Britain, it's only a matter of time before somebody mentions Godwin.
Fixed that for ya.
FTA In a statement, Mr Porter said the move "punishes British consumers and the songwriters whose interests we protect and represent".
Uhm, guys... You are the ones responsible for the songwriters. youTube have no obligation to them. They have a certain obligation to their own customers, but only as long as serving their customers is profitable for them. They have no obligation to make a net loss.
youTube have shown that they don't need the PRS. The PRS doesn't absolutely need youTube either but it certainly doesn't displace music sales. The songwriters do a lot better if youTube gets these videos for free than if they don't get them at all. The PRS gambled on youTube needing them and they lost
Privatize an internet-like network then no more worries. Just don't let any party-poopers use it.
"Phonographic Performance Limited"
Common i scrolled all the way down searching for some jokes about this...and nothing
Services such as Pandora.com, MySpace UK and Imeem have also had issues securing licence deals in the UK in the past 12 months.
The Pandora fiasco is particularly annoying for UK music fans. I was poised to become a subscriber and pay a very reasonable fee to listen to music tailored for my tastes. Instead Pandora were forced to pull the plug in the UK, so everybody loses. Pandora lose subscription funds and advertising, the artists lose income from potential UK subscribers and Pandora adverts, and the listeners lose out on the chance to hear great music.
Actually, the PRS don't seem to be losing out. How strange.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
"...how long until the people of Britain rise up to the tune of Yakity Sax?"
Fixed that for ya.
In fact, you can produce your own version of anything that is out of copyright and do exactly what you want with it. Anything you created, you can assign the copyright to anyone you like. You can play it on local radio, post it to YouTube, sell your own CDs, and you can tell the PRS to go reproduce itself off. So how does this inhibit creativity?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I'm currently listening to Joshua Bell on YouTube. Never heard of him before, not a great listener classical music or violins. I'm having to force myself NOT to go onto Amazon and buy his stuff. I refused years ago to buy any more CDs after they started crippling them with copy protections but this guy is great. I'm almost caving in and buying a CD. Without YouTube I would NEVER have heard this guy and certainly wouldn't be on the verge of giving him and his recording studio any of my money.
Complete blithering idiots the lot of them.
For a moment I read:
The Pornographic Performance Limited has a stranglehold on music use in England?
I almost spit my coffee.
From now on, the only music we in the UK are allowed to show our friends is the music NOT controlled by these people?
So the only way you can legally hear music that these people want you to pay for is either on the radio or by borrowing the CD from someone?
Can we still legally borrow CDs?
Irrespective of that, it's been years since I paid for music, for the simple reason that if they don't want me to hear it before I buy it, then I'm going to hear it and not buy it, because I hate them now.
So they want us, who now hate them, to give them money for music we've never heard? Would they expect us to buy a painting we've never seen? Cillit Bang without Barry Scott's personal assurance?
It certainly is great news for those music artists in the UK who actually have talent, that's for sure. The plastic music industry is stifling its main* source of income.
* maybe
74.117.115.116 32.97.110.111 116.104.101.114 32.80.101.114 108.32.104.97 99.107.101.114
Nonetheless I still think he'd be miffed that they're taking his works as instruction manuals rather than warnings.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
For many of us in the UK this is great news.
That sounds like the same argument used when Bush beat Kerry into the white house: "This is good news. Bush will run the country into the ground, so then a smarter guy can fix the unthinkably bad things later!"
I know of one where the lower halves are decent, but it's not exciting enough for me anymore, so I'm looking for another where the upper halves are decent....
Well tor users will not be (much) affected (as long as the exit server is not U.K based). We may as well get used to the speed drawback from Tor as soon it is the only way we will be able to have any privacy online....
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
Well, yeah. Exactly. It's part of the same problem: people not wanting to think about the complex issues society faces. So they'll tolerate government violation of privacy, government censoring of certain types and modes of speech. But if the things they use to distract themselves from how moronic they're being are taken away too, then of course they're going to freak out. It's sad and stupid but not remotely surprising.
http://transformativeworks.org/
The PRS is guilty of long-standing idiocy. In one celebrated incident a few months back, they attempted to fine a garage owner £2,000 unless his customers turned off their car radios before driving onto his premises.
This thing is absolutely fine with me. I've never watched music videos on Youtube, but I don't for a moment imagine that the kids who did will be queuing up to stuff fistfuls of fivers in the PRS's pockets in some other way. Instead they'll turn to piracy or give up on music and play with Facebook.
In due course, big media will realise that their so-called guardians are actually their enemies and they'll fire them. But, by then, there might not be a music industry that's worthy of the name. It'll be a well-deserved outcome.
nice troll, almost got me. :]
LOL
I know it's not 'the done thing', but I RTFA. Lord knows, the BBC aren't famed for their excellent technology journalism, but even they managed to show how incredibly stupid and "woe is me" the PRS are.
In the article, the PRS say that they've been pleading with Google to re-instate the videos in the UK. Google of course basically say the PRS made it too expensive for them. The PRS carry on acting like they're the ones who've been kicked in the teeth, and say that Google doesn't want to pay more, "despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing". Of course, as we know, video-views only cost Google money - and only ad-clicks actually make them anything.
So just because a video gets viewed lots of times means nothing - it's how many ad-clicks you get that counts.
However, where a music video is concerned, those views may, in a small number of cases, lead to the viewer deciding to buy that music or video. Of course, Google make nothing out of that sale, but the PRS does.
So the PRS is saying they want Google to pay them for advertising their product, regardless of how much money Google makes or loses from doing so.
So in this story, Google is the closest thing to a representative of the music buying public that we have. The PRS really serves itself, and to a lesser extent the music producers. As a consumer, I'm quite happy with Google's choice - if people don't want to sell me music, then I won't buy it. If someone else on the Internet wants to show me those videos instead, then maybe I'll go there, maybe I won't.
However, if I was a producer, I'd probably be rather upset by the PRS's actions (although given the spin the PRS is putting on this, the producers are probably blaming Google).
And who finished off Hitler anyway:-)
Amusingly enough, the propensity to unthinkingly invoke Orwell is akin to his concept of duckspeak. Reading multiple +5 Insightful "1984 wasn't an instruction manual maaaan" posts in a single Brit-related topic makes me wonder about the duckmods though. Perhaps it's hard to peck out the -1 Overrated with a bill?
Alright, I'm with you, let's review it:
1. MTV is almost 30 years old. Times change, old timer, and youtube != MTV. If youtube receives a request for removal by a copyright holder, they do so (see Viacom). The thing is, most companies/artists/organizations want to give their media away because the advertising they receive by being on youtube is worth it.
2. As many others have noted, youtube does not make much money off these videos. Distribution costs for youtube are higher than for MTV, and the advertising model is very different. But here's the most important part, and why the U.K should be thanking Google:
The PRS and its partners have been attempting near extortion prices on the licencing of online content. As many other sites have found out (see Pandora), it's impossible to stay in business in the U.K with the charges levied by the PRS. Google is possibly the only company with enough sway to stand up to these fees, and in doing so, they're not protecting their own profit so much as protecting the ability of all similar websites to operate in the U.K.
3. The PRS won't even reply to Google's request for exactly which artists will receive the money (is it Google or the PRS that is less accountable?). Moreover, if you'd READ THE ARTICLE, you might have read this: "Mr Walker told BBC News the PRS was seeking a rise in fees "many, many factors" higher than the previous agreement." Seems more like it's the PRS playing innocent, while hiking fees more than ever before
--
Everything the UK recording industry is doing seems to be aimed at restricting music on the Internet, in favour of the traditional distribution methods they're so much more comfortable with. Everyone in the UK should be thanking Google for having the guts to stand up for not just their own rights, but those of all startups and smaller players in the online media distribution market.
ummm. Hitler?
Tagoo.ru now serves up videos as well as music! Nothing to install or seed, just download and Bobs yer uncle! Cheerios!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
1. Clear out your cookies
2. Go to YouTube
3. It says "You haven't set your country. You appear to come from the UK. 'OK' or 'Cancel' ?"
4. Click 'Cancel'
5. ???
6. Profit !
Kids can do that no probs without having to mess with proxies or anything.
(And yes, the 'blocking' is as brain-dead as that.)
Squirrel!
We Brits have got Spotifyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy !!!
Squirrel!
At least i won't be able to be rick rolled now
just checked (from UK): it's still up there. Damn.
tell them their spelling is off and they'll call you a grammar nazi.
The PRS usually gets it from both ends with 'small' businesses moaning about the performance fees for having a radio on at work etc. and from the writers/creators receiving a pittance. But in this case I think they are spot on.
They arrange a flat fee license based on the estimated usage of youtube at the time. That agreement expires and they start renegotiation based on the usage now. Google/YouTube in a strangely evil sounding hissy-fit doesn't like the price and censors certain content for a whole country.
Did google have to censor - no! The old agreement was in part retrospective so no problems there. They could have carried on serving up vids while trying to meet at price that is agreeable to both sides. So why do it? Free advertising for YouTube is my best guess my second best being to gain some leverage over the labels (perhaps they want the labels to stump up the PRS fees - they are basically getting free advertising for their product after all).
Unfortunately, as always seems to happen, it's the actual creative people who get screwed.
4. Google take down music videos from YouTube
5. PRS start whining that having the videos removed from YouTube is a bad thing for the artists.
It sounds to me like PRS want (a) Google to advertise their product for them, and (b) Google to pay them for the privilege.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
And who finished off Hitler anyway:-)
The Red Army, next question.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
considering music videos are advertisments for the single or album..
rather odd that the record industry is turning down free advertising..
noobs.
That's precisely what the PRS do.
eg. if you own a cafe and put a radio on, you must pay the PRS even though the radio station has *already* paid them. You're paying for something that has been already paid, merely to advertise on behalf of the PRS.
Garage owners have been sued because customers left their car stereos on too loud. Workplaces have been sued because a member of the public 'might' overhear their portable radio. Hell, venues have been sued *even when they only play live music from local artists* beacuse they might, one day, possibly, perhaps, play something copyrighted.
The PRS is an extortion racket, nothing more. If it was just about the songwriters getting paid then I'd be all for it, but these clowns go *way* beyond that.
You know I'd be with PRS here but for 2 things:
1) It's Google's right to choose not to show the content if they're not prepared to pay the bill
2) PRS isn't able to say who it represents. As soon as it says this that is as good as an admission that it isn't passing the money onto the artists in the way that it claims that it does.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
I find it hilarious the way Libertarians use his work to say why the government is evil, when Orwell himself was a socialist, almost as far from Libertarianism as you can get (although he wasn't statist).
Mod parent up. Couldn't have said it better...
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
It's nice to see some sensible, non AC comments on this thread. Basically, some companies get a lot of money from giving away other people's content for free. When they get called on it, they don a Robin Hood costume. If the artists themselves want to give away their stuff for free, they can.
Michael Reed, freelance tech writer.
The increased youtube traffic alone should not be used as basis for a greedy PRS rate hike. The whole ad revenue market is down across the board, so the value of ads displayed in music video context is comparatively lower than it might have been say a year ago, and so when the bandwidth has been paid for, quite conceivably google is being absolutely truthful when they argue that the proposed PRS tariffs would in fact make unsustainable the business of displaying that content to the UK audience.
In any case, music videos should not cost anything, they're a fucking ad for the itunes purchase.
Wow, we've never heard that one before.
It was gibberish.
He was an hero to his entire nation!
The PRS just plain suck.
I've been on four CDs released over the last two years (composing, playing, producing) two of which are sold world wide. In the past decades my work haas featured on numerous albums, singles (CD, 12" and 7") etc. etc.
And once again I'll be getting my usual zero pence in "Royalties" for all this work.
How come ? because the PRS expect artists to pay £ 150 up front fee for the pleasure of being a member so they can receive a pittance from the millions collected by the PRS. Oh and they also take a cut from the money they collect on "your behalf" thereby having a nice double dip into the artists pocket.
The likelihood is that unless you're on a major label who are paying payola to have your tracks played on the radio etc. you're going to take several years to get that £ 150 back no matter how many albums you sell or how many times you're played on the radio etc.
Meanwhile Elton f'ing John, Bonio and their ilk will be getting their usual fat cheque.
The PRS is yet another con job perpetrated at the expense of the musician/artist/performer/composer.
Again, someone who didn't read the article -- and in the thread entitled RTFA!
Google is very willing to pay money for the content. What they are not willing to pay are extortionate prices aimed at putting Internet media in the uk out of business.
And who said the "artists" have anything to do with it? If you mean a bunch of lawyers working for boards of directors that report to shareholders, I suppose I'll agree that there's some artistry to what they do. When the PRS can't even say which artists are to benefit, it's a sure sign that they're not involved in the negotiations
Socialism - Statism = ?
... of transmitting a music video from one computer to another is roughly zero.
However, when multiplied by significant numbers of users (10s of millions in the case of Youtube), this actually does turn into a real number that is larger than zero.
If the PRS is unwilling to work with a distribution model that they can collect some small royalty on (revenue collected from ads), people will find other methods of getting the same content at the marginal cost (which rounded down equals zero).
TL;DR Don't compete with free by charging more than the market will bare.
"That's a nice way of saying "gets away with murder because it's the new Microsoft."
I don't agree with you, but even if it's true, if Google manages to break the stranglehold of unreasonable copyrights, then it's done good, even if was done for selfish purposes.
Lets get copyright rolled back to 24 years and *everybody will be better off*.
ED is that you?
I think you meant this to be funny--I am not 100% sure on that though given the current trends in culture. Being a hero to your nation doesn't mean squat when you are also a sociopathic mass murderer.
Ultimately it comes down to this: We like the ability to see high quality music videos but not enough to want to pay for it. This isn't tight fistedness, so much as having a very low perceived value. People will quite happily go without if there is any cost associated. However, while low, the collective value of all music videos in non-trivial. As such, we're obviously going to prefer a situation in which we can get the utility. As such we're going to side with youTube.
As it happens, youTube are in a position to offer reasonable reimbursement for this to the PRS. Both sides benefit from a deal where youTube pays less money than they make to the PRS, and the PRS grants youTube permission to show the videos.
I simply don't believe that licensing to youTube has any effect on their licensing to MTV. They already provide an unlimited license to the BBC and a large number of commercial retail and broadcast organisations. Those are much more likely to have an effect on any possible deal with a major music station than youTube. Nor would a music station spurn the artists represented by the PRS, since their entire business model involves broadcasting material from those artists.
Socialism - Statism = ?
tv that you pay for monthly but that doesn't watch you in return
to point out another britain that never gets mentioned... Aldous Huxley (descendant of Darwin's Bulldog, Thomas Huxley), created a world where entertainment was the way to control the masses. From "sex training" in childhood clear through to the universal use of a drug similar in many ways to ecstasy, entertainment became the key to running the world and all its people.
But - the problem is, that the British actually *have* seem to be using 1984 as an instruction manual for the past 5 years or so. Video cameras everywhere? Check. Government snooping on everyone? Check. Curbing free speech? Check. And now they want to fuck up the internet for the rest of us in the EU. They must be stop!
This is IT. This is the point where the record industry directly shoots itself in the foot. I know -SO- many people who decided whether they wanted to actually buy a track based on what it sounded like on youtube...and I know many many more who will start off incredulous and end up infuriated that Record Co. decided to block MUSIC, god damn MUSIC, perhaps the most recognisable and debatably the most important art form of all time, (of which Britain produced one of the most recognisably successful practitioners), on one of the most popular websites of all time. Seriousely, count down until these stupid companies die from retarded decisions like this.
Yes, I remember the days when it was called a "promotional video". But it is just that. Who buys just the music video, except some 13 year-olds. The product is the artist and his music, the video is a bloody advertisement for it.... Having people pay for advertisement might sound genius, but it will end up in less people seeing your advertisement.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
YouTube do not seem to be doing a very good job of blocking music videos. I am in the UK, using a UK ISP and have just watched 2 music videos uploaded by the artists, and 3 uploaded by two different record labels (Universal Music and Quinlan Road). Also there are several music videos uploaded by 'ordinary' YouTube members.
I thought the whole point of music videos used to be that they were glorified ads to get you out there buying music and tickets to shows.
Has that changed or have they forgotten?
I've heard that the filial of Performing Rights Society, named Performing Music Society, are to join forces with the american Film Actors Guild. Both parties very protective of their works can atleast fund their war for a long time. The Performing Music Society (P.M.S.) and the Film Actors Guild (F.A.G.) will be called The Association of Performing Music Society and Film Actors Guild (or The Ass. of P.M.S. F.A.G.).
You Tube is shooting themselves in the foot with many of its decisions. I think Google is spreading themselves thin. I know making this comment well reply, they will see it and something else on my account will not help. I pray not. Disgruntle ex you tuber. Yet a happy Motion Maker. They should learn from Daily Motion, that way it won't have be pulled down, or people mad at them for taking hours putting together videos with other people music. Oh maybe people will start singing more to there own videos..Because of the giant I began the http://broketvnetwork.blogspot.com/
A music video is a promotional video: it's a commercial to get you to buy music from the artist. Making it non-free is shooting yourself in the foot. Current state of things, since a couple of days: youtube removes the sound of many songs due to "MVG copyrights" or whatever. The best thing of this is that it stimulates people to use other channels to get their media, not channels as regulated as youtube.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling