Slashdot Mirror
YouTube Music Content Takedown Continued
pregnantfridge writes "In the ongoing conflict between
PRS for Music and
YouTube over the takedown
of all music related content in the UK, PRS for Music have created a new site,
fairplayforcreators.com,
exposing the views of
the music writers impacted by the YouTube decision.
I am not certain if these views have been editorially compromised, but by reading
a few pages, it's clear to me that Music writers represented by PRS for Music are
largely clueless about what the Internet and YouTube means to the music
industry. Kind of explains why the music industry is in
such a decline — and also why so much litigation takes place on the music
writers' behalf."
I noticed on some of the comments on the site that there was a vast difference of opinion between the actual songwriters and, for example, the chief exec of Making Music...
Fair Play for Creators was established after Internet-giant, Google, made the decision to remove some music content from YouTube.
Google's decision was made because it didn't want to pay the going rate for music, to the creators of that music, when it's used on YouTube.
If Google doesn't want to pay the rate, so doesn't broadcast the music, I don't see the issue. Lower the rate and maybe Google will pay.
Put identity in the browser.
Sounds like they just want to take their ball home since they don't get to be the star player (or even get their way).
SO be it. Give them what they want. Take down all music related content everywhere that isn't on their own sites. That means: Discussion boards about their music, Fan sites about their music, album reviews, links to amazon, etc. All of it.
Boycott these people up the wazoo... and just to make it fun... pick on someone specific to make and example of them.
Start by removing their Wikipedia page then systematically begin contacting websites which are highly ranked in Google for their name... ask them to participate in protest.
It doesn't have to be permanent (though the 301 responses need to be ;-p ) - just long enough to make the point.
"Hey [music writer who is famous], what happened to all your google hits? i can't find anything about you anywhere... it's like you don't exist except on your 'official' site. Aren't you supposed to be famous.
Keep it up long enough and maybe they'll even see an economic impact.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I am not certain if these views have been editorially compromised but by reading a few pages
Compromised? Certainly not. Specially hand picked by the group? Most definitely possible.
You wouldn't be able to say for certain however unless a UK musician comes forth and says his/her opinions in favor of youtube exposure was not added to the site.
> I co-wrote 'Never Gonna Give You Up', which Rick Astley performed in the eighties, and which must have been played more than 100 million times on YouTube - owner Google. My PRS for Music income in the year ended September 2008 was £11.
Translation: I did some work back in the 80's, and I still want collect paychecks from it.
Except the traditional avenues of music exposure hardly exist any more. free radio payola? music video shows? ... Nobody listens or watches those things anymore. It's all about word of mouth and seeking out stuff that seems interesting to each individual.
I couldn't count how many times I've found an interesting band or solo artist though youtube, and then go straight to iTMS or amazon and buy their album.
The old process doesn't work anymore. Having youtube pull music will do nothing except kill publicity for whatever you're trying to protect.
Congratulations, you didn't.
I co-wrote 'Never Gonna Give You Up', which Rick Astley performed in the eighties, and which must have been played more than 100 million times on YouTube
... this is just rickroll 2.0!!
They seem to be complaining that Google chooses not to play their music and hence not pay them. How much sense does that make? Are car dealerships going to complain that I'm not buying a new car?
I only see *large, traditional* music in decline, and organizations built on the assumption those organizations are the only ones with talent - but not the "industry". Such is the effect of rapid change.
See collections, for example:
http://www.jamendo.com/en/
http://bt.etree.org/
http://beta.legaltorrents.com/netlabel-music
http://uaradio.net/
and others, going strong and growing
plus *lots* of great, independent net labels and organizations building up to use the Internet the way it works, and an emerging set of well-known artists breaking free from these old organizations to embrace new methods.
I've had that damn song forced upon my ears for most of my life. I deserve restitution, he owes me £11!
Just ran out of mod points, so I'll rather add this:
Somewhere the public perception of copyright (and other IP rights) went from "a time limited incentive to encourage the creation of novel content" to "content creators have the right to get paid in perpetuity".
Because of the technological and legal environment of the 20th century it was possible for content creators and distributors to make insane amounts of money for a very limited amount of work.
That created the idea that they have some god-given right to get paid for absolutely everything that ever gets done with their content or anything that is derived from it. That has not been the case for most of history and it will almost certainly not be the case in the future ... and no that will not mean the end of music and art.
siener's youtube channel
that it is good promotion for them. This ultimate greed will simply backslash.
God's gift to chicks
Now that medium is silenced. Way to go fairplayforcreators, you are going to lose more revenue than you know.
And by the way:
FUCK YOU
Sigh...
.02 ...
While I will concede that they do seem completely out of touch with the benefits of internet notoriety, there is a very salient point here: How do you hold content aggregator sites accountable for their content sources? Is it really fair that google makes billions a year while their most popular site is powered by stolen material??
Now you could argue that the real solution is for these writers to start their own channel and provide better copies of the content in a regulated manner. Some of my favorite artists have done just that in response to a plethora of their videos being on youtube.
That's only a couple of steps short of extortion though, and doesn't respect the right of the content owner to boycott google and it's hyper saturation of popular culture. And it still doesn't stop xXxRockerBOI from uploading his favorite song of yours with pictures of his girlfriend and lightning pictures as a slideshow.
When will we get a meaningful dialogue about intellectual property and royalties? These people always come across as greedy assholes, but that doesn't mean that they're entirely wrong about there being a problem, just wrong headed about articulating it.
Just my
Clueless or not, they have the IP rights and they can ask them to be taken down. When was the last time you spent time appreciating/making friend with the thief when you found your wallet was stolen? Is the moral ground in U.S. so low that the thief is louder than the victim?! And you think Wall Streeters are the only crooks? No, the whole nation is morally bankrupt. Yes, I'm pointing at you.
I read TFAs and the comments and do not understand the outrage. Google disagreed on the amount of royalties and obliged the authors and other interested parties by removing the music. That should be considered a win, right? I mean now the authors are free from unfair competition to open their own streaming website and offer their music at what they consider a fair price. Isn't that what they want?
End anonymous moderation and posting on
i wonder why everybody is after youtube, china is after youtube again.. Damn. My poor Utube.. Plz stop harrassing Youtube. Regards, Sussane http://itshumour.blogspot.com/
Best Regards, Eliena Andrews
I'm so glad some "artists" have chosen to come out and show us who not to buy records from. Thanks guys, don't expect a cent from me.
1. put your own music on youtube
2. ask google for money
3. profit? ah.. rats!
assignment != equality != identity
This is an instance of douchebaggery. No offense intended.
"(...) by reading a few pages, its clear to me that Music writers represented by PRS for Music are largely clueless about what the Internet and YouTube means to the music industry. Kind of explains why the music industry is in as much decline â" and also why so much litigation takes place on the music writers behalf."
Question to poster: how does it follow from their statements that the music writers are clueless?
Granted, most of us feel that the music business has taken loads of wrong approaches - the sad lawsuits against individuals by the RIAA for example, or the music business not understanding the concept of selling more by giving away something else.
However, we are not talking record companies here. We are talking music WRITERS. Creators. People that compose the music and write lyrics, that have (in most cases) somebody else sing or play it. These people don't make money by performing the songs, or by marketing it in a clever way. In most cases, all they have is their royalties.
I don't claim to have the full answer to this complex issue, but to disqualify all the comments on the PRS for music website just like that is really quite silly.
Also, the fact that we all love YouTube and would hate to see it shutdown or block certain content is not a very good reason to counterattack anyone who's attacking their way of working.
https://apps.mcps-prs-alliance.co.uk/apps/memberadmin/Registration.asp?primaryAcc=1 I looked for a signup, thinking I just MIGHT have some little say. No way. You have to have a CAE Number to even sign up. Is that like a tax number, a club membership number, or what? Obviously, no colonials are welcome, whatever it might be. And, just as obviously, if you don't agree with the stated mission of squeezing money out of everyone online, your views are MOST unwelcome. I'll bet they have a voice in the ACTA treaty, though, unlike any voting American citizen.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Or at least their songwriter is. They should just be glad anybody would choose to listen to their garbage, free or not. I would need a gun to my head to indulge in their shit.
100 million views, strange i always looked to youtube to find new bands and see how the band performs live etc. if they are decent i go out and buy their albums, if anything youtube is making them money, i dont see why they want to complain. 100 million views = 100 million possible customers. The artists should be cheering that their song has become so famous and that their song has reached a much wider audience then they could ever hope for in their own country.
all it takes to make everybody happy is require video uploaders who use copyrighted music to clearly state the song they are using, so that youtube can automagically link the video to a 'buy this song now' place
it's so obvious that I think that the only reason this has not been implemented yet (and the real reason for artists' rants) it's that they have not agreed yet on which webstore should sell the music.
It's about free expression. That's also what making music should be about unfortunately the music industry has been blinded by the fact that they've been such big shots the last century. If they want to make money streaming they're music online they should start their own site doing so.
I had a video that had about 25,000 views in total and when I got my PRS for Music cheque through, I think I made two or three pounds off that maximum ...
Sam Isaac, songwriter
So let's be generous and say 1% of those views resulted in an ad click-through. This guy wants to make serious money out of 250 ad clicks?
Originally the "Music Video" was designed as a way for the industry to promote a song when the Artist was not available to play it live. In a sense it was designed from the start to be a 'Loss leader' for the music industry. That the playing of the track itself was promoting the artist and song, so the money they lost in making the video was recouped in the form of larger sales of the track involved. Now with less money going around the Industry are wanting more ways to create income, turning the traditionally loss making music video in to a money stream in it's own right.
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
While it's true that youtube may or may not be making money I think that the companies financial status is really irrelevant to the source of their content.
Unless they are a registered non-profit, they are in it for the money, and we know Google is certainly in it for the money and doing well. Our music writers? Whether they wrote the shittiest song of all time or a mega-hit, they really should get something for their work and they aren't. WHY should they be paid you ask?
Here on slashdot we too often side with the open information movement. I myself use open source software as much as possible. Microsoft? F@#$ em. OpenOffice is great. Linux runs my company servers, email, etc. I use Opera and Firefox, Thunderbird for internet. We all do. These sets of software have figured out how to work in an opensource economy. Since we use them and largely subscribe to this vague notion of "free and open is good" we sometimes jump at the music industry for not going the same way.
But there is a HUGE difference.
Open source software provides a solutions to a predetermined goal. It gives it away for free, and then covers costs by selling support for that solution and licensing professionals to do the same.
Suppose we were to open source music. How would that go? We all need to write a song that will accomplish the task of making us feel happy when everything in life is crushing our spirit. Let's start a community for it, open up our development process, track bugs, let users request features such as a second bridge that modulates the chord progression up one half step. Perfect, we have the something so generic that everyone can use it without caring. That's what music is for right, just a mindless background tool that helps you accomplish a task. Just like Thunderbird or Apache.
Then how do set up a community of consultants or license specialists in your song, genre, etc? The problem requires a much different outlook that we have with FOSS or general OSS, because the creativity that goes into writing music is not the same as that which goes into software. It requires personal investment of emotion, a dialogues between a writer and a listening transmitted by another frequently overlooked party, the artist (which in some genres looks more like a programmer these days, but that's beside the point).
We are so used to the idea that the internet is in some way this awesome tool that if you don't get on board and use that we say "you are the short sighted moron" to the musicians struggling to make it. Now don't get me started on record labels, because I think they are really the enemy here, but writers and musicians get caught in the crossfire and treated the same.
IP for software and IP for music are so different, even though their distribution models are almost identical (write it, test it, package it, advertise it, copy it to a zillion CDs and then mark it up to make some $$) While both industries are undoubtedly facing a myriad of challenges in finding alternate distribution methods that focus on web content we need to recognize that there is a real difference.
No one will be making Sgt. Pepper 2.1.18, or Bethoven's 5.2th, they are unique and aesthetically set in stone. You might improve the packaging or remaster the recording but that is a footnote not a new release. There is no competitive improvement to promote by limiting IP. As for monetizing, YouTube thankfully is light on the Advertising, which I appreciate. Perhaps they should offer free ads to people who find their work on the site? Or prioratize ads from legit vendors of their works? Have you ever done a torrent search? Lots of those big torrent sites do just that, why not YouTube? This would allow them redirect watchers to their site, or a vendor like Amazon or iTunes where a legal purchase can be made.
I guess what Irked me about the initial
I call bullshit.
Or at least, I don't see this at all. I know a few people who have been creating music for quite some time. And most of the time they didn't get paid.
Also, I and a bunch of others organize a festival (*) every year on the campus of the University of Twente. The performers don't receive any payment, maybe a compensation for fuel. Not getting paid at all hasn't stopped the performers from wanting to show up and show their creative talent.
And to extrapolate this beyond music creators. Not receiving royalties hasn't stopped from people creating mods for computer games. It hasn't stopped creators of open source software.
The only people who are stopped by not receiving royalties are people who are in it for the royalties.
*) it's not a big festival, only about 1000-1400 guests. But compared to other student organized parties it's the biggest event. It's completely organized by people in their spare time. Nobody gets paid to do anything.
This might look like PRS is being the lame ones, but if you actually know a bloody thing about the music industry you would understand better what this really is about.
Youtube/Google makes millions upon millions of ad revenues from youtube. A clip that gets seen a lot generates more revenues. If it contains music that is 'copywritten' there should be a performance royalty associated to that clip. This is a movement to control the cash-flow of the music industry. There is no sense for Google to retain all the profit and not pay the writers and creators of the content while they rake it in.
Look at all the moving parts before slandering a group going after your "sainted" google.
Think about it, they claim that musicians earning less than £10k a year are being taken advantage of. I'm pretty sure the majority of music vids on youtube that are under the PRS earn a fair bit more than that! The majority of the views are for the superstars, not the underdogs.
Can any lawyer comment on this? As I understand it, and I quote, "The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 means that if you use copyright music in public, you must first obtain permission from every writer or composer whose music you intend to play." What is the legal status of a composer/performer combination, not a member of the PRS, posting material to YouTube with a statement to that effect?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
You are of course correct. If you can do it for free and it's good enought, why should anybody get paid for doing it great? Nevermind that everyone involved is a student or i otherwise employed. If they can do their hobbies for free, why can't professionals?
If/When you graduate you may/will have a job and your employer will expect you to do it very well and you may/will expect to be paid depending on much of this you get.
Why does it matter what the occupation is suddenly? I know a lot of people who are accountants for fun and they've never complained about not getting paid. RIGHT. If you are the best at something you have a right to be compensated for your expertise, especially when that is your means of making a living.
Of course I'm sure that you have never paid for quality professionally produced music. It's all the same after all and your friends do it for free for you. And you even organized their record label too. Out of the goodness of your heart. What a guy. Perhaps you put that on your resume when you look for a real job. I'd hire you in a second as long as you did a great job and never asked for money.
Of course perhaps you have paid for music or even a concert, in which case I call bullshit, because you have enough aesthetic sense to tell that something is worth paying for. Just because you can do it for free doesn't mean that everyone else should. Get over it. Or come work for me for free. I've got plenty for you to do and I won't pay a cent.
Using YouTube as a nostalgia trip, I've seen many artist come back to 'life' from the combination of fan power and the Web. Careers have been revived, arenas filled, records sold - all money in the bank. But now its being taken away, those fairly narrow opportunities are reducing every day this runs on, all done by the people who are supposed to help artists generate money. Something is badly wrong http://goffee-freelance.blogspot.com/2009/03/finally-affected-by-internet-politics.html "Anyone can find a fan page, maybe even the original artists and kick back in nostalgia mode, old albums can be purchased (money for the record companies - a good thing), even re-released (even better), a lot of acts are touring now, who without the net to spread the word would be sat on their arses."
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
FOSS coders have jobs. They do FOSS programming as a hobby. Unless you have a REALLY understanding boss, you won't be allowed to do your hobby at work.
Only directors and C*O's get to do that.
NOBODY gets to do their hobby at work. And most people have to PAY to do their hobby.
So take all that straw away and give it to some needy ponies. It's not worth anything here.
FOSS coders have jobs. They do FOSS programming as a hobby.
A lot of FOSS software is written by software professionals as part of their job.
But let's put that aside, and think only of the hobbyist FOSS writers. Many people when they first learn about free software, instinctively decide that it must be second rate. "OK, so I can't afford the good stuff, I can make do with free software." It's quite a leap for these people to realise that non-free software is frequently poor quality, and that free software is frequently of a very high quality.
So it is with music. Some amateur music is better than some professional music.
Could society get on with only amateur music? I doubt we'll ever find out. But I don't think there's a case the argument that if we don#t protect musicians' revenue streams we'll have to live in a world without music.
I understand where these artists are coming from but this is the fallout from a badly balanced system as it was started. Music was well overpriced to begin with, the internet has forced that into a more realistic pricing model and those who benefited from a little-effort-multi-millionaire lifestyle now see their gravy train coming to a crashing stop. It's no wonder they are trying to keep the train moving.
When the record labels, executives, advertisers, promoters etc are making billions from artists and fans it's no wonder the artists want their share of the cash. When both the means to record, release and promote were limited to those with serious money they held all the cards, and so could charge much more than it cost to make and distribute an LP, tape or CD. They also set the rules on what the artists had to give up to get a small slice of the pie. They screwed both ends of the chain and made a fortune off their backs. The internet has bust that gravy train right off the tracks and they just don't see it.
Part of the excuse for high product prices was that it cost so much to make and distribute them. With the internet, people can access the same stuff with little cost.
Part of the excuse for record companies charging for EVERYTHING was that the art of making the music was a skill reserved for specially talented people who needed to spend 6 months in Barbados to "get into the right headspace" to write a 3 minute tune which would gain a high chart position and therefor make them tonnes of cash. This means the artist is treated like some spoiled brat and given whatever they request. Look at the excesses of the large 70's and 80's acts for plenty of examples.
They don't see music as an art, they see spreadsheets with comparisons of chart positions and sales figures.
Part of the excuse is that they play a key role as a gobetween the artist and the fans, in the form of TV appearances, radio appearances, interviews etc.
All of the excuses the recording industry have used over the years to justify their extortionate fees are evaporating as people are bypassing them, legally and illegally. Many artists are choosing to go their own routes, giving them more control and a larger slice of the profits of their work and a direct relationship with their fans.
Costs have come down dramatically and the point of entry is now very low if you want to make music for a living but the days of Elton John or Queen type earnings are long gone, no matter how good you are; the public have changed and the mediums have changed....and won't change back, no matter how much they wish it so.
It's now possible to put a band together with decent quality equipment and record on a simple mixer / PC to get a reasonably professional sound, which coupled with some internet savvy thinking can get you decent earnings.
It's early in the morning and I think I'm starting to ramble so I'll end it there.
Utter rubbish
PRS AND ITS SUPPORTER BURN IN HADES
They nothing more than fascist common thieves.
Play radio the in your local independent garage well ?
Guess what yer goanna be sued, public performance.
Your children sing happy birthday at school , PRS no where's the money!
Your law enforcement guys what to listen to the radio they fine them too.
School kids raseing money by singing Christmas carols to give more unfortunate children a Christmas, Not till PRS takes there SHARE, they will fine you too.
But by worst is there new License that all places need to play music. So I now need a License to play my own guitar with my own material in my local pub. So in reality I need to pay IFPI,RIAA to play my own stuff when they have no rights top any of it.
See a trend here anybody.
PRS Screwing You Since 1941 there mission ? to send the human back to the warter were they came from.
YOUR NEXT
> Is he really owed all that money? Pete, dude, nobody was actually enjoying that song, you know. It's basically the work safe version of goatse.cx
You just gave me a brillant idea! If his work is equivalent to being sent to goatse, all we have to do is send HIM 100 million copies of goatse and we'll be even...
Who's with me?
"It is important...for future generations of music creators, that they can rely on earning an income from their songwriting."
Why?
Art is everywhere. Art is cheap. How many people are members of garage bands? Play an instrument? Sing? Maybe even give the occasional performance? How many people paint, write, compose, sculpt or dance in their spare time? Most have no expectation of making money - it's a hobby, something they do for fun.
Earning real money with any of this - composing, performing, writing, dancing, whatever - is very, very difficult. But the sense of entitlement from wannabe professionals is amazing: "My work is so great, I deserve to make a living at it". When they find that they can't, why then "life is unfair" and they are being cheated.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
youTube aren't using their music because they can't afford it. PRS seems to want to force them to use it.
Our MP (David Heath, one of the good guys) raised this when it first came out, but I had forgotten. I think we need to target the Lib Dems with this one. How can a private company have private law? Surely this is contrary to EU law? - incidentally, no I am not a Lib Dem, this is not trying to gain support, I will write to any MP or political party that seems to have a clue on an issue, just like the Conservative David Davis seems to have a clue about civil liberties. Maybe we should try him as well.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
"If/When you graduate you may/will have a job and your employer will expect you to do it very well and you may/will expect to be paid depending on much of this you get. "
There's a distinct lack of demands to be paid repeatedly for the same work over the next 50-100 years in any other job though.
If a secretary demanded royalties for every time something they typed was viewed, they would not be a secretary for very long.
If a plumber wanted royalties for every flush, they would be out of work.
If architects demanded payment for every single time someone looked at a building, nobody would employ them.
I co-wrote 'Never Gonna Give You Up', which Rick Astley performed in the eighties, and which must have been played more than 100 million times on YouTube - owner Google. My PRS for Music income in the year ended September 2008 was ã11.
Does this mean I never have to worry about being rick rolled again? That would be great. I love the PRS now. They are protecting me from being tricked into hearing such an evil song. oh gods the flashbacks.
Hopefully people who make conspiracy videos will take this same path so I don't have to hear them either.
Call their bluff I say. With a lesser financial incentive, the commercial types like Waterman will push off and work in factories, leaving only true artists making music. This issue is interesting, because it reminds us that, while modern capitalism allows certain creative artists a share in the surplus value they produce, they are the exception. The system can only function if most workers aren't treated the same way.
Let me tell you something about intellectual property.
I own everything in my mind. I don't care if you wrote the words and/or tune. I don't care if you performed it. Once it's in my mind, I control what happens to it in my mind. You have no right, and heaven help us all if you ever get the ability, to control what happens to your "content" once it's in my mind.
And you should be glad that's the way it is.
Now, I admit, there are some blasted jingles I may not have initial control over. I hate it when songs get stuck in my head, but I am eventually able to clear them out.
The actual legal thing being granted and traded is merely the right to deal with a certain item in the market place. That's all. Anything beyond that exceeds the bounds of reasonable law (even though there are plenty of snake-oil-salesman lawyers who are trying to sell you control that is impossible to grant you in the sense that it is impossible to legislate the value of pi).
The market place is a community. You can't demand the right to keep your product out of the market and exercise that right and expect your product to be in the market.
Publishing puts the work into the common market. When you publish, you give up a certain amount of control.
Now, if you're still reading, the question you should be asking is this:
Can google provide the index that makes for a more effective market, and still provide some interface to that index so that individual can veto the index if he or she chooses? Can there be other options besides simple veto?
And if you can see the question, you should see the answer: the current "artists associations" weren't and aren't doing their jobs, relative to the internet. Google (along with Yahoo and others) is doing part of what was once their job.
Go looking on Google (and/or Yahoo) and you will find the answer. Yes, you can veto, and maybe even do some other things at the search sites.
And if the artist's associations want to get their jobs back, they need to start producing index sites that are more effective. It's that simple.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
You've misunderstood the nature of the PRS agreement, it's already in place, and it covers all public performances of music. The University of Twente will have paid the Netherlands equivalent of the PRS (which is BUMA/STEMRA) for a licence to perform music publically. The only reason the authors of the songs performed at the festival don't get paid is that they haven't claimed their share of the licence money from BUMA/STEMRA.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
There are likely plenty of people who work for charities who do whatever it is you do without getting paid. Does that mean your work shouldn't involve getting paid?
You must know that a lot of people do that festival and other festivals like it, do so because it boosts their profile and helps either get bigger gigs in the future or get signed. There may be some doing it just for kicks and don't mind the time and money investment of being in a band playing for free but if the majority of them aren't dreaming of making it big I'd be amazed.
Do you think these bands playing would be happy doing nothing but unpaid concerts if they could fill a stadium and still having to have a job on the side?
I don't know whether PRS has an equitable solution. But the other side of the argument essentially wants and thinks it has a right to all music for nothing. Never pay a cent. This is not equitable.
To suggest that the songwriters are technical dinosaurs who simply "don't get the Internet" is a little bit disingenuous.
The Internet play they get is not paying them anything. "Exposure," you say. What would you say to that promise of exposure... if it meant an indefinite period of working for nothing for the exposure, and near zero actual dollar compensation for your work?
Meanwhile Google and YouTube are getting paid. They are repackaging and generating ad dollars with artist's work that they got for nothing. The artists are getting a vague promise that "the Internet is great for music" but they aren't seeing the money.
The artists are asking to get paid under some kind of royalty arrangement. The writer of the Rick Atley hit that got played millions of times on YouTube got a royalty payment of 11. (that's 11 English pounds in case the character string doesn't work). Clearly he got no money from all the "exposure" on YouTube.
I need to get paid in cash money, not promises, and so do you. I expect to pay people for the valuable things they do for me or sell to me, and so should you. Time to get out of this juvenile rut of petty taking and grabbing stuff for free. Give other people their due and see how you start to get your due as well.
I was going to post a comment on their website, but they will only allow comments from "Supporters".
These guys just can't have it both ways. Either they want a licence fee that Google won't pay, in which case they must surely be happy to see the content blocked, or else they want to be on Google/Youtube's servers, in which case they are going to have to be flexible about the licence fee thing.
The completely unsustainable position is to say, as they seem to be, "you have to carry our content because that is good for our performers, but if you do you must pay this fee."
Now I just download the whole damn album. Care to guess if I bother to buy it after that?
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
And getting paid billions by the taxpayer because you ain't buying a new car as well. Sorry, in 2009 your car comparissons don't work anymore.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What's the difference between UK Youtube and the rest of the world. Why isn't it blocked in the US and what are the difference between payments for the US and UK Youtube service?
Why do you PRS trolls all act like Google is making money off the songs and not paying?
Read my lips: They stopped playing the fucking songs.
How are they making "millions upon millions" off these people when they are not playing their work?
You act like these so-called artists have a right to be on YouTube and a right to collect for it. But nobody is required to carry their content and pay their license.
Perhaps it is just me, but your business model really sucks.
You should work on a new model that people actually get paid for the things they do.
Said content is of comparatively low quality and thus is not valuable, since almost nobody would actually pay for it if sold in stores
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Paul needs to drop the R in his band name. It is 2009 for 'Christ sake! It's called a theory, but that doesn't mean it is theoretical Paul! I suppose the name The Revolvers is more apropos than The Evolvers for Paul, as it alludes to the thought of him shooting himself in the foot along with all of the other ill informed musicians.
Note: I have been a musician for longer than I have been a Software Engineer (i.e. 32+ and 25+ years respectively), so I see the whole picture. These folks over at fairplayforcreators are just totally misinformed or actively clueless.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
We used to tape shit off each other.
If we heard something good on the radio, in the club or from a friend we would tape it.
If we liked it we bought the album for ourselves.
If we really liked it we bought the CD as well once that format came out for the better sound quality.
If I like an artist I will buy their stuff because I want to thank them for making my life a little bit better.
So its a question of what the music is worth to me - which is how a market works last time I checked. So I have, do and would pay $15 for a Killing Joke cd. But I wouldnt pay a dime for some Rick Astley popcorn shit. But for me to make that decision I want to make an informed choice and that is not going to happen with seeing or hearing the song once or twice on the radio or on the telly.
So for me todays "youtubing" and "ripping" is exactly the same as taping in the 80s. So if "100 million" Rick Astley viewings on youtube hasnt translated to sales its not "stealing" its because the musics shit. And if its shit it has no value. Conversely if videos on youtube do translate into sales (and I cant believe there arent ways to find out) its because the music is good. And good music has value.
Not receiving royalties hasn't stopped from people creating mods for computer games.
Oh? And the games those mods were created for, were also made by unpaid people?
I'm sorry, but just as TFA is a shining example of greed taking precedence over passion on these artists, your post in an example of the opposite extreme - the position that the effort and creativity put in art and entertainment are worthless and deserves no monetary reward.
As an artist struggling to get off the ground professionally while working a non-related full day job, I can tell you that we'll certainly take our chances and work for free, but what we really want is to get paid for the job we love, just like everybody else.
So both the greedy bastards from TFA and the disrespectful jerks like you (disrespectful of other people's dreams and hopes and effort and needs) can go to hell.
Furthermore, I also call bullshit on your assertion that nobody gets paid to do anything in your festival. Having volunteered in several festivals myself I can tell you that the security people get paid, the sound people get paid, the venue owners get paid, the electricity company gets paid, the caterers get paid, and so on. Everybody gets paid except the volunteers and the artists without enough clout to make you pay for their work. And as your festival increases in size, you'll move away from them and start hiring the biggest artists you can afford, once again shafting the small ones.
A lot of people do things for free - some of my own work is released under CC-BY-SA - but that's no reason to believe that creative effort shouldn't be rewarded.
They are supposedly my fellow musicians. You would think that they would know that this is the only PRS for music that matters ...
Paul Reed Smith should sue. Serously.
I love the "If you agree with us let us know, and if you do not then bugger off" approach.
I especially love their complaint:
GOOGLE is blocking UK usersâ(TM) access to premium music videos on YouTube as it is not prepared to pay the going rate for the music that plays on it and contributes to its £3billion annual profits. "
If only we had some kind of Capatalist System where people and corporations could decide for themselves what to charge and what they are willing to pay for goods and services! Then we could all say Google has elected not to purchase your product at that price; good day sirs! Until that day, however, they are Evil, and Bad, and doing something that is just plain Not Fair(tm)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
In the old days, a music publisher could charge a premium for copies of music (printed music, or audio productions) because they had relatively significant upfront costs, and a relatively easy means of controlling distribution, and reproduction. They got paid for taking that risk, and for controlling a scarce resource (the printed/engraved copies), and they got paid well.
Guess what (you greedy bastards), the risk has been mitigated with the advent of digital distribution. Your ability to control the scarce resource is disappearing. That's how capitalism works (well, that's how it's supposed to work anyway)
Think of all the wanna-be Britney Spears who awoke in their dingy trailer homes, wondered who their father was, and then sat happily crunching away on their Lucky Charms at the combination breakfast-nook/Counter-top/Fold-away bed. Maybe it's better they don't get exploited after all.
What these folk fail to realize is that "musician" is no longer a profession--it's just an activity. It follows "photographer" and "journalist" down that trail marked by blogs, flickr, youTube and other broadcast media available to anyone with a PC.
In the long run, we're going to have to find a way to pay the best of them to keep producing stuff we want to hear and see, but the big studio, big distributor model won't be part of it. These guys are already dead, they just don't have the good sense to lie down.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
Start by removing their Wikipedia page
If two different print publications unaffiliated with a subject have run articles about the subject, then I don't see what grounds you have to delete the subject's Wikipedia page.
'star player?!?!?'
Sorry, but where's the music without the writer?
PRS represents UK writers' rights, unlike RIAA which is a trade association for US labels....
Just need to have a little moan. Sorry:
There's a general perception here and on a lot of other sites that musicians and writers are rolling in it, hate getting exposure on youtube and other media, and generally want to piss on everyone's free music parade.
This conveniently forgets the fact that it's indie musicians that get hit the hardest.
Working with a lot of artists, including some really well-known (well in the UK) ones, believe me when i say that this just isn't true: most artists are on the poverty line most of the time, even when they're doing well; love and appreciate the value of the net in expanding their fanbase; and are as into p2p, streamjacking etc as everyone else. After all, how do you think they get _their_ influences' music?
But there's a basic principle here that no-one really seems to fully commit to: if you want music, will you pay the piper?
Seriously. To make even a _really_ budget album, cheaply with friends, donated time from engineers, mastering studios etc, takes a lot of money and *especially* time. So if you're hanging around making this great free album you're not working. Perhaps it takes you three months to write, arrange, record, mix and master 10 tracks. That's at least 3000 quid of lost earnings time, if only one person works on it. Add 3 others (typical band) and up it goes to 12,000.
As things stand, it's really hard to recoup even half of this from net revenue. Once you get past everyone else's cut, your average paid-for download stream remits something like 10pc to the artist. Ad-funded streams like Spotify or Rawrip pay even less. So you need to about 15,000 legit downloads to break even; given a 10-to-1 ratio of unauthorised:legal (or 'free':'monetised' if you prefer that terminology) plays, you're now reaching something like over a hundred thousand people. Which is quite a few, we can all agree.
Someone will probably flag up live revenue at this point. Okay: well, I can tell you that the economics for that are even shittier. Take a 30-date tour, playing to something like 10,000 people total. 7 quid a ticket nets a tidy 70,000 quid, right?
Except, of that 70,000:
*Venues / promoters will take at least 50,000
*Van hire: 3000
*Van fuel: 1500
*Sound tech / tour manager: 1500
*Daily living costs for 4 people: 2400
*Rehearsal for the tour (1 month):1000
Leaving the four band members something like 2500 each, in the very best case, for about 2.5 months work (rehearsing plus promoting plus the actual tour itself).
Labour of love? Of course... Incredibly lucky to do it for a living? Everyone knows they are. But making a living this way is pretty damn marginal already, as you can see (most people have part-time jobs as well as music).
This hypothetical band, remember, have spent about six months entertaining thousands of people, online and live, about as cheaply as it's possible to do it (seriously, I wish indie labels ran around in taxis high on coke, it really doesn't happen). In return they've got the minimum wage, though probably a lot of stories to tell.
But will they have it in them to come up with a second record? A fourth? A tenth? It's no wonder we're saturated with talented, but underdeveloped artists, peddling catchy, but derivative drivel. It takes time to develop - and who wants to spend two decades touring to kids on the minimum wage?
Indie artists don't want to get paid millions. Just a fair amount that reflects their work. And not to be slagged off by their audiences simply for asking for it.
(I read slashdot a lot but this is my first - and probably only - post. hence anon comment. but hit me up on linkedin at 'joe parker / sotones' if you want)
What I find interesting is how the artists are complaining that they see very little money appearing on their "PRS for music"-cheque despite having so many views on their Youtube song.
Youtube is refusing to pay as much money that "PRS for Music" is charging.
Wouldn't this be about time for some document to appear on Wikileaks concerning how much money google paid "PRS for Music" in royalties last years, and how much of that was paid to the artists?
Anyone wanna bet on how high the percentage cut is for artists? 1%, 0.1% or 0.01% ? :)
But can you listen to uaradio.net in a car or bus without a $720 per year data plan? That's five times the price of satellite radio.
Just ask Rick Astley. That guy was so dead a couple of years ago that even HE didn't remember he once had a career.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
When will we get a meaningful dialogue about intellectual property and royalties?
A lot of the major publishers of non-free entertainment works are headquartered in the United States of America. These publishers also own all the television news media. The copyright pendulum will start to swing from overly favoring incumbent publishers once people from a party not owned by the entertainment industry get elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. How can U.S. citizens like myself make that happen?
Analogy? Musician gives away free copies of music recordings, and earns his living performing live. (customer service).
Under such an analogy, the Beatles' work after Revolver may not have seen the light of day. Such recordings relied on audio effects done in the studio and wasn't especially amenable to live performance.
A lot of the content on youtube is over the line [...] a lot of users go well beyond what common sense should dictate as "Fair Use".
Would this video clearly cross the line? It drew an auto-match notice from YouTube, which I disputed.
If they don't want the exposure so be it. it's their music and careers. If they do but their label/producer/owner/baron/slave lord doesn't, again, so be it. Nobody forced you to sign that contract with the devil. Live with your choices. 99.9% of everything on YouTube is just like everything else on the InterTubeWeb .. noise, not signal. I hadn't heard of you or cared before. Now the chances that I will are nil. You got what you wanted and I won't be subjected to your over commercialized, over compressed, over marketed crap. Goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
This is why perpetual copyrights are such a bad idea.
Why SHOULD he be still be collecting big bucks for something that was a flash-in-the-pan 25 years ago? Now if he could point to something he's done recently that I might actually listen to, I'd (maybe) feel more sympathy.
This, to me, is just plain stupid. To me, it implies the following:
* I have to pay royalties if I let someone listen to a song on my iPod (this is essentially the same as a sharing a song on YouTube)
* If I create a five-second tune with three words as the lyrics I can force Google to pay whenever someone listens to my "song".
And what kind of message is this sending to the young and new artists, which the website claims to help? Many of the artists that will be around in a few years I predict will be teenagers who loved listening to songs on YouTube and getting music for free (be it legal or not). If they catch wind about this and want to share their music through YouTube and such, they aren't going to trust record companies and as a result publish the songs independently with PayPal and ads as their way of getting money. The concept of "record companies" is going to crumble eventually, this would just speed up the process.
You can't stop the inevitable. There will always be that underground website with pirated music for download. There will always be that BitTorrent site with all the music you could want and more. And most importantly, there will always be a geek with no life who breaks the latest anti-piracy (a.k.a. DRM) methods. I predict that 10 years down the road we will not have "record companies". We won't have CD's. We'll just have an iPod and our favorite music download client.
It's like paying your car company every time you start your car...Even if you've paid it off and own it for 10 years...
"You've been using our car for 10 years now and we haven't sold you anything new so keep right on paying for your old one because it still works"
Okay, so PRS is pissed that google and youtube would rather take down copyrighted content than pay for it? really? You see, I'd rather not have to pay for music either when there is so much free content from people trying to get noticed. You can tell the companies to pay for what they take, but you can't tell them they should continue taking it!!!