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."
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 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.
-- Pete Waterman, songwriter - 24 March 2009
Why would you admit to writing what has been largely deemed the worst pop song in modern history? If that's the kind of music writers should be paid lots of money for, I'm glad the negotiations broke down.
Put identity in the browser.
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.
and which must have been played more than 100 million times on YouTube
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
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
> 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.
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
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
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'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.
Never mind that never gonna give you up was written in the 80's. How many other products sell themselves 20 years after you create them? Even Coke have had several rebrandings/new flavours/numerous promotions.
What does Pete still do to promote and grow his song? He should take advantage of the new popularity to release a "rickrolled-remix" or something. Look what Id software is doing with wolfenstein 3d 9opensource the iphone port but also sell it)
of course £11 was worth a lot more when he wrote it...
And this is £11 that he would NEVER have gotten if google hadn't posted it.
---
Copyright should only last 10 years. After that you are on your own.
"(...) 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
As a musician myself, I was compelled to comment there. They won't put it up though.
I take the opposite view. I have one album up for sale on iTunes and Amazon and another being uploaded right now - http://tinyurl.com/cdx44l I don't actually want to be represented by the PRS, but I have no choice. There is no opt out. You will collect royalties on my behalf whether or not I want you to. If I wish my music to be available free for streaming on Internet radio, you will not let me. So who's worse, Google for throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or the PRS for extortion?
Listen to my latest album here
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.
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."
Google was already paying royalties. The issue at hand is, how high should those royalties be.
The PRS argument seems to percieve that a 'view' is worth a lot more than makes sense (see the comment on the page about getting 25,000 views and expecting more than a couple of pounds in royalties).
Google does make billions, but it makes those billions by serving trillions of pages. 1000 video views might result in one ad click. One ad click is only worth a few pence.
If they paid what the PRS is asking, Google would make a loss. So, they said "no thanks".
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.
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.
"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.
I take the opposite view. I have one album up for sale on iTunes and Amazon and another being uploaded right now - http://tinyurl.com/cdx44l I don't actually want to be represented by the PRS, but I have no choice. There is no opt out. You will collect royalties on my behalf whether or not I want you to. If I wish my music to be available free for streaming on Internet radio, you will not let me. So who's worse, Google for throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or the PRS for extortion?
Now, /this/ is what you can rightly call theft of copyright. As far as I am aware, this sort of wholesale misappropriation of artists' rights is fairly common in the West and once again emphasizes the point that copyright was created for the benefit of large organizations, not for the individual creators.
sigs are hazardous to your health
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."
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.
"I wish my wages worked like that!"
Yeah, me too. I think most people do, unfortunately.
I'm appaled at how quickly would-be musicians/composers adjust their attitudes when tempted with regular royalty payments. Reading the publications of interest groups for authors, musicians, composers and other royalty-paid professions is pretty disgusting. They'll gladly censor you, spy on you, and demand a private tax from you as long as they get a chance at perpetual income.
It's not just a big industry position, either. Just like when poor people support tax cuts for the rich because they think they will be rich one day, two bit "content producers" support perpetual copyright terms, oppose orphan works legislation, want to obliterate fair use, install DRM in everyone's computers etc. The sense of entitlement is astounding.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
I see the humor of your post, but I actually DID enjoy the "Never Gonna Give You Up" airplay on the Internet. As a matter of fact it's one of the catchiest tunes I've ever heard. I still can't believe Rick Astley is a white guy, though.
I actually believe that people should have a right to make money from their work - even if this is often not the majority view on slashdot.
(For example, the copyright laws being extended to cover the duration of a musicians lifetime has been discussed here before and seems to be unpopular)
However - I can't understand this:
If I want to use a radio at my place of work - the PRS demand that my workplace pays a license because there is more than one person listening to it - but the radio station has already paid for playing the song...
To me - it is fair enough to pay once - but to pay twice is greedy, ridiculous and unfair...
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.
Yes, but to be fair you were born in 2003, so you are like, what? ... Six and 1/2 ?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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
I actually believe that people should have a right to make money from their work - even if this is often not the majority view on slashdot.
So do I. However, if I wish to make my music free to listen to, shouldn't I be able to as the copyright holder? At the moment I can't as the PRS will collect royalties on my behalf even though I don't want them to.
Listen to my latest album here
Ahem. I actually *like* that song. It reminds me of when I was riding on the schoolbus and first heard it play on the radio, first crushes on the opposite sex, and it's certainly not "the worst" pop song. It's no worse than what Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers are putting out today. Worse songs include stuff put-out by Kris Kross, Vanilla Ice, and Wreckz-N-Effex (rumpshaker).
OFFTOPIC question -
I just received my "2nd Notice of Copyright Infringement" for Burn After Reading and Evan Almighty. Does anyone know if Verizon DSL has a three-strike rule that might result in my suspension? If so I'm going to stop downloading movies completely (since today's movies are largely crap).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Hey! That's my tune, man. And don't be picking on VanIce. He made the world safe for Eminem.
Wait, no, I take that back.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
Either way under the current rules the guy gets money for work he did over 20 years ago. I wish my wages worked like that!
If you'e willing to defer most of your wages, get paid slowly over time instead of for once up front, and only get paid if your work is commercially successful, then I'm sure you and your boss can work something out.
It's not fair to complain about people wanting to be paid under the compensation scheme that they agreed to when they did the work, and especially when it involves deferred and conditional compensation. I wouldn't work under those terms, but if I did, I'd make damn sure I got what was owed to me.
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.
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% ? :)
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.
"Shoot a man in the head and he won't want anything anymore."
That does sound kind of German, doesn't it?
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.