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 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.
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.
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
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"
Question to poster: how does it follow from their statements that the music writers are clueless?
Very simple: they seem to focus on how much money Google is making, and how much money they think their music is worth. The question they SHOULD be asking is: how much money is my music WORTH to Google? How much revenue would Google lose if my music was pulled from YouTube tomorrow, and what % of that money might I fairly claim? They should also ask themselves the question: how much money will I lose/gain if my music was NOT on YouTube? If the payment is not enough for you, then don't complain when Google removes your music.
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.
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?
You can opt out of collecting your royalties from the PRS. You can't stop the PRS collecting from the broadcaster.
Say I want to perform a set of my music in a pub, no covers, just stuff I wrote. The pub has to have a PRS performance license and has to pay the PRS for my performance even if I'm not registered with them.
It's extortion, and as usual it's the artists who get screwed - the number of places to play is dropping for the small local artist as landlords stop paying the PRS tax.
Listen to my latest album here
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."
"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.
"Looking" for a way out? No. There is a way out. Don't play the content. Which is what they are doing. This is a service not a mafia family. One can leave.
Why should the authors of songs be the ones who bail Google out of their bad decision to bay $1.65 billion for a loss-making idea?
Who says Google should be compelled to continue a service if it's losing money?
If I decide cable TV cost too much and shut off the service unless they drop the price, am I guilty of demanding the cable company bail me out of my bad decision to watch TV?
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...
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.
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
Wrong. From here
Do I need a Music Licence to play music within the bar area?
Yes, if you use live or recorded background music in the bar, restaurant, cafe, or on your telephone system, then a Music Licence will be required. There is a relevant section on the review form where this music usage can be declared.
How does PRS for Music distribute the income it collects?
It is a condition of the Music Licence that, when requested, the licensee shall supply details of all musical works publicly performed. This information is needed primarily to assist PRS for Music to distribute royalties to writers and publishers. It also helps to identify performances which contain no PRS for Music controlled works for which no royalty is therefore due.
In other words, you still need the public performance license even if no royalties are due.
Listen to my latest album here