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Trent Reznor: YouTube Is Built On the Back Of Stolen Content (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Singer and record producer Trent Reznor has become the latest artist to attack Google's video service YouTube. "I find YouTube's business to be very disingenuous. It is built on the backs of free, stolen content and that's how they got that big," said Reznor in an interview with Billboard. Reznor was not speaking purely as an artist, however. He is also chief creative officer at Apple Music, the streaming service launched by Apple in 2015, which is one of the key rivals to YouTube in the digital music world. "I think any free-tiered service is not fair. It's making their numbers and getting them a big IPO and it is built on the back of my work and that of my peers. That's how I feel about it. Strongly," said Reznor, widening his criticism to other rivals like Spotify in the process.
Never mind all of the car reviews, device reviews, musical gear reviews, prank shoes, and tutorials people watch on there............no, it's all about "his" stolen music.
Radio isn't fair?
Log in or piss off.
This is the sort of thing people on slashdot always say until someone rips of open source code without giving changes back...
Or until they have had their own work stolen and then it is somehow a different story.
"I find YouTube's business to be very disingenuous. It is built on the backs of free, stolen content and that's how they got that big," said Reznor in an interview with Billboard. Reznor was not speaking purely as an artist, however. He is also chief creative officer at Apple Music, the streaming service launched by Apple in 2015, which is one of the key rivals to YouTube in the digital music world.
I find pretending to be on the side of artists against Google when you are drawing a paycheck from one of their biggest competitors to be "very disingenuous".
Of course I don't find Apple Music to be much of a rival at all to YouTube so this may be much sound and fury signifying nothing. Apple pretending to respect the intellectual property of others is a bit rich.
...said competing content provider.
In my opinion, Youtube shows that people would create content without all of this artificial scarcity bullshit.
Was that before or after Apple thrust their mighty hand up his sockpuppet butthole?
I like Trent and I like a lot of the things he's done, but that doesn't mean he is always right about everything.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
He's not qualified to say that copying is theft because it isn't factually true.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
It might be too late. Apple got him and now they're telling him he doesn't look ridiculous dressing like a middle-aged Goth.
OMG, if only I had mod points... Well played, sir, well played indeed.
And to Trent... Look, I have a great deal of respect for you as an artist, but you are full of shit on this issue. Most of what you call theft is "fair use". The rest of it is unauthorized use, not theft. You were not deprived of something you already possessed. And no, you weren't deprived of any significant amount of revenue either. No, you really were not. You should stop drinking the RIAA kool aid and face the fact that not everybody who ever wanted to listen to 30 seconds of your music is going to pay for it if they have no other option.
Get over it, princess.
He wrote one of Johnny Cash's best songs.
Trent has been purchased by Apple, and they are just realizing value out of owning him.
Apple has declared war on 'free content on the internet' and are striving to make everything of significance cost money. They can't do this without tearing down every other business model, and as always at Apple (going all the way back to the Apple II clone/compatible makers who they ran out of business, and the multiple 'Windowing System' makers who they ran out of business, handing the platform ownership to deep-pockets Microsoft in the process) lawyers will be wielded against anybody who doesn't do things 'The Apple Way.'
People act like there isn't a reason some of us fucking hate Apple.
Let's ask Trent whose back his work is built on.
If he wants to be a credible voice for artists then he can't afford conflicts of interest. If Trent Reznor wants to resign his post with Apple and speak on his own behalf then I'll consider his position on the matter. Until then he's just playing the role of corporate stooge even if he actually believes what his is saying.
And Slashdotters are going to ignore that because they don't like what he's saying.
Slashdotters are going to ignore it because it's not relevant; what's on topic today is what he said in the Guardian, and that (at least in part) is bullshit. All his previous deeds, good or bad, don't make his claims that "youtube is built on the back of stolen content" or that "any free-tier service is not fair" true.
Before youtube, pretty much all video content that we watched came via tv and movie studios. With youtube, now anyone can be a tv presenter. When I want to fix something, the first thing I do is go on youtube and find a video of somebody showing me how to do it. When I want to buy something, I go on youtube and look for a video review, because nothing beats actually seeing something in action. People can write and preform songs in their bedroom and broadcast them to the world on youtube. I personally like to watch various nutters building and testing dangerous inventions in their backyard, stuff that you'd really never have seen pre-youtube. And on and on. We bandy about words like "disruptive" and "transformative" far too cheaply these days, but youtube actually deserves those adjectives. Sure, some copyright-infringing content may get put up there from time to time, but that certainly isn't central to what makes youtube great.
And as for "any free-tier service is not fair"; while I can see how that would seem the case from the artist/music industry perspective, it's disingenuous. Pre-internet, it cost money to produce, distribute and retail the physical records/tapes/CDs that music was disseminated on, and that was where the money was made. With the advent of the internet, the fact is that it costs virtually nothing to distribute a song or album to millions of people. This fact means that it simply does not make any sense to try and apply the pre-Internet business model to the post-Internet world. Change can seem unfair, but we all have to deal with it when reality imposes it on us. The music industry is adapting to the post-Internet world, and re-evaluating where and how the money is to be made, but artists and industry people that have been around long enough to remember the old days still find it hard to get their heads around it. They will adjust in time.
And this, boys and girls, is what "cognitive dissonance" feels like. I had a whole 30 seconds of feeling like this had to be one of those stupid "quote troll" memes, since I couldn't imagine Trent Reznor dribbling out that kind of mealy mouthed corporate crap. Then it finally clicked that I was working off an image that is over 25 years out of date...
Man, fuck getting old. Happy freakin' birthday.
For a while I was ok with Google having a blind eye to pirated content. Youtube is a very big place and it's impossible for them to watch every single video especially with the way that pirates mask their content to make automated systems impossible to detect it.
When they started launching the ads and then started charging for their Youtube red service their "plan" became apparent. Here's what they did.
Introduced Chrome Cast so you could watch Youtube on your TV.
Increased the video length to accommodate full length movies.
Did very little to protect copyright allowing illegal content to flourish.
Introduced ads slowly into the system.
Increased the ads steadily over time not to offend their viewers of illegal content.
Introduced Youtube Red Subscription.
Increased the ads to an offensive level to bolster their Youtube Red Subscription model.
This was a careful and intentional plan. I used to occasionally watch some of the pirated content until I finally realized Google's plan. While I might be ok with watching the occasional pirated movie I'm sure as hell not going to pay for the privilege. For an individual to overlook copyright occasionally is not the greatest thing but hardly criminal. When a large well known corporation banks on piracy of this nature and uses it to make a profit that goes beyond the idea of occasionally watching a pirated movie. It's outright fraud and and intentional piracy.
If google did not have a choke hold on the search market the studios would sue the crap out of them. They don't because google would retaliate against them and their content using their search engine. Proving google's retaliation would be impossible just as proving they intentionally planned to profit off of pirated content would be difficult to prove. Google is banking on these factors.
They are scumbags. Do no evil? My ass!
Digital copying is easy, sharing with friends is natural and human. The media industry is built on the principle of taking away our ability to copy and share, and on the idea that it is hard to do so. What would be rightfully ours under the original copyright laws is no longer ours, what we would have the right to do in the absence of copyright laws we no longer have the right to do. As for youtube, it is built on the hard work of those who invented the hardware and software technology to make it possible, and the efforts of many users. A little copyright infringment happens as 'collateral damage', and that is largely because copyright at present is so distant from what is natural, easy and straightforward. We could function without Trent's last album quite happily, but the ability to share information, events and enthusiasm is so much more important.
John_Chalisque
"I think any free-tiered service is not fair.... is built on the back of my work and that of my peers. That's how I feel about it. Strongly," said Reznor
That's hilarious, because I doubt Reznor or any of these other artists would bitch that MTV/VH1 was stealing from them, yet it does exactly the same as Youtube, presenting their music to the populace for free with ad revenue paying the bills.