YouTube Pays Music Industry $1 Billion From Ads (cnet.com)

YouTube, the music industry's enemy No. 1 earlier this year, said Tuesday it has paid more than $1 billion in advertising revenue to artists, labels and publishers in the last 12 months. From a report on CNET: The milestone, released in a blog post by business chief Robert Kyncl, is a stab by Google's giant video site at mending fences with music industry critics. At least, it's YouTube hoping to convince some of them that the massive amount of free, ad-supported music listening that happens there is a valuable complement to music subscriptions, the industry's main area of growth right now.

Comments

Music industry != artists

[QuietLagoon]

The "music industry" is mostly over-paid execs sitting in ivory towers (some cylindrical), and siphoning off the revenue for their own profits.

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What percentage of that $billion has gone to the artists who perform the songs? Or the writers who write them?

Re:Music industry != artists

[swillden]

I think artists of the progressive rock genre are ones that suffer most from streaming

I think they are probably among those who suffer least.

Artists in most of the less mainstream forms of rock have basically never made any money from royalties. Their album sales have always served primarily to feed fan interest in their live shows, and they've made most of their their money from merchandising at the shows. I'd expect prog rock to be in this category. And for artists who make most of their money from touring, YouTube is a *good* thing because it does an even better job of feeding fan interest, enabling a lot more interaction with fans. YouTube does this so well it's enabled artists who would never have made it in the old world to make a decent living with their music. One of my favorite examples is Lindsay Stirling, the dancing pop violinist. She actually makes considerable money from YouTube streaming (because she doesn't go through a label), and sells out concerts in respectable venues worldwide.

The artists who in decades past made their money from royalties rather than touring are the ones who are most hurt by streaming, because their contracts generally pay them a pittance of streaming revenues. On the other hand, the artists in question, the ones to generate massive royalties on album sales, are the big pop acts who are rolling in cash in spite of being ripped off by their labels.

Please don't interpret this as a defense of the labels. I spent a while writing a royalty calculation system for a big label, and it's crazy how much crap they get away with and how badly they rip off the artists, with or without streaming. They suck, and I'm rooting for artists to exploit YouTube, iTMS, Google Play, etc., and social media to reach their fans directly and cut the bloodsucking leeches out completely.