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Google Releases Study Defending YouTube's Value To Music Biz; Trade Bodies Hit Back (billboard.com)
The ongoing tussle between YouTube and the music industry took a new turn this week when Google assured everyone that its video platform doesn't have any negative impact on the other streaming music services -- despite all the free music it offers. From a report: A Google-commissioned report into how YouTube impacts on the wider music economy has -- somewhat unsurprisingly -- found that the hugely popular, yet much-maligned platform significantly drives sales and stops users from visiting pirate music services. According to a European study carried out by RBB Economics, if music content was removed from YouTube around 85 percent of the time that users spend on the platform would switch to lower value channels, such as TV, radio or internet radio. RBB claimed there would also be a significant increase in time spent listening to pirated content (up 29 percent), while only 15 percent of heavy users, defined as someone who watches more than 20 hours of music videos per month, would switch to higher value offerings like subscription streaming services. In the U.K., that number increases to 19 percent; in France it's 12 percent. [...] In response, music trade bodies poured scorn on the paper's findings. "Google's latest publicity push once again seeks to distract from the fact that YouTube, essentially the world's largest on-demand music service, is failing to license music on a fair basis and compensate artists and producers properly by claiming it is not liable for the music it is making available," reads a statement from IFPI. "Services like YouTube, that are not licensing music on fair terms, hinder the development of a sustainably healthy digital music market," claimed the international trade body, repeating its regular call for tighter regulation around safe harbour licensing.
Maybe artists could career change into a field with less chances of having their work pirated, like, software development.
Its out of the box, there is no putting Music back on old platforms like radio and TV and controlling the releases like they used to. Seems odd the music industry is fighting it.
The "music industry" will not be happy until they get _ALL_ the money in the world.
Anything else is "unfair" to them.
There is no 'claim' the safe harbor explicitly makes them not liable for content uploaded by users. In fact YouTube goes above and beyond doing content-id and allowing the music industry to take revenue or block videos.
I'm no fan of Alphabet, but the music industry just had its best year in 20 thanks to streaming and digital music. Youtube is a big part of that ecosystem. The music industry may have legit complaints, but digital music hurting them isn't one of them.
They're not getting paid by the record companies either; record sales haven't been profitable for artists for ages due to the way record company contracts work. The only way for artists to get paid is to go on tour; it's been like this for quite some time.
Youtube is the only way I've found to actually listen to any new music to see if I like it or not, since they don't play anything worthwhile on the radio these days.
If it's their official channel, which it often is these days, then they're getting paid. Maybe not 'enough', but they're getting paid. The few instances where I tend to see lots of alternate versions going up usually is because it's an artist that didn't bother - and even then, Youtube will crack down on that, either transferring the ad revenue or muting the video.
More than that though, Youtube and streaming services serve the same function that radio used to, in that it exposes users to new music/artists. I know I've found news bands through Youtube specifically that I'm now a fan of, buying albums/etc, that I never would have stumbled across were it not for those services. I've also used it in place of streaming music when I was working at places that wouldn't allow pandora/spotify/etc, but had Youtube allowed, specifically to listen to music.
I listen to the same song again and again. The artist got paid once.
I buy CD's used. The artists doesn't get paid there.
I share CD's. Guess what -- the artist doesn't get paid.
Quit playing the "starving artist isn't get paid" card -- because there are numerous legal examples.
Maybe you missed the memo that the RIAA are the the biggest thieves -- NOT the consumers.
People who pirate regularly spend MORE on films and BUY more.
Google is not different from anyone else. You are conflating the (free) distribution of music on YouTube as if it is the ONLY source of income. This is false. Artists aren't making a living off of YouTube even if ZERO of their music is "pirated."
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Fuck You Red Cross for hijacking the + operator and the color red hundreds of years AFTER the Templars.
It's been shown time & again that given the crap contracts the major record labels sign their talent to (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml), that the only way an act makes any money is by touring, and that the recordings exist as promotion for said tours. On that basis additional distribution by piracy only acts as added tour publicity and musicians should be encouraging it, except I'm sure the contract language prohibits such.
Since I've started listening to YouTube music videos at work, I have ended up purchasing more music than I would have had I not been listening to YouTube music videos.
Obviously they're profitable on some level, or the musicians wouldn't be signing the contracts. At the very least, record companies are able to promote artists. 99% of musicians are not great artists, they just have a studio behind them giving them support.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Every artist and label under the sun posts all sorts of their content to YouTube. They then complain that people are listening to their music for free on YouTube? Then stop putting it there!
Create your own service where you can charge users every time they consume your content then. Yes, there are average Joes and Janes that post videos with their content as well, but when they're putting their content on YouTube as well, they really don't get to complain. Soon as they stop posting their stuff to YouTube, then they can complain and go after the average person posting with their content.
Youtube is the only way I've found to actually listen to any new music to see if I like it or not, since they don't play anything worthwhile on the radio these days.
I sometimes find worthwhile new music on the radio, and use SoundHound to identify it. But yes, YouTube is great when it comes to mining for music, either new stuff or stuff that's just new to me. I can spend hours following their sidebar recommendations. And I sometimes use youtube-dl to download a video and then rip the sound, just for the sake of convenience. Then, if I find myself actually listening to it, I buy the CD; yep, I'm old skool that way.
Except for music I simply can't find elsewhere new or used, or where the disc is out-of-print and being sold for stupidly high prices, I only download for evaluation. If I like it after several listens, I buy it. I've purchased a LOT more CD's as a result of YouTube than I would have bought if YT didn't exist. And any music that I downloaded but didn't subsequently purchase, I would never have bought anyway. So speaking strictly for myself, I see YT as a net benefit to the music industry. I suspect that's true for others as well, to a greater extent than the MAFIAA admits even to itself. Sure, the ease of copying and distributing digital content outside of 'official channels' has hurt the bottom line. But I think YouTube must be pretty far down the list of real, (as opposed to merely perceived), enemies of the music industry.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
There's also the fact that the artist that made the music you are listening to isn't being paid
When will the major labels start fairly compensating them?
Honestly, these greedy bastards at the major labels are major hypocrites as they screw-over artists at any and every chance they get and in multiple ways on multiple levels. They are the kings of dishonest dealing when it comes to compensating artists.
This "think of the artists!" line coming from the people who do the most to screw them over is nauseating.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
No trade body or associations like MPAA or RIAA, software developers and game developers, among all sorts of targets of piracy will ever acknowledge the marketing or spreading effect that piracy had over digital history, ever. It's a given.
Sony will never say Playstation 2 piracy helped a whole bunch to make the console spread out over the world, Microsoft will never acknowledge how much piracy had a hand in spreading out products like Office or Windows, Adobe will never say how much pirated copies of Photoshop and whatnot helped make it a standard, production studios will never say that series like Game of Thrones only had a reach in several parts of the world because of piracy, the industry in general will never admit that piracy had a huge role in making content be known in entire countries where the vast majority of people cannot afford to pay for content.
I'm not saying everyone should pirate stuff, I'm not saying it's a fair practice, and I'm not saying anyone is entitled to use/watch stuff without paying for it. But honestly? I constantly use YouTube to find information and check for content that I fully intend to pay for, including music, but also movies, software and games. Including music that is not available in my country, so I had to import, and I gladly did. This would not be possible without websites like YouTube.
It's incredibly easy to see how much this whinning makes no sense at all. Since the beginning of major piracy distribution systems these trade bodies and associations have been crying, whinning and being general assholes about how piracy was going to destroy x industry and whatnot. This has been completely disproven. We had very steady and substantial growth in ALL industries "victim" or piracy. ALL. Movies have been selling more than ever, tv series have been selling more than ever, softwares, games, music. Is it because piracy ceased to exist or somehow got eliminated? Nope. Is it because the industry stopped with it's backwards way of thinking by themselves? Nope. It's because piracy helped lauch several of those in countries that would not have access otherwiser, and because piracy forced stale, greedy and backwards thinking industries to come up with ways of matching the most attractive thing piracy has to offer: convenience.
So yeah, IFPI can go suck a cock. Keep thinking you can go back to the days of selling CD market up 2000% production costs and putting music on TV and Radio only, I'll gladly skip your crap and pay for content from musicians who knows those times have ended.
YouTube for Android has had this option for quite a while. It can only play when the app is open, play in the background all the time, or only play in the background when headphones are attached. iOS doesn't support this?
NewPipe can play YouTube videos in the background.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It's like a lottery ticket for them. They get promotion from the record companies, but that doesn't guarantee they'll make more money than by waiting tables or making lattes. They only make money by touring and merchandise.
How about Google does the simple experiment of ceasing to host any streaming music of the major labels and they can report back exactly how much better they're doing! If they want to put their money where their mouth is?
Since moving to a shared-office environment I spend a lot of time wearing headphones and streaming stuff on YouTube. The new bands I'm introduced to that I like I head over to their Bandcamp page and buy the digital download. Most of them are are under $10 bucks and I think going through Bandcamp puts more of that into the bands pocket.
They're not getting paid by the record companies either; record sales haven't been profitable for artists for ages due to the way record company contracts work. The only way for artists to get paid is to go on tour; it's been like this for quite some time.
That's not universally true. It depends heavily on genre and on level of success. Multi-platinum pop artists make a lot of money on royalties (even in the era of streaming and digital sales, though not as much as they used to) and for them touring serves primarily to pump up their sales, not to generate income. Many of them lose money on touring, because they put on such extravagant, expensive shows.
For most other genres, it's the other way around, as you said. Their royalties often don't recoup their advances, thanks to clever and one-sided contracts, so they see music sales as a way to boost interest in their tours, and they make all of their real money on the road, often mostly from merchandise.
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