Slashdot Mirror
More Are Paying To Stream Music, But YouTube Still Holds the Value Gap (theregister.co.uk)
An anonymous reader shares a report: With Google's user-generated content loophole firmly in lawmaker's sights, global music trade body IFPI has published new research looking at demand for music streaming. The research confirms YouTube's pre-eminence as the world's de facto jukebox. 46 percent of on-demand music streaming is from Google's video website. 75 percent of internet users use video streaming to hear music. The paid-for picture is bullish: 50 percent of internet users have paid for licensed music in the last six months, in one form or another, of which 53 per are 13- to 15-year-olds. Audio streaming is split between 39 percent who stream for free and 29 percent who pay. [...] So what's the problem? European policy makers have become convinced by the "value gap" argument: compensation doesn't reflect usage. Google finds itself with a unique advantage here, thanks to YouTube's "user-generated content" exception, as we explained last year.
What we have gotten from fear like this is censorship and the great firewall of the west. We don't need copy"right" and I'd argue the value of music, movies, and entertainment has long been over valued. You can't tell me that a song or bunch of songs is worth millions of dollars. Songs are literally worth little more than a dime a dozen. There is a reason that the industry "needs" copy"right". It really doesn't, but it thinks it does. What it needs are sound business models (which it has with or without copy"right" as evidenced by the fact we have widespread piracy and the industry still exists and is doing better than ever before).
There was culture before copy"right" and the idea you can't produce films without mega budgets just isn't true. You may have to get creative- but if the movie producers are as good (well, most aren't, but hey-) as they should be they'll come up with better cheaper solutions. The problem we have had until recently is that the entertainment industry didn't have to compete. Copy"right" is a monopoly. That's what it is by definition. It was supposed to be to benefit the arts and sciences for the benefit of the people, but in reality it's a means of funnelling money into the hands of an elite. We need to put and end to copy"right" and look toward competition and a free market. The people living in western countries today have a great advantage in terms of knowledge and education, but we need to end boarders, trade barriers, restrictions on travel (passports, drivers licenses, vehicle registration, license plates, etc), socialism which doesn't work on a massive scale because we have too many poor people trying to get in which leads to armed boarders being a necessity (and haven't really worked anyway), and other inefficiencies in our current system. In the short term its scary- but in the long term freedom creates jobs in the process of "destroying" them.