Google Releases Study Defending YouTube's Value To Music Biz; Trade Bodies Hit Back (billboard.com) 80
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 learn to code.... (Score:1)
Maybe artists could career change into a field with less chances of having their work pirated, like, software development.
Re: Why YouTube isn't a substitute for streaming m (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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 us
Re: (Score:2)
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 adv
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: Why YouTube isn't a substitute for streaming m (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [salon.com] that the RIAA are the the biggest thieves -- NOT the consumers.
People who pirate regularly spend MORE on films [theguardian.com] and BUY more. [theguardian.com]
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."
--
Fuck You Red Cross for hijacking the + operator and the color red hundreds of years AFTER the Templars.
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ifs and maybes... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Perhaps it shouldn't seem odd that the music industry is fighting this.
Back in the day, they didn't exactly sit around and do nothing when someone would let new music "out of the box" by ripping a CD or DVD and putting it out there for the masses to download for free...
Re: (Score:2)
They also didn't sit around and do nothing when VCRs became affordable and people started copying tapes or recording stuff from TV. They tried to ban them. Of course, that didn't go very far.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not what I remember about Beta. Beta only held 1 hour per tape, so a single movie wouldn't fit on a single tape. The other factor was that the porn industry went with VHS, and where porn goes, standards go.
As for that blank media tax, I don't remember that at all. I remember that passing in Canada, but not here in the US. They did, for a while, sell "blank music CD-Rs" that had a higher price than the "data CD-Rs", with of course the only difference being a higher price which supposedly supported
Re: (Score:2)
They are not trying to put music back in the box. They are telling Google that Google needs to pay for the content.
As much as I dislike RIAA, they are right in this case. If a song plays on the radio, the artist gets paid. If a song is used in a movie, commercial or otherwise broadcast, the artist gets paid. But if a song is played on Google / YouTube, the artist DOESN'T get paid.
My understanding is that Google is trying to make the argument that, "Even though we are playing the song for the user, by vi
Re: (Score:3)
If the RIAA says the latest Top 40 track is worth X, it is worth X.
Slapping a price tag on something doesn't change its worth. It's worth what somebody will pay for it. All the RIAA can change is their asking price.
Re: (Score:2)
If Google doesn't want to pay the price the RIAA is *not* obligated to lower it, but Google *is* obligated to not engage in for-profit copyright infringement because they think the RIAA is over valuing the product.
Google is still under no obligation to pay the RIAA's asking price. If it's too high (i.e. more than the expected ad revenue), Google has the option to stop offering the content. They just want to have their cake and eat it too by cutting the RIAA out - That's a no-no.
Re: (Score:2)
And they don't, which is the entire fucking point.
Google monetizes tons of copyrighted material...music and films.
I suspect if someone were to go through the exercise, they are guilty of copyright violations well into the millions of dollars easily.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Let's use a grocery store then. If you can walk into a grocery store and take all of the food you want, does that make the food worthless? Does that make the price that the store is asking for it wrong?
Re: (Score:2)
There are different categories of worth. If the most the store could charge for food and get people to buy it is $0.00, then the food has no monetary worth. A child's love has no monetary worth, but that doesn't mean people don't value it. In fact, if you try to monetize that, there are some specific charges.
If the price tag says something other than $0.00 and the store is charging $0.00, of course something's wrong. I really don't get where you're going with this analogy.
Re: (Score:2)
I am going to the place where you realize that your position of "things being worth what people will pay for them" is flawed.
The only reason that works on the internet is because there are too many people doing it, and not enough enforcement to prevent them from doing it. People are inherently selfish. Look at any toddler and you will know the truth of that. Through socialization, we form a society with some rules and structures.
I used the grocery store as an analogy because it is something that everyone
Re: (Score:2)
You seem like the kind of person who never really created anything unique. If you had, you would not be making the inane arguments that you are. You probably have never had any valuable skills that people were willing to you to teach them either. If you do, you would understand that your time is valuable.
If the most people are willing to pay me to teach them is zero, then that skill has no monetary value. I made money teaching math in a college Learning Assistance Center. That's not the same thing - The center was willing to pay me and the students we ok diverting part of their tuition for the purpose. Value of free time goes back to the value of a child's love - Not the value of goods in a grocery store.
Re: (Score:2)
...While the RIAA may suck, this is still America and producers get to set their prices. If the RIAA says the latest Top 40 track is worth X, it is worth X.
How ironic that the greedy mentality of it's-worth-what-we-say-it-is, is part of the entire reason people choose not to support it. No wonder they call themselves the MAFIAA.
People need and want music. People also need and want transportation. Maybe the car analogy is more like the RIAA is a gasoline company who got too fucking greedy, and someone established another method of transportation (EV), to avoid needing to paying a lot of middlemen obscene markups for gas.
Soon, gasoline will be an unnecessary
Re: (Score:2)
Except your analogy sucks because nobody has created alternative music content. Or the content that has been created, people do not want.
For whatever reason, people want that Top 40 crap. They want the MTV crap. I am not part of that demographic, but the demographic is huge. There is a cost to access that content.
Here in America, you either pay the cost, or you do without it. Or you break the law and steal it. Downloading music, streaming it without paying the artist, whatever are theft. I say this a
Re: (Score:2)
Except your analogy sucks because nobody has created alternative music content. Or the content that has been created, people do not want.
For whatever reason, people want that Top 40 crap. They want the MTV crap. I am not part of that demographic, but the demographic is huge. There is a cost to access that content.
The cost to access said crap is mandated by those who feel others are muscling in on their action. Sites like bandcamp support artists coming out who now represent themselves, and are exactly how we have in fact created alternative ways of obtaining music content. Giving it away for free in order to draw fans and make money through live gigs is another method in use these days. Or pressing it on vinyl for fans that have no idea how to even use and yet still buy a $30 piece of limited-edition plastic as a
Re: (Score:3)
To use a car analogy, music listeners are cars owners and the RIAA is a gasoline company. YouTube is the gas station. Right now, the gas station is directly connected to the oil refinery and they are filling up the cars of anyone who pulls into the gas station.
Not quite true. When a gas station fills up a car and the car drives away, the gas is consumed - it's physically gone from the refinery. When a song is played on YouTube, (or even downloaded), the original recording still exists. Nothing physical has changed hands, and the original 'owner' or custodian of the song hasn't lost anything except an abstract, intangible opportunity. The advent of digital media has simply turned what might be called a 'natural scarcity', (the expense and difficulty of faithfully
Re: (Score:2)
Industry Complaints are standard (Score:1)
The "music industry" will not be happy until they get _ALL_ the money in the world.
Anything else is "unfair" to them.
Re: Industry Complaints are standard (Score:3)
Sorry, you sung a song in the shower. You know owe the RIAA your life savings.
Re: (Score:1)
Claiming? (Score:2)
The truth notwithstanding (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Willful misintrepretation? They had a worse year than they did two years ago. Profits went up for the first time in twenty years, but they're less than half what they were twenty years ago, even before counting inflation.
Re: (Score:2)
I've purchased more music. (Score:1)
Then stop putting your content there (Score:1)
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
Well duh... (Score:2)
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 Photo
control test (Score:2)
Experiment of One (Score:2)