Google: Indie Musicians Must Join Streaming Service Or Be Removed

Sockatume writes: In a statement to the Financial Times and reported by the BBC, Google has confirmed that it will remove the music videos of independent artists unless they sign up to its upcoming subscription music service. Many independent musicians and labels have refused to do so, claiming that the contracts offer significantly worse deals than the likes of Spotify and Pandora, and that Google is unwilling to negotiate on the rates it offers artists. A Google spokesperson indicated that the company could start removing videos within days.

Risking irrelevance

[DoofusOfDeath]

I wonder if this will turn out to be Youtube's first step towards irrelevance to the youth market.

This seems like a familiar story from Microsoft and IBM: think your company is so indispensable that you start demanding more of your users and/or partners. And in doing so, make people start looking for alternatives.

MySpace to the rescue?

[PseudoCoder]

Sounds like an opportunity for MySpace to try to reclaim some of that territory. Anybody know if MySpace has the chops to turn this into a good thing for them?

Re:Flaimbate

[mythosaz]

Yes, everyone else except music labels. You, an artist, are allowed, without any special deal, to upload videos of your music to YouTube, without need for a special deal.

Your music label isn't going to be allowed to use YouTube as it's distribution (and revenue) channel without a deal.

How evil.

Re:Risking irrelevance

[PrimaryConsult]

What does IBM do? AIX, Mainframes, PowerPC architecture, and z. They are shedding all the divisions where they actually have to compete, and are focusing only on things that people are either already locked in to, or that they are the only vendor of. The stock is going up because when the dust has settled, they still have a huge number of high profile customers who are paying through the nose for their products, but are not wasting resources on things with thin margins.

Re:What's a music video?

[timeOday]

My guess is there is a bit of spin going on here. If an indie wants to post their video for free, I doubt google will take it down. The question is probably all about the checks these indies have been getting from google, and google's refusal to keep sending them unless a new bargain (which includes google streaming for cheap) is struck.

If my guess is correct, the answer to your question is that the process is actually self-selecting.

Re:Ummm

[ultranova]

This is all business man, these artists get free bandwidth from Youtube and possibly the option to make a profit of ad revenues, all for nothing.

And the rest of us get a free lesson in corporate ethics in general and Google in particular. Hopefully that lesson means there's less people hurt with the next wave of monetization.

Also, since this once again proves that corporations can't be trusted, it might hopefully motivate research into converting everything to the P2P model.