180 Artists, Labels Including Taylor Swift Take On YouTube, Join Copyright Plea (cnn.com) 288
Chloe Melas, reporting for CNN: Taylor Swift, U2, Kings of Leon and Paul McCartney are some of the 180 recording artists and labels petitioning Congress to reform the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (D.M.C.A.) In an open letter to Congress, they write that the current online copyright law has allowed YouTube and other sites to "generate huge profits by creating ease of use for consumers to carry almost every recorded song in history in their pocket via a smartphone, while songwriters' and artists' earnings continue to diminish." The letter, which is being published in The Hill and Politico this week, goes on to call for "sensible reform." "We ask you to enact sensible reform that balances the interests of creators with the interests of the companies who exploit music for their financial enrichment. It's only then that consumers will truly benefit." YouTube's parent company, Google, declined to comment Tuesday, but in a statement in April said, "Any claim that the DMCA safe harbors are responsible for a 'value gap' for music on YouTube is simply false." This comes days after musician Trent Reznor said YouTube is built on the back of stolen content.
obviously (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:obviously (Score:5, Insightful)
What needs to be done is the removal of all the content and accounts of the artists on that list from YouTube, because they obviously don't want to be on there... That will make them happy, right? RIGHT?
Re: (Score:3)
They made the same whining complaints about radio and taping radio, etc, etc.
The people that only listen to music on YouTube are cash poor and wouldn't buy their stuff anyway, no loss of revenue. The same people that used to tape music off the radio.
The people that have cash tend to /find/ music on YouTube then go and buy a decent copy of it that they can keep without having to download it every time they want to listen to it, or fiddle about with a downloader to scrape YouTube and demux the mp3. Cutting th
Awfully full of themselves (Score:5, Insightful)
"It's only then that consumers will truly benefit"
I'd say the consumers are benefiting just fine as it is. The content is available, it's easy to access, and costs next to nothing. If you add DRM, more advertisements, easier exploitation of laws like the DMCA, you're just going to drive people to alternative sites or back to torrenting. It's that simple.
Is it really about the money for rockstars like U2 and Paul McCartney? Or is it about control? If copyright law hadn't become the monstrosity it is today most of these musician's works would have been in the public domain. Can't have that now can we?
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It's their own fault for not understanding or engaging with new platforms. Younger artists are doing it and profiting greatly. They put up their music, monetize it and make sure other people who use it link back to them. Against that you have U2, who thought it would be a great idea to ram their shitty album onto everyone's iPod by force, and Paul McCartney who didn't want his music on iTunes.
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I agree, if anything great talent like Paul McCartney and U2 would still be releasing albums adding content to collective human culture, now they sit around and eat off work they once did. How is the consumer benefiting from lack of content.
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U2's last album = 2 years ago.
McCartney's last album = 3 years ago
What was your point again?
McCartney is 74 years old. Does he get to retire? Or is that also "sitting around and eating off work he once did"?
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It is about control. But I think it's legitimately about their idea of what's "fair". Copyright holders and media companies have spent decades to implant the idea into anyone they can that copyright == property.
In reality, that's not the case. Never was the case. Ideas aren't owned. That's why there are expiration dates on patents and copyrights but no expiration on ownership of physical items.
You don't *own* a song or an invention. You are granted, through public law, *limited* exclusive control of a song
Less money but more creators? (Score:4, Informative)
There may be less money in this stuff for the creators, but it's my understanding that there are more creators and more content being created than ever before.
So why does the less money part matter to the public and all of the creators who aren't expecting to buy a yacht or two with their earnings? In the "old world", most of those folks wouldn't be able to buy a yacht anyway, and their creations wouldn't be seen or heard by more than six people -- now they can perform for the world.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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I think you're absolutely right, and I also agree with Gr8Apes comment about the relatively recent music industry basically being a blip.
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Most of the music that comes up with a search is authorized, uploaded by the record companies, and monetized by them. Many catalog files are uploaded there with just the music files by labels.
Files uploaded by other users have the song recognized by fingerprint, and will have the revenue hijacked by music companies instead of blocked or silenced like the old days. Music that may just be incidental, like even music playing on a TV in a background, or may be completely fair use. It is likely the artist never
It does need Reform (Score:5, Informative)
But not what they want. YouTube's system is too easy to abuse by large players to shut down legitimate content.
Highest earning artist in america (Score:4, Insightful)
wants more money.
fuck you bitch
Funny, google thinks they make more every year (Score:5, Insightful)
[citation needed]
Taylor Swift annual income $80 million
U2 annual income $78 million
Kings of Leon annual income $58 million
POOR FUCKING THEM. BOOHOO. I feel so sorry for them. Honestly I do.
Re:Funny, google thinks they make more every year (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, you know nothing about the music industry
Taylor swift wrote the 2010 album Speak Now entirely on her own
We know Bono writes all the lyrics for U2 and the band has known each other since high school
Kings of leon are brothers, who write their own stuff.
Then there's McCartney's legendary songwriting contributions.
Yes even Trent Reznor writes his own music.
It's up to the underlings to negotiate a contract with a record company that benefits them in the royalty department, and these 180 artists are definitely NOT speaking up for the underlings.
This is exactly what is going on here. [youtube.com]
Re:Funny, google thinks they make more every year (Score:5, Interesting)
> Songwriters and artists are behind the scenes and vastly underpaid.
I see you have ZERO understanding of how the music industry works. Behind the scenes mainly get paid a going rate as work for hire, whether the album sells 1 or 1 million copies. SONGWRITERS are the ones who make the most royalties on sales. That's why the richest artists tend to be the ones who also have songwriting credits on some or all of their songs. PERFORMERS are usually last at the royalty trough.
Can't stop the signal... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, increasingly, places like YouTube, along with streaming services, are where people discover new music. I don't listen to radio anymore, so the majority of the new bands I discover come from the suggestions that pop up, or the random songs I let be slotted in based on what I've been listening to. This may not be great for someone like Taylor Swift or Bono who are already famous, but for smaller bands, it's kind of a big deal.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem could be removed, easily. Eliminate the completely artificial premise that just because a person makes a particular noise, they have the right to control all subsequent times that noise is made, and to be enriched by all subsequent times that noise is made. Will society really cease to function if that premise is no longer valid? Will all music suddenly vanish? If all corporately-produced music did vanish, would our lives be left less rich and meaningful?
Musical performers would still be ab
Re: (Score:2)
What you propose would be legally difficult, as it violates several international agreements, but as a hypothetical... what would be the effects on music?
Well, music would still be made. Always has been. We're awash in music now - for every famous artist there are thousands of others who are just as good but never got their lucky break. Most people making music don't do it for the money.
It might spell the end of the super-rich mega-star. Those few elites who have both the business connection and talent to s
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That's ultimately my view. There was a brief period of time when an initially natural and later artificial restriction of supply (due to cost of manufacturing and distribution) allowed record companies, and sometimes (but not always) artists to make shitloads of money off of recorded music. But that period was really less than a century, and with the advent of digital music AND a wide-scale network, that scarcity has disappeared.
Even publishing royalties have only been around a few hundred years, a mere bli
Re: (Score:3)
Except for when Youtube's algorithms detect copyright music that you don't own the rights to, and force ads to be displayed and revenue goes back to the rightsholder. [google.com] Rightsholders have the ability to show ads, mute the video, or prevent the video from playing at all.
Re:Can't stop the signal... (Score:4, Insightful)
We want more (Score:5, Insightful)
Youtube has two uses: Legitimate and Illegitimate.
If Youtube is violating DMCA, shame on them and file a suit.
If they're not violating the DMCA, you want congress to give you a law forcing YouTube to pay more for your legally provided content because you weren't able to do do using contract negotiations? YouTube is very popular, but is NOT a monopoly. This article and the artists are ridiculous.
Re:We want more (Score:4, Informative)
Give'm what they want (Score:2)
And then less known artist who don't mind having their music shared will get more exposure. When Prince died I hardly knew any songs he had ever done, despite all the hype yada yada on how important he was. Evidently he was very protective of his music.
Balance (Score:5, Insightful)
"We ask you to enact sensible reform that balances the interests of creators with the interests of the companies who exploit music for their financial enrichment. It's only then that consumers will truly benefit."
Yes, only when the interests of consumers are completely ignored, will consumers truly benefit.
DMCA 2 needs court oversite and no auto take down (Score:4, Informative)
DMCA 2 needs court over site
and no auto take down system that hurts the small time people and let's the big boys like fox get the profit from a video they took pasted in to family guy and let the auto take down shut down the video they ripped off.
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No it doesn't. The DMCA 2 needs to be entirely written by consumers with absolutely no input from the content industry.
We tried it the other way with the first version and they weren't happy so it only makes sense to go for the opposite.
Greed. (Score:5, Insightful)
...because Taylor Swift and Paul McCartney are obviously not already rewarded well enough for just having written a few songs.
I'm happy with artists/publishers being in total control over new songs, just as long as they also agree to laws that make the music revert to public domain after a reasonable time, say 10 years, not the 100 or so years that a few years ago Sony managed to convince the courts was necessary, which is patently ridiculous.
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Update: it appears its actually 70 years not 100 years, which IMHO is still fucking ridiculous.
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Plus, wasn't it Sonny, not Sony? (The Sonny Bono copyright extension.)
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> Update: it appears its actually 70 years not 100 years, which IMHO is still fucking ridiculous.
Unless it's Disney and Mickey Mouse. That fucking rodent should be in the public domain by now.
Re: Greed. (Score:2)
I don't understand why Disney want this so badly. All their characters are trademarked so no one can use them even if their films enter the public domain.
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Try UK law. We have different terms for books, audio recordings, lyrics, plays, broadcast events, sheet music, databases, films and Peter Pan. All have their own rules.
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Can you imagine if you paid your plumber for a new toilet, but then you also had to pay him every time you used it ?!? Why do they want cake and the cake's money as well ?
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They could be. Just license your software so that it's subscription or usage based.
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Can you imagine if you paid your plumber for a new toilet, but then you also had to pay him every time you used it ?!?
Don't say that too loudly or the plumbers union will start lobbying for it.
Re: Greed. (Score:2)
Not everyone can be a good amongst developers like yourself. Remind me what you've written again oh Exalted One.
Re:Greed. (Score:5, Insightful)
This. I'm thinking more along the lines of 25 years, for the musicians and composers out on the "long tail" so they can make a few bucks too.
But there is absolutely no reason why the Frank Sinatra/Tommy Dorsey records that were recorded in the 1940s, and were written even earlier than that should not be in the Public Domain. That's how crazy it's gotten. There are IP protections for artistic works where everyone involved in their creation are long dead. Now how does that help culture?
Re: (Score:2)
Home taping didn't kill them yet? (Score:3, Funny)
I mean, poor industry:
http://turntabling.net/wp-cont... [turntabling.net]
They want their cake and to eat it too (Score:2)
Oh please Google!!! (Score:3)
take down every video by the artists in the suit from YT. Just leave a video with a statement explaining that artists didn't want them anymore. Watch those same artists whine about the removal and fan revolt in 3,2,1...
http://www.mtv.com/news/971500... [mtv.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Funny shit they still continue http://www.salon.com/2016/04/1... [salon.com]
Bullshit. (Score:5, Informative)
How many songs have been recorded since the beginning of time? [quora.com]
Re: (Score:3)
That sounds about right. The Pareto Principle [wikipedia.org] suggests that the top 20% of all titles are responsible for 80% of all the sales/listens/interest. Digitizing the remaining 80% of the titles that make up the remaining 20% of interest is simply not worth it. Each one of those titles would be interesting to a smaller and smaller audience until you were doing it for practically no reason at all.
In fact, since the Pareto Principle is recursive, after two iterations you've got 36% of the titles digitized representi
First reform needed: (Score:5, Insightful)
Are there any videos on YouTube (Score:2)
Are there any videos on YouTube of people playing *really* small violins?
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Are there any videos on YouTube of people playing *really* small violins?
Its the interwebs.
Better to ask, "Can someone link some Youtube videos of people playing *really* small violins?", to which I will happily answer, "Enjoy"
This one seems apropos ... since its using canned music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxauqa7rJgI [youtube.com]
Here's someone REALLY playing a violin that size: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ESgWlzQQag [youtube.com]
and lastly ... since we're discussing Fair Use and the DMCA, this is appropriate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jrKXf2G-AA [youtube.com]
boo hoo? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Taylor Swift, U2, Kings of Leon and Paul McCartney are some of the 180 recording artists and labels petitioning Congress to reform the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (D.M.C.A.) In an open letter to Congress, they write that the current online copyright law has allowed YouTube and other sites to "generate huge profits by creating ease of use for consumers to carry almost every recorded song in history in their pocket via a smartphone, while songwriters' and artists' earnings continue to diminish."
Net worth:
Taylor Swift: $200 million
Bono: $600 million
Paul McCartney: $660 million
If they're really just doing it for the poor little indie artists that are being "taken advantage of" then perhaps they could between them drop a cool $1 billion toward those artists - and with their piles of cash they'd never even notice.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Ridiculous and unsolvable (Score:3)
Youtube is a user-generated content site. It's impossible to police all user-generated content without adding massive costs--just running the site at a given capacity is a drop in the bucket compared to policing the site at that capacity. Perhaps this is why the content creators aren't doing so themselves. Any open platform granting individual access on such a large scale--the entire Internet itself, for example--will have these problems; we can see this in peer-to-peer applications such as Limewire or Gnutella, which require no central authority, and will probe the Internet or use a shipped, pre-discovered list of known Gnutella peers to discover *other* peers.
On the other side, people are now unwilling to pay high mark-ups for music. They're consuming through streaming services, which are shipping more music at decreased revenues. The cost of distribution itself is lower, and the IP holders pay almost no cost--not to press CDs, not to ship the product, not to handle logistics. They handle production and licensing, and the per-customer costs are offloaded and *minimal*. That means scaling, which used to be expensive, is now free; and licensing fees are pure revenue. It also means a huge revenue stream is now facing market pressure driving prices down, converting lower costs into lower prices rather than massive profits.
Everyone hates not being billionaires.
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Actually, YouTube is already quite good at policing all user-generated content. They can absolutely check every uploaded video for audio that matches any copyrighted track (at least, any that the artist has told YouTube about via the ContentID system). They used to constantly take down videos for using copyrighted background music, now they usually just share the ad revenue with the artist. They might not match poorly-played cover songs, but those don't hurt the real artist.
They auto-match video too. You
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly, the supply of music will only increase over time and the demand for music is more or less constant. Economically, it's absurd that musicians have been able to charge as much as they have for so long.
Way too late guys and gals (Score:2)
The system for taking down content is obviously setup to be abused because no content owner could possibly keep up with all the postings.
This ship has sailed and Google gets to keep the lion's share of the $.
Disney "owns" the song notes A-flat and G natural. (Score:2)
So we can't let the DMCA get even more power.
If it wsn't for YT (Score:3)
I would never have know and bought ATR, Et Static or The Prodigy new albums. Just don't have the time like I use to, to be in touch with "music". I went to YT, looked up old tracks and lo and behold there were new albums on the side panel. Whipped out the CC and bought them at where the artists wanted me to buy their album.
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That's what I was thinking. Nearly all the music I've listened to on YouTube I either already own (just don't have on the present device) or I'm researching with the intention to buy. Maybe I'm an odd case, but YouTube has been a net plus for artists and record companies, based on my usage.
Pretty much every music video is VEVO (Score:2)
Whenever I search for music on YouTube it's pretty much always a VEVO video, which I presume is licensed.
What exactly are they complaining about?
Weird Al Quote (Score:3)
"Don't take away money from artists just like me/How else can I afford another solid-gold Humvee?"
This again (Score:5, Insightful)
It was the radio once...essentially the end of music as we knew it.
Cassette players and recorders were the doom of all revenue for recording artists and labels.
A bit later lycos MP3 search killed all the artists and dried up all the cash flow streams.
Napster came. The great satan of music. The record labels lost more money and more artists went hungry...Napster stole food from their baby's mouths it was awful.
Then was Kazaa, Bearshare, Morpheus and a slew of gnutella apps - these truly put the nail in the coffin of countless poor studios.
Everyone moved on to torrents and then there was The Pirate Bay and ISO hunt. After these came about there were no more artists in the world because there was no money it.
So really I don;t even know who is complaining about youtube, a sharing platform. After all, all the artists moved on to working for a living (read performing) and there were no more record labels or studios left as they all ran out of business because of evil file sharers.
Let them sue YouYube. Let them sue the next platform that HELPS THEM spread their work and by popularity HELPS THEM secure more lucrative deals that end up HELPING THEM become richer.
Ignorant twats.
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You forgot CD burners, which were so evil that Canada agreed to charge tax on every blank CD-R, regardless of whether they were used to store music.
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John Philip Sousa on recorded music in 1906:
"These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy...in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape."
My open letter to artists (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll agree to stronger copyright enforcement if you'll agree that the duration of copyright protection should go back to 14 years. Until then, STFU. If you're going to steal from the public domain, I'm going to steal from you.
Side note: I wonder if this could be defeated by representing it as a world's-smallest-violin-worthy plea from the 1%? Seriously, look at who signed this, and look at their net worths.
TSwift is a Hypocrit (Score:2)
It's funny how Taylor Swift is the champion for artists rights in these situations but yet she's the biggest hypocrite. A year ago she called out Apple Music on its free month and about how artists would not get paid for that, yet she demanded photographers surrender their rights to images they take of her for worldwide use in perpetuity without any compensation. Junction10 Photography covered this on their blog post "An open response to Taylor Swift’s rant against Apple".
Now she's going after the "sa
My kid just talked me into iMusic (Score:2)
Solution (Score:3)
Here's a reasonable solution: YouTube gives the artist all the ad revenue they earned on ads for a particular video between the time it was (illegally) posted and YouTube received a takedown notice.
It's all computers and they know this info already.
Where's the full list of those 180 artists? (Score:5, Insightful)
I want to make sure I don't accidentally give them any money.
Taylor Swift - Nazi Princess (Score:2)
I'm just going to leave this here:
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us... [vice.com]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new... [dailymail.co.uk]
http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/0... [nymag.com]
So who are the other 176? (Score:3, Informative)
Here's the official list [jambands.com] of dirty sellouts whom you should not pay.
Not really a whole lot on that list to miss... although I'm terribly disappointed to see Rush backing this kind of disingenuous horseshit. What happened to the spirit of radio, guys?
And thanks for your continuously superb journalism, CNN! Next time don't even fucking bother writing an article.
Re: (Score:3)
Rush (or at least their drummer, Neil) has been blunt about their desire to control their music. Not outspoken or inflammatory, but consistent and clear that they don't like music being copied and shared without their consent (and without them receiving a cut, it's not clear which is the biggest issue for them).
I bought several of their albums on vinyl, cassette, and CD over the years, and have been to several of their concerts. I've been a supporter even when they weren't "cool".
Interesting that in some of
So is any of the 180 independent artists? (Score:2)
I bet at least 179 of them are in slavery contracts with the major record labels.
My advice (Score:3)
Paul: Let It Be.
Taylor: Shake It Off.
Bono: Walk On.
Kings of Leon: Spiral Staircase. (Sorry, couldn't find a good one for you guys.)
Is it really for the artists? (Score:2)
It's always "sensible reform" (Score:4, Funny)
I just love how this one rhetorical trick gets used so often.
Obviously their reforms are sensible, but opposing them is nonsense and unreasonable.
This problem is 100% due to the music labels (Score:3, Insightful)
As has been obvious for over a decade, consumers overwhelmingly want to be able to use recent technological breakthroughs so then can listening music easily and conveniently. Most are willing to pay for this and most probably want to support the artist.
The music labels have been fighting this tooth and nail pretty ever since it was possible to download music via the internet. This is slightly bizarre since part of the service they are supposed to be providing to society is to streamline the distribution of music (hence the RIAA curve, etc). Instead, perhaps due to somewhat sociopathic CEOs, they try to cripple distribution of music in order to create false scarcity which harms society and harms the artists and only benefits the labels.
The only reason a 3rd-party can make money from this is because the labels are totally failing at the task of distributing music in the best and easiest way possible. The answer is not to close off 3rd parties who are doing the job the record labels are supposed to be doing. The answer is for the record labels to do their damned job and distribute music in a reasonable way given current technologies. The tighter the labels grip, the more revenue will slip through their fingers. There is no way consumers are going back to buying a vinyl album and then a cassette and then a cd of the same music.
The actual cost for distributing music has plummeted to near zero. If the record labels are not going to take advantage of this and distribute music in a reasonable way then good for Google and for anyone else who steps up and removes the artificial scarcity and artificial inefficiency create by the music labels.
While we're at it let's shorten the length of time copyright stays in effect. That way these rock stars won't be lumping their recent music together with music that was made back in the 30s and 40s by people who have long been dead.
A = B (Score:2)
If A = [Some Muscian]
and B = [ Some coporation ].
"We ask you to enact sensible reform that balances the interests of creators with the interests of the companies who exploit music for their financial enrichment" can can be reworded as as
"We ask you to enact sensible reform that balances the interests of 'A' with the interests of 'B' who exploit music for their financial enrichment.
Or do I have that backwards?
"We ask you to enact sensible reform that balances the interests of 'B' with the interests of 'A who
My Heart Gently Weeps for them... (Score:2)
The easy way to fix this is to force Google to disable all advertising in questionably legal video content. That way, they will not be able to profit from the works of these poor struggling artists. Problem Solved !!!!
That's really the only ethical dilemma I see here.
Or they could admit... (Score:2)
Silly... (Score:2)
So anyway... (Score:2)
... why is the DEC attached to this story?
Here is the thing (Score:2)
Google should have to approve every single video uploaded, and I really mean it, no wonder they make tons of money, they take the advantage without the responsability!
Re:I agree down with the DMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
no they want DMCA 2 where you can't even copy a song from a cd that you own to idevice with out reburying the full CD for the idevice .
Re: (Score:2)
Their problem is more likely related to all those people loading up high resolution copies of an artists entire album, then labeling it with "I do not own this content, I am putting it here for educational purposes only".
There does not seem to be any effort by youtube management to discourage these posts, both they and the account holder responsible are happy taking all the hits from people happily using the content, and nobody seems to care that the artist is receiving nothing for it. Sure we can all poin
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While it is indeed a legitimate complaint, the originators of this complain are all successful and wealthy artists. So it's difficult to swallow the "this is a cry for the little guy" line. Moreover, their primary complaint is their own albums being uploaded to Youtube without consent. While it's a legitimate complaint, whether or not we amend public law to help these artists is another debate.
Youtube, for their part, tries to do what it can to auto-detect content and share ad revenue. The problem is that S
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Their problem is more likely related to all those people loading up high resolution copies of an artists entire album, then labeling it with "I do not own this content, I am putting it here for educational purposes only".
Uh, Youtube already has a mechanism to stop that activity, it's called content ID and the labels can either block the upload or monetize it, most are choosing to monetize as it's free revenue from their perspective. The artists are complaining that they aren't being compensated because thos
Re:I agree down with the DMCA (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, then the artists should get the shit people are listening to up on youtube legitimately. Vevo does not count.
Re:I agree down with the DMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with that though is what happens to music that shouldn't have been up there in the first place is based on what the record companies say. And they own the rights to this music, not the artists. If the record company says they want it removed, it'll be removed, if they say they want ads and have it be monetized, then that's what'll happen.
If these guys have a problem with the music not being removed, they should file their complaints with their labels. Now, this is not a defense of the auto-take down system Youtube has, as it often incorrectly flags things that shouldn't be and leaves the original author with little recourse, but that's a different discussion.
Re:I agree down with the DMCA (Score:5, Interesting)
No. That's not what they want. They don't want youtube to make money off ads/advertising on music that is copyrighted and should've been taken down.
YouTube already gives a share of ad revenue to the artists. The ContentID systems aren't perfect, but if someone uploads a video of, say, a cute girl dancing to popular tune, the plumbing is already there to auto-detect the tune, associate it with the artists, and share ad revenue. Taking down the video would be lose-lose.
Google could probably make it easier for artists to engage with this system, could possibly make ContentID better, and could certainly give the artist a bigger share. However, I'm baffled why anyone would think it appropriate to take down the video, except in the narrow case where the YouTube video is nothing but the album cover (adds no value) and the artists has an official video on YouTube. But any video that adds any value at all, even lyrics on screen, can only bring in more views, and thus more ad revenue, for the artist.
This all sounds like either a negotiating ploy for a bigger cut from Google, or a hopeless attempt to force listeners to listen via some other system they can charge more for (good luck with the latter, as YouTube ad the streaming companies are just the modern version of radio, and the voters actually care about this, unlike most stuff on /.).
Re: (Score:2)
There was a time when recording and publishing royalties did make up a significant part of recording artists' revenues. In particular publishing rights could be quite significant, particularly where other artists covered a song. Recording royalties usually depended greatly on the clout the artist and their negotiators could bring to the table. A lot of artists were heavily screwed over by contracts signed early in their careers. The Beatles were notoriously paid pennies a song in recording royalties, even a
what they really want... (Score:3, Insightful)
is to be paid anytime when you even so much as thinking of lyrics or melodies in your head. the only thing that's stopping them right now is their inability to read minds.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I agree with UPZ (Score:2)
Somebody with points fix that. UPZ is dead on-target and (IMHO) +1 insightful.
Re:I agree somewhat (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I'm unable to find much information on what these artists actually want other than they're not happy with the fact that the DMCA protects hosts from the actions of their users. This implies that they actually just want to make the DMCA far, far worse.
The problem they're talking about where artists get fucked by labels is a problem with copyright and is trivially solved by making copyright non-transferable from the author. That way the music industry can still offer them contracts and help them produce and sell, but can never take ownership of their creation and fuck off and make all the profits on it without paying the artist a penny.
As such you'll have to colour me sceptical that the artists aren't just doing this on behalf of the music industry, because what they're suggesting will destroy the technology industry to the benefit of not the artists, but the very companies they're complaining about.
As such I will treat this list of artists as the list of artists I will not pay a penny to as what they're suggesting is anti-progress, anti-consumer, anti-technology, and pro-big music industry.
Re: (Score:2)
It's terrible. It's only slightly better than satellite radio.
Re: (Score:3)
...which is plenty good for the vast majority of people.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Trump 2016
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, because at an estimated net worth of $200 MILLION, Taylor Swift is not being rewarded...
These wealthy artists can fuck right off. Keep touring if they want to keep getting paid. That's how the rest of the world works. You get paid for what you do, not for what you did. These scammers who want to skate by their entire lives getting paid over and over again until the end of time for the same work are parasites.