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Trent Reznor: YouTube Is Built On the Back Of Stolen Content (theguardian.com) 428

An anonymous reader writes: Singer and record producer Trent Reznor has become the latest artist to attack Google's video service YouTube. "I find YouTube's business to be very disingenuous. It is built on the backs of free, stolen content and that's how they got that big," said Reznor in an interview with Billboard. Reznor was not speaking purely as an artist, however. He is also chief creative officer at Apple Music, the streaming service launched by Apple in 2015, which is one of the key rivals to YouTube in the digital music world. "I think any free-tiered service is not fair. It's making their numbers and getting them a big IPO and it is built on the back of my work and that of my peers. That's how I feel about it. Strongly," said Reznor, widening his criticism to other rivals like Spotify in the process.
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Trent Reznor: YouTube Is Built On the Back Of Stolen Content

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  • by hsmith ( 818216 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:03AM (#52321795)
    Well that's news to everyone
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah, why is it that only when famous people say it, it becomes newsworthy? Even though everyone else thought it for years?

  • The ego... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:03AM (#52321799)

    Never mind all of the car reviews, device reviews, musical gear reviews, prank shoes, and tutorials people watch on there............no, it's all about "his" stolen music.

    • by Thanshin ( 1188877 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:14AM (#52321887)

      What amazes me most is when Mr. Reznor dresses up as a young female Korean go player and manages to play go at pro level.

      Or when he explains general relativity, as an American Professor , even posing weekly problems about space-time!

      Or when he plays various of the lates videogames at pro skill level, perfectly characterized as a young american!

      Or when he teaches lockpicking opening challenge locks in under a minute!

      That Trent guy is AMAZING!

      (However, now that I know about his amazing transformism ability, I'm a bit scared about Trent's implication in redtube)

      • (However, now that I know about his amazing transformism ability, I'm a bit scared about Trent's implication in redtube)

        Sure you're not thinking of Bono instead of Trent ?

      • I'm grateful to Trent for all the nature videos. He takes a lot of terrible risks to educate people about animals. Wrestling 'gators, pythons, being charged by bison in Yellowstone - he even fought off a bear that opened his car door! Trent is one hell of a superhero!

      • Do you watch Bosnian Bill? That dude is awesome!

        Anyway, what I really came to say is music videos where I actually came to hear the music: probably at a ratio of 1:500 to 1:1000 against videos of lock picking, machining, woodworking, oh, and also Hak5, and Russian car crash compilations. Only that last item has a problem with stolen content... but that's not why I go to YouTube.

      • What amazes me most is when Mr. Reznor dresses up as a young female Korean go player and manages to play go at pro level.

        Or when he explains general relativity, as an American Professor , even posing weekly problems about space-time!

        Or when he plays various of the lates videogames at pro skill level, perfectly characterized as a young american!

        Or when he teaches lockpicking opening challenge locks in under a minute!

        That Trent guy is AMAZING!

        (However, now that I know about his amazing transformism ability, I'm a bit scared about Trent's implication in redtube)

        Seems incredible to me how one man can show millions of women how to do their make up just so. In his downtime he seems to play an awful lot of video games though.

      • by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

        I do go to youtube for music videos sometimes. The thing is that the artists do get paid for them. For me YouTube is the replacement for MTV. What is really cool is that sometimes you can find "stolen" content that is just not available anywhere else like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        I can not find it for sell anywhere and I can not watch it on Netflix.
        As for the rest of it. I watch a lot of tech shows, woodworking, car and truck shows, and old education shorts on YouTube

    • Never mind all of the car reviews, device reviews, musical gear reviews, prank shoes, and tutorials people watch on there............no, it's all about "his" stolen music.

      Well if it were really about all you say then there would be no need for them to steal other people's content. and yet they very plainly do. Indeed their efforts to get more serious about policing it have sort of proven the point. Consider how many times in the last week you have read some article that was illustrated with a video from you tube and when you ctry to watch it it, it says "this content is no longer available". Clearly most of the interesting things on Youtube are things that came from copy

      • by gmack ( 197796 )

        Here is a list of the top 100 youtube channels [socialblade.com]. At first glance, it looks like most of them are not using pirated content.

        • Does that include things like apps that stream just songs from YouTube like PlayTube?

        • Your logic does not follow. The top-100's total plays are an infinitessimal fraction of the total youtube usage. One cannot look at that and say that there isn't a lot of pirated usage. Furthermore, is the criteria "most" usage has to be pirated to declare it a problem?

    • Re:The ego... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Wain13001 ( 1119071 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @10:30AM (#52322465)

      The same music he used to literally tell people to go online and steal when he was performing his concerts.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Reference:
        http://www.theninhotline.net/news/archives/backissue.php?y=07&m=9#1189989696

    • Please think of those poor rock stars. He'll have to settle for a secondhand Gulfstream and a slightly smaller yacht and one less mansion this year. I feel so sorry for Trent. :-(

  • by lobiusmoop ( 305328 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:04AM (#52321807) Homepage
    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:17AM (#52321909)

      It might be too late. Apple got him and now they're telling him he doesn't look ridiculous dressing like a middle-aged Goth.

      • by Jawnn ( 445279 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:43AM (#52322123)

        It might be too late. Apple got him and now they're telling him he doesn't look ridiculous dressing like a middle-aged Goth.

        OMG, if only I had mod points... Well played, sir, well played indeed.

        And to Trent... Look, I have a great deal of respect for you as an artist, but you are full of shit on this issue. Most of what you call theft is "fair use". The rest of it is unauthorized use, not theft. You were not deprived of something you already possessed. And no, you weren't deprived of any significant amount of revenue either. No, you really were not. You should stop drinking the RIAA kool aid and face the fact that not everybody who ever wanted to listen to 30 seconds of your music is going to pay for it if they have no other option.

        Get over it, princess.

      • by geminidomino ( 614729 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @10:22AM (#52322415) Journal

        And this, boys and girls, is what "cognitive dissonance" feels like. I had a whole 30 seconds of feeling like this had to be one of those stupid "quote troll" memes, since I couldn't imagine Trent Reznor dribbling out that kind of mealy mouthed corporate crap. Then it finally clicked that I was working off an image that is over 25 years out of date...

        Man, fuck getting old. Happy freakin' birthday.

        • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

          Man, fuck getting old. Happy freakin' birthday.

          Birthdays are like boogers. The more you have, the harder it is to breathe.

    • Not to forget Mrs Williams: https://www.wattpad.com/133416... [wattpad.com]

  • Free tier (Score:5, Insightful)

    by c ( 8461 ) <beauregardcp@gmail.com> on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:07AM (#52321835)

    "I think any free-tiered service is not fair."

    Radio isn't fair?

    • by gnupun ( 752725 )

      How is radio comparable? It plays the same songs (good or bad) over and over again -- no variety/small playlist. Plus there's around 20 minutes of ads every hour.

      • Re:Free tier (Score:5, Interesting)

        by pghmike4 ( 4093035 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:25AM (#52321993)
        Radio is exactly comparable to other free tier (i.e. ad-supported) services. We're talking Pandora, Spotify, and most Internet radio stations, all of which are ad supported and pay royalties. Youtube may have a lot of pirated content (I really don't know how much is being put there by artists, and how much by pirates), but the others pay royalties.

        So, I think Trent is just shilling for his new employer, Apple, which has no free tier for its lame Apple Music service.

        • Radio is exactly comparable to other free tier (i.e. ad-supported) services. We're talking Pandora, Spotify, and most Internet radio stations

          Pandora yes, Spotify not so much. There's a big legal difference between Pandora and Spotify, analogous to like the difference between radio and a jukebox, or between broadcast TV and video on demand. Pandora lets the user choose a musical style, such as the style associated with a particular recording artist, and then builds a huge playlist around that style that satisfies the "performance complement" requirement of the statutory license for public performance of sound recordings through an electronic transmission. This requirement limits how many songs from a particular artist or album may be played per hour and limits the control that the user has over the playlist so that does not substitute for a purchase. Complying with the "performance complement" allows Pandora to pay a lower rate and not have to negotiate with individual record labels. Spotify has to pay more in royalties because it gives the user far more control over the playlist.

      • by c ( 8461 )

        How is radio comparable?

        From the user end, radio is mostly an ad-supported free tier, with some radio stations having different funding models (public radio mostly takes donations, satellite radio being subscription supported, etc).

        Nor is the core business model all that different.

        The user experience and underlying technologies aren't identical, but I think it still passes the "looks like a duck, quacks like a duck" test.

      • ...How is radio comparable? It plays the same songs (good or bad) over and over again -- no variety/small playlist. ...

        If that is what you really think, you're listening to the wrong stations. Try listening to some local college stations (usually below 92 on FM), or some commercial Alternative format stations.

        .
        There are some excellent radio stations out there, ones that are not owned by the huge broadcasting companies. You just have to listen...

    • Don't you know, radio ISN'T fair... that's why cell phone's in the US don't have the FM radios enabled. Free, no data, and low battery usage.... clearly not fair and MUST be disabled in the firmware.
  • All copyrighted content is built on the backs of stolen culture. Human rights > right to profit. At least one would hope.
    • Re:Copyright (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bravecanadian ( 638315 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:15AM (#52321891)

      This is the sort of thing people on slashdot always say until someone rips of open source code without giving changes back...

      Or until they have had their own work stolen and then it is somehow a different story.

      • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        I've had my work stolen. I would be pretty disappointed if it wasn't. That would mean that it wasn't even worth being pirated. That's a sad sad thing.

      • This is the sort of thing people on slashdot always say until someone rips of open source code without giving changes back...

        That's because the creators of the "viral" licenses you refer to used licensing to try to roughly simulate a world without copyrights. (Hence, they are often tagged with the ironic name "copyleft license".) People get mad in your example because somebody else is trying to pull the content out of this simulated non-copyright world and put it back under the usual copyright restrictions.

      • But ripping a piece of open source code without giving changes back is taking it away without sharing what you've added. In that instance, what you did amounts to nothing without what you built it on, but you're claiming the whole thing as yours.

        Having your own work 'stolen' is plagiarism and has really nothing to do with copyright.

        It's all about claiming credit for work you didn't do, and not being sociable.

  • by bravecanadian ( 638315 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:14AM (#52321879)

    especially until they hit critical mass. Now YouTube is the default platform in and people are generating content exclusively for it.

  • ...widening his criticism to other rivals like Spotify in the process.

    And Apple Music is different from other streaming services exactly how?

    I see the point for youtube as everyone and his dog upload stuff there without giving any thought to copyrights and/or compensation (at least ContentID and monetizing has been added as an afterthought) but streaming services in general?

    • And Apple Music is different from other streaming services exactly how?

      Apparently it's run by a relic who can't see where the future of music is going, that 1789 Copyright is obsolete in 2016, and who can't distinguish between the words "stolen" and "replicated".

      It's my understanding that Pandora, Spotify, and Google Play are all run by people who are pushing the edge of what they can do legally, every single day. That gives them a direction towards the future.

      So much for the days of hoisting the Jolly Rog

      • The Accountants have been running things at Apple for decades now. Any entity as successful as Apple has been draws in 'business' types like a picnic attracts ants.

        "We haven't had that spirit here since 1969"

      • by Pax681 ( 1002592 )

        And Apple Music is different from other streaming services exactly how?

        Apparently it's run by a relic who can't see where the future of music is going, that 1789 Copyright is obsolete in 2016, and who can't distinguish between the words "stolen" and "replicated".

        It's my understanding that Pandora, Spotify, and Google Play are all run by people who are pushing the edge of what they can do legally, every single day. That gives them a direction towards the future.

        So much for the days of hoisting the Jolly Roger at Apple!

        But what about the MESSIAH's famous quoting of Salvador Dali ???????
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] :-) .... shurely he cannot ignore the gospel of the Great Fruity One!!!! even though the Great Fruity One went all hypocritical like only Deity can....see all religious texts for details and that includes the Apple EULA's :P

      • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

        1789 Copyright is obsolete in 2016

        Today's copyright laws bear no resemblance whatever to early US copyright laws. It was originally enacted to protect writers from publishers. It lasted fourteen years, today's is the life of the artist plus ninety five years. Sheet music was covered but the songs themselves were not.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • So is most music (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:18AM (#52321915) Homepage

    The studios steal from the creators via abusive contracts as much, if not MORE than YouTube steals from the musicians.

    Despising one and not the other is hypocritical.

    Part of the major problem is that the value of music has gone down and musicians dislike that. Music used to be a rare skill that was incredibly expensive to distribute. But distribution costs went down, they refused to lower the price, we found ways to use computers to enhance music (auto tune is just one of many such advancements), and the number of people that want to do it went up.

    How many kids want to be rock stars? They depressed the market causing the prices to drop - it's simple supply and demand.

    The profit went away but it wasn't YouTube's fault.

  • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:19AM (#52321931)

    "I find YouTube's business to be very disingenuous. It is built on the backs of free, stolen content and that's how they got that big," said Reznor in an interview with Billboard. Reznor was not speaking purely as an artist, however. He is also chief creative officer at Apple Music, the streaming service launched by Apple in 2015, which is one of the key rivals to YouTube in the digital music world.

    I find pretending to be on the side of artists against Google when you are drawing a paycheck from one of their biggest competitors to be "very disingenuous".

    Of course I don't find Apple Music to be much of a rival at all to YouTube so this may be much sound and fury signifying nothing. Apple pretending to respect the intellectual property of others is a bit rich.

    • Let's ask Trent whose back his work is built on.

      • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @10:19AM (#52322391)

        Let's ask Trent whose back his work is built on.

        If he wants to be a credible voice for artists then he can't afford conflicts of interest. If Trent Reznor wants to resign his post with Apple and speak on his own behalf then I'll consider his position on the matter. Until then he's just playing the role of corporate stooge even if he actually believes what his is saying.

      • Let's ask Trent whose back his work is built on.

        He didn't invent a genre or anything like that, but he did create his music out of hard work. I was listening to industrial music at the time when he became popular and his music became popular because it was good, not just because he got hitched up to the right wagon — though that never hurts.

        On the other hand, he is whiny and full of it. Playing people's songs for free is about the last thing I go to Youtube for. I do it, mind you, but only rarely.

        • What did he use to create his work? Did he profit off the creation of the electronica genre by Giorgio Moroder? The modern Blues genre by B.B. King? The piano, invented by some Italian name Cristofori? The guitar, built on the bakc of its predecessor, the Lute?

          What image did he take, and who at the time was popular and using that image? Was it grunge? Punk? 80s rock? Does his music have the sound of the popular period music he made his fame in? On top of whose hard work of building fame around a

  • by nomad63 ( 686331 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:21AM (#52321949)
    I think Apple music service is losing customer to google and one of their mouthpieces is poo-poo'ing the rival, hoping that people will change opinion and come back. Boiler plate marketing ploy when you are losing market share. He is no one to me and will continue to be no one. So, why bother reading what he says?
  • by rocjoe71 ( 545053 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:23AM (#52321967) Homepage
    Trent Reznor is in the business of making cat videos? That's news to me.
  • by backwardsposter ( 2034404 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:31AM (#52322043)

    ...said competing content provider.

    In my opinion, Youtube shows that people would create content without all of this artificial scarcity bullshit.

  • No stealing involved (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jdavidb ( 449077 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:34AM (#52322063) Homepage Journal
    Copying isn't theft [youtube.com]
  • 100% of my content is made by me and I just hit 2 million views. Copyright holders can come in and remove any video and destroy any channel and he thinks people are still frebooting content on the site? FUCK YOU, TRENT!
  • by Lendrick ( 314723 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:51AM (#52322171) Homepage Journal

    Apple thrives on the top-down "you are the consumer, we are the producer" business model. I can't say I'm particularly shocked to see an apple exec whining about youtube (although I must say, I'm disappointed that it the exec in question is Trent Reznor). To say that Youtube is "built" on content piracy is extremely disingenuous. Yes, it obviously happens there, but if someone were to remove all of the pirated content from Youtube, only a very small percentage of users would even care.

    These are the words of a company that would like to see user-generated content made illegal, on the basis that a small percentage of users occasionally use it for piracy. Youtube is a tremendous example of "substantial non-infringing use".

  • Lest the internet make fun of you for thinking you invented video streaming. Youtube started as a video hosting site that allowed YOU to upload content. Youtube has an EXTENSIVE and AUTOMATIC system to deal with "stolen content" and, of course, sends any ad revenue to the content owner. so no, Trent doesn't have a valid point, he's a vapid fuckwit who wants to appeal to authority because his idea to rip off youtube and make it a paid service hasn't wiped youtube off the net. Go suck on a tail pipe, it w
    • by Bing Tsher E ( 943915 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @10:15AM (#52322369) Journal

      Trent has been purchased by Apple, and they are just realizing value out of owning him.

      Apple has declared war on 'free content on the internet' and are striving to make everything of significance cost money. They can't do this without tearing down every other business model, and as always at Apple (going all the way back to the Apple II clone/compatible makers who they ran out of business, and the multiple 'Windowing System' makers who they ran out of business, handing the platform ownership to deep-pockets Microsoft in the process) lawyers will be wielded against anybody who doesn't do things 'The Apple Way.'

      People act like there isn't a reason some of us fucking hate Apple.

  • Apple's one to talk. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Beardo the Bearded ( 321478 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @09:56AM (#52322229)

    Apple's entire resurgence is based off MP3 piracy. Before they made their first smartphone, they made billions off their iPod sales, which were 100% filled with pirated MP3s. Nobody was paying 10k to fill an iPod. Nobody.

    Then when they made their first billion, they started a music service and started charging for music and decried piracy, the very thing that made their entire corporate existence possible.

    • by sootman ( 158191 )

      I paid about $4,000 to fill my iPod when I ripped the ~250 CDs I had purchased over the course of 20 years. I got a few singles from Napster etc., but maybe 50-100 songs total. If Napster had never existed, I still would have bought my first iPod. (And my second.)

  • And Trent Reznor's music was built on musical notes discovered by other people centuries ago, which he's just reusing without attribution- sue that freeloader!

    Just kidding, but Trent Reznor go just fuck right off. No one forces anyone to upload content to Youtube, and has a shitload of content scanners to try and keep copyrighted material off their network. If you doubt me, just try and upload an episode of nearly any broadcast TV series or a movie and see how fast it gets flagged and bagged.

  • by future assassin ( 639396 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @10:09AM (#52322341)

    I bought albums from Atari Teen Age Riot and Eat Static because I saw their new tracks on YT.

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @10:12AM (#52322353)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by trybywrench ( 584843 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @10:23AM (#52322421)
    will you bite the hand that feeds you, Trent?
  • Digital copying is easy, sharing with friends is natural and human. The media industry is built on the principle of taking away our ability to copy and share, and on the idea that it is hard to do so. What would be rightfully ours under the original copyright laws is no longer ours, what we would have the right to do in the absence of copyright laws we no longer have the right to do. As for youtube, it is built on the hard work of those who invented the hardware and software technology to make it possible, and the efforts of many users. A little copyright infringment happens as 'collateral damage', and that is largely because copyright at present is so distant from what is natural, easy and straightforward. We could function without Trent's last album quite happily, but the ability to share information, events and enthusiasm is so much more important.

  • Ummm MTV? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Daemonik ( 171801 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @10:53AM (#52322577) Homepage

    "I think any free-tiered service is not fair.... is built on the back of my work and that of my peers. That's how I feel about it. Strongly," said Reznor

    That's hilarious, because I doubt Reznor or any of these other artists would bitch that MTV/VH1 was stealing from them, yet it does exactly the same as Youtube, presenting their music to the populace for free with ad revenue paying the bills.

  • by Berkyjay ( 1225604 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @10:56AM (#52322599)
    I used Youtube to watch a video from your latest album which then prompted me to go onto iTunes to purchase said album. I guess I'll go return that album since I came across your music in such an immoral fashion.
  • by wbr1 ( 2538558 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @11:43AM (#52322899)

    now doesn't that make you feel better? the pigs have won tonight now they can all sleep soundly and everything is all right

  • by Sable Drakon ( 831800 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @11:52AM (#52322957)
    This from the guy that told people at a concert to 'steal it', refering to music and telling the RIAA to fuck off? Yeah, Trent. You used to be cool.
  • step 1: say something idiotic about how (internet villain of the week) is stealing from you when really they are driving fans and money to your door.

Sigmund Freud is alleged to have said that in the last analysis the entire field of psychology may reduce to biological electrochemistry.

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