Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Youtube Businesses Music Entertainment

YouTube Pays Music Industry $1 Billion From Ads (cnet.com) 76

YouTube, the music industry's enemy No. 1 earlier this year, said Tuesday it has paid more than $1 billion in advertising revenue to artists, labels and publishers in the last 12 months. From a report on CNET: The milestone, released in a blog post by business chief Robert Kyncl, is a stab by Google's giant video site at mending fences with music industry critics. At least, it's YouTube hoping to convince some of them that the massive amount of free, ad-supported music listening that happens there is a valuable complement to music subscriptions, the industry's main area of growth right now.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

YouTube Pays Music Industry $1 Billion From Ads

Comments Filter:
  • by c ( 8461 ) <beauregardcp@gmail.com> on Tuesday December 06, 2016 @01:46PM (#53434579)

    So, somewhere around $37 trillion dollars less than the music industry thinks they're owed?

    • by skids ( 119237 )

      If they want revenue they should really get with the times and accept micropayments that grant licenses to individual people to use music as underscore in their videos, as webpage ambiance, and add it to the playlist of online games when they are in the session, or in second-life-like environments, play it in their spaces so other players can hear it. That would create a new revenue stream versus only being able to license it for listening.

      • by c ( 8461 )

        If they want revenue they should really get with the times and...

        The music industry doesn't "get with the times". They'll be dragged into the times kicking and screaming, but not before they shit all over the bed and generally make everyone's lives as miserable as possible.

  • Try this [adblockplus.me].
  • by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2016 @01:57PM (#53434661)
    The "music industry" is mostly over-paid execs sitting in ivory towers (some cylindrical), and siphoning off the revenue for their own profits.

    .
    What percentage of that $billion has gone to the artists who perform the songs? Or the writers who write them?

    • Then again, I don't see this as a "new" thing. Music artists have generally done very poor from record sales, while ad agencies and music execs who own studios do quite well. Musicians tend to make their money from performances, not from record sales. Records unfortunately tend to do much better in sales after tragedy.

      Consider that the average record, 60 minutes or so, costs about $10.00US. Bands rarely go "gold", which would mean$10million in record sales. Deduct from that the cost of the studio, mate

      • by PIBM ( 588930 )

        Who's still selling CDs ? They would get 70c per song sale on itunes, no ? I have no idea what are the numbers for streaming like, but the CDs low revenue should not really be looked at that much in those time I believe..

          • by PIBM ( 588930 )

            That`s over 10 years ago.. And I don`t expect an artist to still need a record producer if they aren`t making records anymore ;)

        • by s.petry ( 762400 )
          Selling CDs has become a generic term for purchasing an album from a digital provider, as well as physical medium. Vinyl is also included in that, which would sell much less than a CD in physical form. I happen to do both, depending on the circumstances. I admit that it's rare for people to purchase physical media, but the numbers for sales of digital+physical are still used to calculate sales volumes. A band going "gold" (as corrected by AC below) requires selling 500,000 copies of a complete record in
        • Who's still selling CDs ?

          About 10 years ago I used to sell printing supplies to a guy who had a pretty good business pressing (or burning maybe) CD's for bands directly, and he reckoned one of his customers was the most profitable band in the country*

          They all had day jobs during the Winter and spent the Summer on the road, playing bluegrass at mostly country pubs and selling their CD's (also T-Shirts) at the door.

          Every year a major label would offer them a contract, and every year they would tell the label the contract they

  • I assume that people watch videos containing major label music instead of Creative Commons music because major label music is more familiar to them. Then the question becomes how major label music became more familiar to them in the first place, despite Creative Commons music being readily available for both download and streaming. Is it that people without a big cellular data plan still listen to FM radio, which plays almost entirely major label music?

    • The main reason I would expect would be visibility. Radio, TV, advertising, etc.

      What do you use to stream CC music? I hadn't heard of anything being available for this before, and would dump Amazon Prime Music in a heartbeat. Do CC artists get anything from me streaming? Is there a way to pay so that the artists do get something for their work besides donating to individual artists?

  • So YouTube vs the music industry is an odd fight for public opinion. The music industry is hoping that public pressure will get them a bigger cut of whatever profits are to be had (not that YouTube is profitable, but it could potentially be). However, the media companies are not campaigning for a change in law (this time), they just want a bigger cut. So the question is, why does this article exist? I am fairly certain that Google has made this point before, and that it was posted on Slashdot. Are we concer

    • It is news though, even though it benefits google. If we were to file away anything that benefits the person giving info as propaganda, there will be no news to publish. How it benefits google is unknown right now, we may or may not know in the future, and there is nothing with that.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Now you are getting it. Most news is both propaganda AND news. I think recent events have got people thinking about the media differently but this has always been the case.

        Let me let you in on a little secret. Most articles are not dreamed up by reporters. They arrive, in final or near final form, on the desk of the reporter. Originally typed up by someone else that benefits from the news. Same goes for political news. This make reporters happy (yay! no real work required) and the people generating t

      • There is nothing new about YouTube paying $1B to media companies. Literally nothing, and it has been reported here before [slashdot.org]. So not intending any personal reflection, but you're not going to piss on me and tell me it's raining. I also note a coincidence in that the articles were posted by the same person, although I tend to doubt there is any significance to that. So if it's not new, informative, or current, what is it doing here?

  • Huh. The more you know. Good on them for monetizing it somehow.

  • Advertising is overvalued by about 99.9%. The people who sell ads are the same ones who rate what they are worth.
    • by grub ( 11606 )
      Yep. I have a friend who worked for a now-defunct ad placement firm. They hired people specifically for the purpose of figuring out ways around ad blockers. Of course that was dumb, because for people who are determined not to be tracked and force-fed ads, that simply makes them more determined to find ways to block things.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    You want to support the bands you love? Buy tickets to see them live, buy a t-shirt from their merch counter at the venue. That is the only way they make real money. Only the top top .01% of recording artists actually make money from CD sales.

    • by tepples ( 727027 )

      You want to support the bands you love? Buy tickets to see them live

      That works only if the band is touring anywhere near you, which is likely not true of foreign bands. It also works only if the band either plays at all-ages venues or is still together after you turn 21.*

      * In Slashdot's home country, many smaller music show venues require all attendees to be at least 21 years of age because of state alcohol control laws.

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens. -- Bengamin Disraeli

Working...