Why the Music Industry Doesn't Hate YouTube Any More (nytimes.com) 44
Today is Record Store Day, an annual event celebrating the culture of independently-owned record stores. And music industry players have said they actually got more money from the sale of vinyl records than they do from YouTube.
But is that changing? The New York Times reports those figures are from a time when YouTube was only selling ads on (or beside) music videos and then sharing that cash with the record labels and performs: Fast forward to last week, when YouTube disclosed that it paid music companies, musicians and songwriters more than $4 billion in the prior year. That came from advertising money and something that the industry has wanted forever and is now getting — a cut of YouTube's surprisingly large subscription business. (YouTube subscriptions include an ad-free version of the site and a Spotify-like service to watch music videos without any ads.) The significance of YouTube's dollar figure is that it's not far from the $5 billion that the streaming king Spotify pays to music industry participants from a portion of its subscriptions. (A reminder: The industry mostly loves Spotify's money, but some musicians ïsay that they're shortchanged by the payouts.)
Subscriptions will always be a hobby for YouTube, but the numbers show that even a side gig for the company can be huge. And it has bought peace by raining some of those riches on those behind the music. Record labels and other industry powers "still don't looooove YouTube," Lucas Shaw, a Bloomberg News reporter, wrote this week. "But they don't hate it anymore."
The YouTube turnabout may also show that complaining works. The music industry has a fairly successful track record of picking a public enemy No. 1 — Pandora for awhile, Spotify, YouTube, and more recently apps like TikTok and Twitch — and publicly browbeating it or playing one rich company against another to get more money or something else they wanted.
While the article cites concerns that YouTube is still paying too little (and failing to stop piracy), "just maybe, YouTube has shown that it's possible for digital companies to both upend an industry and make it stronger."
But is that changing? The New York Times reports those figures are from a time when YouTube was only selling ads on (or beside) music videos and then sharing that cash with the record labels and performs: Fast forward to last week, when YouTube disclosed that it paid music companies, musicians and songwriters more than $4 billion in the prior year. That came from advertising money and something that the industry has wanted forever and is now getting — a cut of YouTube's surprisingly large subscription business. (YouTube subscriptions include an ad-free version of the site and a Spotify-like service to watch music videos without any ads.) The significance of YouTube's dollar figure is that it's not far from the $5 billion that the streaming king Spotify pays to music industry participants from a portion of its subscriptions. (A reminder: The industry mostly loves Spotify's money, but some musicians ïsay that they're shortchanged by the payouts.)
Subscriptions will always be a hobby for YouTube, but the numbers show that even a side gig for the company can be huge. And it has bought peace by raining some of those riches on those behind the music. Record labels and other industry powers "still don't looooove YouTube," Lucas Shaw, a Bloomberg News reporter, wrote this week. "But they don't hate it anymore."
The YouTube turnabout may also show that complaining works. The music industry has a fairly successful track record of picking a public enemy No. 1 — Pandora for awhile, Spotify, YouTube, and more recently apps like TikTok and Twitch — and publicly browbeating it or playing one rich company against another to get more money or something else they wanted.
While the article cites concerns that YouTube is still paying too little (and failing to stop piracy), "just maybe, YouTube has shown that it's possible for digital companies to both upend an industry and make it stronger."
Breakdown? (Score:2)
Re:Breakdown? (Score:4, Insightful)
{{{ It it paid music companies, musicians and songwriters more than $4 billion in the prior year. }}} --- I'd like to see how that $4 billion is broken down among the music companies (I presume this also includes publishers), musicians and songwriters. Last I heard, unless the musician or musical group was famous enough to drive the contract negotiations, the music industry (i.e. corporate towers) got the lion share of any revenue.
My guess:
1. Industry Lawyers: $2 billion
2. Industry Publishers: $2 Billion
3. Musicians and Songwriters: Think of all the publicity we've helped you get and didn't charge you for
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I feed my family on buttered slices of exposure.
Re:Breakdown? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'd like to see how that $4 billion is broken down among the music companies
Well, they promised half to Justin Bieber, half to Taylor Swift, and half to Kanye West.
Now you know why the music industry is still bitching about lack of money - they're short by a half.
Let me hate YouTube for them! (Score:2)
Interesting FP approach. I'd actually like to see the other side of the ledger. Where is the money coming from? I certainly hope I'm not contributing any. Certainly not directly, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if YouTube has figured out how to derive indirect revenue from me.
All in all, I hate YouTube. A LOT. Don't want to go into all the reasons, but I'll just try to pick on the annoying ads. Five seconds at a time. Not sure what the limits are, but I have noticed that if I watch a couple of videos the
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Five seconds at a time. Not sure what the limits are, but I have noticed that if I watch a couple of videos they stop with the ads for a while. Whatever the limits are, that time is wasted and I'm sure YouTube will never pay me back.
You're talking as if YouTube doesn't have a subscription option that disables all the ads.
If you're too dumb to figure out how to buy the exact thing you want, at least figure out how to install adblock. Nobody owes you an ad-free video streaming platform.
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NAK.
The Truth About Music Revenue (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The Truth About Music Revenue (Score:5, Informative)
Part of the problem is that most artists used to sign over their copyrights to record companies to get their first albums made. Later in their careers, smart bands and artists try to keep their copyrights for new work as well as buy back their original copyrights. A second problem is that even with copyrights, the artists would only get a portion of the revenue as there are manufacturing and distribution costs; however, digital versions should have lower cots. Many artists like Weird Al Yankovic complained in the early days of digital distribution that the record companies were keeping the same portion even though their costs should have been lower.
The real crux of the issue is that if artists rely on others like record companies to manage different aspects they are going to be charged for it and sometimes disproportionately. Take for example an online music store like Apple Music. If a band signs on with a record company and has the record company manage their account with Apple, there might be all sorts of fees that record company is going to charge them. Also the band may not even know exactly how many sales they got to determine if the charges were ridiculous. A band may not know that they are being charged an outrageous 75% or a more fair 10% . The band could do all the work themselves of setting up with Apple Music but they will have to manage that. These days it may be easy for a band whose primary focus is music to let others manage these things as well as social media presence, etc.
The piracy angle is interesting. (Score:2)
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But you didn't consider solutions. Is that because they are too obvious?
Main one is to focus on search. If YouTube actually wanted to stop piracy, then any search used for piracy could be adjusted to return legitimate results rather than pirate results. The searches are already tracked. One adjustment per take-down request would suffice. Permanently. Piracy solved.
(Okay, I have to acknowledge there is one wrinkled area. Ambiguous search requests, but the whole ranking thing is about resolving ambiguity. The
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But you didn't consider solutions. Is that because they are too obvious?
Nah, because whenever there is money involved the obviously correct solution is the one which gets the most money.
Main one is to focus on search. If YouTube actually wanted to stop piracy, then any search used for piracy could be adjusted to return legitimate results rather than pirate results. The searches are already tracked. One adjustment per take-down request would suffice. Permanently. Piracy solved.
But that doesn't bring in revenue and as you later correctly point out, can reduce it. Thus, is not the correct solution if it ends piracy; but piracy is not the problem. The problem is not making money off of the pirated works; piracy is only the carrier. Most piracy does not represent lost sales, at least not in a YouTube environment; so ending it just drives down potential ad revenue. Which
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Silly me. I need to quit worrying about those silly creators and the silly and archaic rationale of copyright law. I was sadly befuddled by my youthful study of philosophy and such trivia as right and wrong.
Your pragmatic attitude certainly rulz the roost of YouTube. More money to you.
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Silly me. I need to quit worrying about those silly creators and the silly and archaic rationale of copyright law. I was sadly befuddled by my youthful study of philosophy and such trivia as right and wrong.
Your pragmatic attitude certainly rulz the roost of YouTube. More money to you.
I agree, clearly the creators that use others copyrighted material either do not understand, or care about, copyright law and right and wrong.
If someone uses someone else's copyrighted work without permission they are not entitled to any money they make from it; the copyright owner gets to deocide who can use it and under what terms. The owner could decide to allow it to be used in exchange for any profits from it or demand it be removed if they don't approve of how it was being used, which is well within t
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Still can't decide if you are trying to be funny, and if so, where?
However derivative rights is an interesting question, and my conclusion (or perhaps it's a working hypothesis) is that derivative rights have gone way too far. Must of creativity is based on prior creations, but now any attempt to derive new work based on existing work is liable to get you sued into oblivion.
Or in the form of a joke: "Death to Mickey Mouse!"
Of course the real punchline there is that Mickey Mouse himself is a derivative work.
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*sigh*
My eyes might be tired.
s/Must of/Much of/
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Still can't decide if you are trying to be funny, and if so, where?
Not really. My point is the entertainment industry is in the business of making money, and computers and the internet has produced a lot of new ways to create and distribute content. The industry can continue to view content that contains their copyrighted material as something to takedown, or some smart exec will realize there is a way to make money off of it through ads. YouTube and others control the money pipeline, tapping into it and siphoning off a piece would essentially be free money. They play n
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ACK. Mostly concurrence.
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You still are befuddled, but it's by ownership propaganda. "Piracy solved"??? By which, you mean what exactly? Search results omit all pirated content? And how do they do that, check the evil bit? But see, even if that could work, it wouldn't stop piracy. Tell me how you stop a kid from copying a flash drive full of songs to several kids' tablets? Lock the tablets down so tight that they really aren't the property of the kids any more?
In your sarcastic mention of "right" and "wrong", you are runnin
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Quite hard to figure out what you are trying to say, but I have to look in a mirror first before I criticize how someone else writes... I'll go ahead and try to clarify at the level of higher principles. At least that's where I think you're aiming. Plus, the main principle is easy to address, even from my twisted perspective. In spite of your hostile tone (that makes you sound like a troll), I think we largely agree on the key issue. But to keep it simple, will it help to say that I quite agree with you tha
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I think the underlying philosophical idea of copyright is good.
Is it? But first, what do you mean by the "underlying philosophical idea"? If you mean "People who create good new things deserve to be rewarded", yes, with that, I agree.
The idea of copyright is that the right to copy, which is a Natural Right, should be taken from the public by government fiat, so that a system of compensation can be hung on handing that right back out in a very limited and controlled way. I very much disagree with that. It worked somewhat when copying wasn't so easy, when the printi
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Perhaps we agree on most of it, and we certainly agree on some parts, but you should try to write more clearly and with greater focus. (Me, too.)
Trying to address it from a philosophical level, my basic take on the new ideas you presented is that I think derivative profits should include a percentage to be paid to the original creator. That part seems relatively straightforward to me, though the math could get messy.
But the messiest topic is whether or not you should pay for creativity-derived pleasures rec
Enter youtube-dl (Score:4, Interesting)
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They don't. Piracy isn't what it once was - between the ease of youtube and the availability of so many affordable and convenient legal media sources, the appeal is much diminished. Dodgy streaming sites still thrive though.
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Quality. YouTube's top audio quality is around 128kbps AAC, used on their 1080p and 4K streams (audio quality goes way down the lower resolution you go). It's why YouTube makes 720p ripping relatively easy - at that point its 64kbps AAC and it goes down from there - I think at 480p and below, you're down to 32kbps Speex or Opus (because that's the best for voice at low bitrates).
Whereas everyone else pirating music has been using FLAC for years.
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I paid $25 for the latest AoA album, but the versions they posted to their youtube channel have higher quality audio... youtube-dl is the only way to get the premium cuts.
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Because they control it (Score:5, Interesting)
Then they sued, shut everything down and it was business as usual. Because we have a ruling class, they make the rules, and we let them for reasons that escape me.
How much of that is from theft? (Score:5, Interesting)
The music labels need to come up with a licensing scheme for YouTube similar to what they do for restaurants and bars [restaurant.org]. The restaurant pays a fixed amount (usually a few hundred dollars a year) based on their capacity, and that gives them a blanket license to play copyrighted music for their customers to hear. A similar licensing scheme for YouTube would be trivial to implement. Just set the price tiers according to the total numbers of viewing hours that channel receives in a year (analogous to customer dining hours in a restaurant). And a channel which licensed music this way would be exempt from DMCA notices for music violations.
That the industry doesn't do this, suggests that they're making a lot more money by stealing other content creators' ad revenue, than they think they would get from a blanket licensing system. Which in itself would be proof that the DMCA goes too far in protecting copyright (you can use the DMCA to make more money than you can from copyright).
Re:How much of that is from theft? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with the blanket license fee is that it is disproportionally allocated to the latest "hits". In the ASCAP license, radio airplay still dominates how the funds are distributed. Those accounting systems were set up more than 50 years ago and they've never changed.
You, as a nightclub owner, can basically say "we're going to play Simple Minds, non-stop, for 4 hours tonight!", and in spite of that dedicated effort to promote the work of Jim Kerr and company (as well as the writers of Don't You Forget About Me), Justin Bieber and his songwriting team are going to get all the money collected for the night from the venue, because Peaches was number one yet again.
So to introduce the performers side of the site-license model in the same way, you'll end up with the same thing: instead of Spotify and Youtube etc allocating at least something on the basis of the work actually being played, they'll just send the whole thing to the label and say "you figure it out"...and the label will reward its biggest artists and ignore the rest, just like ASCAP does when individual accounting is discarded.
Should there be a standard streaming price "per song per listener, divided by percentage of the song that is actually included, etc etc (all things software can calculate very easily)"? and automatic approval such that works can't be arbitrarily yanked, or the value of the stream owed to an artist is relative to the amount of the stream the artists work actually occupied rather than they get it all?
Of course.
But asking the labels or ASCAP to set it up is asking for the same theft that the current site-license system has in the restaurant model: they'll use their own accounting they already have, and 99.99% of their artists will get screwed, many worse than they already are.
"The history of the music industry is a history of exploitation and theft." -- Robert Fripp
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Speaking of Piracy (Score:2)
Courtney Love from 2000 https://www.salon.com/2000/06/... [salon.com] Man what an awesome time that was for tech and internet.
Canada https://www.michaelgeist.ca/20... [michaelgeist.ca]
It's been forty years (Score:4, Insightful)
Pop in a metal cassette tape, turn on the FM radio, hit record.
Dubbing on the boombox.
The mix tape.
BBS
High-speed dubbing on the ghetoblaster.
Put in a metal cassette tape, insert a CD, hit record.
Altavista
Napster
uTorrent
Play literally anything on Youtube, hit record.
Today, one can immediately play literally any music, completely free on youtube, and click record for a perfect digital copy.
Music has loads of value in my life -- I spend thousands on live performances annually (pre/post covid of course.) But recorded music has absolutely zero monetary value. It's free on the radio, it's free on youtube. It's been free for all of my life.
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I humbly propose that there are three forms of music, worth experiencing.
The first is the at-home, in the living room, with wine or scotch, in a good chair, for a few hours, with a good conversation. I think that's your good hi-fi version.
The second is on a beach, with no distractions, with decent headphones, for hours, lost in one's own mind.
The third is a live performance, but I don't mean in an arena with 20'000 humans. I mean in a lavish theatre with ~300 people and perfect acoustics, or in an upscale
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I'm so sorry, I need to expand that fourth one --- the perfectly-paired road trip. I'm going to expand that to the perfectly-paired experience in general. Again, not really a music experience, but one where the experience is significantly lacking when the music is absent.
I already mentioned the perfectly-paired road trip. I hereby add the perfectly-paired work-out -- be it in the gym, or in the bedroom.