There is an interesting story breaking in the UK’s Guardian about negotiations between indie labels rights organization Worldwide Independent Network (WIN) and Google’s YouTube.
“Music industry trade association the Worldwide Independent Network (WIN) has accused YouTube of strong-arm negotiating tactics trying to force indie labels to sign up to the new service.
WIN, which represents independent labels worldwide, claims that YouTube is approaching labels directly with a “template contract” and threatening that if they do not sign it, all their music videos will be blocked on YouTube.”
Bring on the black out? How ironic would it be that Google would resort to content blocking as the champions of an open internet and freedom of speech online.
We can see it now…
This video has been removed by Google who chose not to compensate the creator fairly for their work. Sorry about that ;-(
READ THE FULL STORY AT THE GUARDIAN UK:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/22/indie-labels-youtube-subscription-music
The Trichordist 
Reblogged this on MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY and commented:
Thanks to Alison Wenham and the indies for standing up to the face of evil! This should be reported to Almunia as an example of how Google abuses its monopoly power. #istandwithwin
Yes, it is encouraging to see indies united over abuse. The potential of change resides with the ability to speak out in numbers large enough to be heard. Clearly, this is not the kind of press that Google / YouTube want to be dealing with.
Reblogged this on nycRUEN and commented:
Memorial Day Weekend 2014 is doubling as a holiday for tech-monopolist convergence. As described in this Trichordist.com post (check their site for follow-ups) You Tube is threatening to block videos/music from Independent labels who don’t simply nod ‘yes’ to proposed terms for the You Tube streaming service that is supposedly coming soon. Also this week, Amazon has been bullying the book publisher Hachette into their preferred ebook terms by eliminating buy buttons and slowing shipping estimates to 2-3 weeks for their titles (including “The Everything Store” which happens to be critical of Bezos/Amazon) . I hope these developments offer some wind to sail the narrative (for the public) that tech corporations are no different than any other corporation with stockholders to satisfy; and if they seem to be standing up for ‘the future’ or ‘freedom’ or ‘free speech’ they are likely only doing so as a PR move, to ultimately avoid regulation and pad their bottom line. As I offered on Twitter yesterday, an equation for the reality we have given ourselves: Weak Copyright Protection + Unregulated Tech Monopolies = Cultural Race To The Bottom.
As a side note, I continue to find it amazing that tech companies have managed to portray themselves as the proud protectors of progress and free speech, defending it from…those famous First Amendment-hating artists. Meaningful Artist Rights (along with Privacy Rights for users) are a threat to the status quo means of doing business online–a threat to massive advertising revenues but also, more importantly in regards to stock price, a threat to sustained GROWTH in said revenues). Could artists and consumers ever join forces to promote a rights-based-web for all and re-engineer its current people-devaluing incentives? Now that would be something.
They say everything goes in cycles. I keep thinking Robber Barons and Laissez-Faire.