We all know that YouTube pays the lowest royalty rate and has the least transparent royalty statements of any digital service. Due to really bad advice, artists and labels have been driving traffic to YouTube essentially for free and marketers misread the direction of this traffic in forming the belief that hits need YouTube.  Actually, it’s the other way around.  YouTube needs hits.

Taylor Swift’s 1989 release led the way on putting this YouTube situation back on the right track.  Taylor’s videos were pretty much only available on the higher-royalty Vevo, and her label used a variety of tools to take down most of the other Taylor videos on YouTube proper.  (So while it is true that Taylor denied Spotify, to say that somehow the business move was ill-advised because YouTube pays less than Spotify misses the Vevo point.)

Ellie Goulding is now extending the strategy in rather a brilliant…