Will YouTube really block indie labels if they snub its new music service? | The Guardian UK

Ugly dispute with indie labels is provoking anger online, so what are the facts – and rumours – about YouTube’s streaming plans?

The accusation from WIN, representing its independent label members, is clear: if labels don’t sign up for YouTube’s new paid music service at the (non-negotiable) terms, their entire catalogues will be blocked on YouTube – all of YouTube, not just the new premium bit.

Note too the “significantly inferior” terms reference in Wenham’s letter. At WIN’s press conference, songwriter (and Guardian journalist) Helienne Lindvall said that “We’re hearing that a billion dollars has been paid by YouTube to the major labels” in advances for its new service.

Some of the anger in this dispute is the perception by indie labels that their major rivals have inked lucrative deals with YouTube while leaving them with the crumbs.

That billion-dollar figure is hearsay, of course. But note that YouTube said in February that it had paid $1bn out to music rightsholders in royalties so far, and then consider Kyncl’s quote in the FT interview: “That number is going to double soon.”

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE GUARDIAN UK:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/18/youtube-indie-labels-music-service

by trichordist

YouTube’s Attack On Indies Gets Strong Response From WIN, But It’s Time For Artists To Take Action | Hypebot

YouTube/Google and Amazon Are Using Their Power Against Creatives

If you’ve been watching the last 15 years or so of web development, you’ve seen a relatively wide open field of entrepreneurial potential gradually get taken over by major corporations in a manner similar to what occurred in industrial societies beginning in the late 1800s. They may be dropping fewer bodies than did the industrial giants but close-to-monopoly digital land grabs by companies like Google and Amazon have put them in a situation where they seem to feel that any terms they name are acceptable if they have the power to force compliance.

Amazon’s current battle with Hachette is but one example of how they’ve used their dominating position in book and ebook retail on the web to have their way with companies that are often struggling to survive.

YouTube’s dominance of the web video space sets up a similar near-monopoly situation in which they’re willing to use their position to behave in monopolistic fashion and force non-compliant entities into line.

READ THE FULL STORY AT HYPEBOT:
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2014/06/youtubes-attack-on-indies-gets-strong-response-from-win-but-its-time-for-artists-to-take-action.html

by trichordist

YouTube’s DMCA Abuse and Indie Labels: How Google is Blowing it for the Honest People

* * MUST READ * * From Music Tech Daily

Music Technology Policy

In a speech at Canadian Music Week, Beggars Group Chairman Martin Mills was not only right, he was prescient:

Google, the parent of YouTube, [is] one of the companies that have made billions on the back of [the DMCA notice and takedown,] a statutory provision intended to protect ordinary people acting innocently.

Google has now refined the DMCA to a tool to leverage its anticompetitive activities.  Here’s how it works.

1.  Google opens the YouTube platform to unauthorized “user generated content” and says to artists (literally in this case) “Does yuse wants to play whack a mole or make some dough?”  This is called the notice and shakedown.

2.  Google then jams a settlement down the throats of major labels and sticks it to everyone else.  Publishers are next.

3.  Google pays the lowest royalty online with a big advance to majors and spaghetti statements to everyone else that probably…

View original post 326 more words

by Trichordist Editor

If Google can get rid of personal data, why can’t it purge the pirates? | The Guardian UK

Critics say that if search engine knows of illegal activity, it shouldn’t help to send business its way

Google’s decision to allow users to easily de-list certain personal information from search results has infuriated a film and music industry that argues the internet giant should act as decisively to help squash digital piracy.

On Friday Google bowed to an EU privacy ruling, dubbed the “right to be forgotten”, launching a webpage where European citizens can request links to information about them be taken off search results.

The move came a day after Google had been lambasted for not doing enough to curb online piracy in a report by David Cameron’s intellectual property adviser, Mike Weatherley.

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE GUARDIAN UK:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jun/01/google-personal-data-digital-pirates

by Trichordist Editor

YouTube steps up row with indie labels by confirming imminent video blocks | Music Ally

This story is taking on a lot of dimensions of what it might be and what it might mean, Music Ally tries to get some late breaking insight. Of particular note is the comment by Radiohead manager Brian Message, read on…

“YouTube executives argue that they cannot offer music on the free service without it also being available on the paid service as this would disappoint its subscribers,” as Billboard puts it.

Meanwhile, you had the BBC suggesting that indie videos uploaded to YouTube via Vevo would still be available, while only “videos which are exclusively licensed by independent record labels, such as acoustic sets or live performances” will be taken down.

Clear as mud, then. Radiohead manager Brian Message was asked at Music Ally’s transparency event last night whether he thinks YouTube will follow through on the threats: “I quite hope that they do! It would be quite interesting to see what happens next!” – not as flippant as it reads in print, but more an admission that it’s only once blocking start happening that the industry will know exactly what YouTube is threatening.

This dispute is bad for everyone: for labels and artists, for fans, and particularly for YouTube, for whom accusations of bullying indie labels will be hard to brush off.

READ THE FULL STORY AT MUSIC ALLY:
http://musically.com/2014/06/18/youtube-steps-up-row-with-indie-labels-by-confirming-imminent-video-blocks/

by trichordist

End internet piracy and bring Google to heel | Sydney Morning Herald

Our Attorney-General George Brandis is attempting to reform our copyright law. Meanwhile Google, one of the multi-national companies attempting to avoid paying tax here, is lobbying in Canberra to stop this, by putting forward the following six fundamentally misconceived arguments:

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD:
by Trichordist Editor

!! Gizmodo Reports Google to Censor Videos By XL Recordings, Domino Records, Adele, Animal Collective, Arctic Monkeys and More !!

This just in from Gizmodo regarding the YouTube Music Pass for which the major labels have already made a deal with Google. Indie labels however are being bullied by the tech giant with the threat of Censorship if the artists and indie labels do not submit to sub-standard royalties. Wow. Just wow.

The problem is Google’s plans for the other 10 percent. The company’s head of content Robert Kyncl told the FT that it plans to start blocking videos from indie labels that haven’t signed licensing deals “in a matter of days.” The FT says that these labels include XL Recordings and Domino records, whose rosters include Adele, Animal Collective, Arctic Monkeys, and loads of other popular artists. In a statement to Gizmodo, Google confirmed the FT story as well as its intentions to launch a subscription-based service.

Some labels are refusing to sign up because they say they’re getting a raw deal from Google. They say that while the major labels have negotiated lucrative contracts, Google is offering indies comparatively bad terms. It’s their right to say they don’t want to sign up if they don’t like the deal Google is offering them. In response, Google is drawing a line in the sand: If your label won’t sign on to Google’s crappy licensing deal for a new streaming service, you can’t host videos on YouTube at all.

READ THE FULL STORY AT GIZMODO:
http://gizmodo.com/googles-about-to-ruin-youtube-by-forcing-indie-labels-t-1591957089

 

 

by trichordist

The MTP Interview: Canadian Artist Suzana Barbosa Who Really Did #walkmilesformusic

An artist walked 500 miles to the Googleplex, but Google would not meet with her, not even to buy her a cup of coffee at one of their fancy campus restaurants?

Music Technology Policy

Suzana Barbosa is a Canadian artist who walked from Los Angeles to the Googleplex (well…not inside the Googleplex) and used her #walkmilesformusic campaign to call attention to the absurdly low streaming royalties that are cannibalizing sales.  In a serendipitous coincidence, Suzana’s protest coincided with the release by the Copyright Board of Canada of its new statutory rates for Pandora in Canada.  Remember those really low rates that Pandora pays in the US?

The Canadians are now paying less than 10% of those rates for sound recordings thanks to Pandora’s lobbying efforts.

That’s right.  $0.000102 per play.  And of course the artist’s share is 50%–got your scientific calculators ready?–$0.000051.

So Suzana’s direct action couldn’t have come at a better time in both her home country and in the U.S. as Pandora is trying to do the same to artists in the U.S. in a rate proceeding with SoundExchange.

We were lucky…

View original post 2,132 more words

by thetrichordist

Congress moves against ad-supported piracy | The Hill

How surprised would you be if you went to your local Honda dealer and bought a car, but when you tried to register it you were told it was stolen property?

What if you went to Target and bought a blender, but when you filled out the warranty card you were told it already belonged to someone else?

Things like this don’t happen, right? Companies like Honda and Target are respectable merchants who would never encourage the distribution of stolen property. Right? Wrong. They do. So do companies like Kraft, Lego, and the makers of Claritin. Every day.

It sounds insane, but Honda, Toyota, Target, Kraft, Lego, and Claritin are spending gobs of money every day to finance theft – whether they know it or not.

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE HILL:
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/209193-congress-moves-against-ad-supported-piracy

by Trichordist Editor

“Successful” Licensing Models and the Opt Out: Music Licensing Study Comments

Music Technology Policy

The U.S. Copyright Office is conducting a “Music Licensing Study” as part of the government’s overall review of the U.S. copyright law with an eye to potentially overhauling the entire copyright system.  (See “The Next Great Copyright Act” by Maria Pallante, the head of the U.S. Copyright Office and the nominal go-to person for the U.S. Congress on copyright issues.)  The Copyright Office has received written public comments on questions posed in its Notice of Inquiry and is also holding public Roundtables in Nashville, Los Angeles and New York  (in that order).

The speakers at the Roundtables are by invitation only although the roundtables themselves are open to the public.  We understand that the Roundtable participants will be invited to submit written reply comments at some point after the conclusion of the last Roundtable.  The Nashville Roundtable is over and the Los Angeles Roundtable begins…

View original post 1,508 more words

by Trichordist Editor