Tag: youtube

2019-2020 Streaming Price Bible : YouTube is STILL The #1 Problem To Solve

Here we go with the current year update.

This data set is isolated to the calendar year 2019 and represents a mid-sized indie label with an approximately 350+ album catalog now generating over 1.5b streams annually. Streaming is now a fully mature format, and it is also the number one source of revenue for recorded music. Streaming in all configurations now accounts for 64% of all recorded music revenues. Head on over to the RIAA US sales database [here] to check out the numbers. Pro Tip: Remember to adjust for inflation!

We are keeping a simplified chart again this year. We’ve extended to the top 30 streamers which represent 99.87% of all streaming dollars. The Top 10 streamers account for over 93% of all music streaming revenues (down from 97% last year). The Top 5 account for over 83% of all streaming dollars (down from 88% last year). The drop in overall revenues in the Top 5 and Top 10 are the result of YouTube’s Content ID pulling down the overall revenues / per stream.

The biggest takeaway by far is that YouTube’s Content ID, shows a whopping 51% of all streams generate only 6.4% of revenue. Read that again. This is your value gap. Over 50% of all music streams generate less than 7% of revenue.

 

This is the first time we have not seen the Spotify per stream rate drop since the service launched a decade ago. The Spotify per stream rate has stabilized moving up just slightly to .00348 from .00331.  In other words Spotify is paying out about $3,300 – $3,500 per million plays. We’re working with a very large sample that has aggregated all streams and revenue against both subscription and ad supported revenues for a single per stream average. This overall average is helpful for anyone who wants to calculate gross revenues by simply looking at the numbers on Spotify itself. For those who may not know, there is a simple “trick” to see the streams of any song on Spotify. On the desk top app, go to the album view and hover your mouse/cursor over the ||||||| at the far right side of any song, just to the right of the song length. Once there the plays for the song will materialize just below the song length.

 

Using our average, the song above has earned between $4,026 – $4,270.78 (gross before distribution fees) on Spotify at 1,220,224 plays.

Apple Music is again the best value per stream accounting for nearly 25% of all streaming revenue on only 6% of consumption. Spotify generates the most overall revenue of any streamer (no surprise) at 44% of all streaming revenue on 22% of consumption. As stated before, and which can not be overstated enough, You Tube’s Content ID is the major issue limiting growth contributing only 6% of revenues on over half of all streams, at 51% of total consumption. That’s a staggering statistic.

Apple’s per stream rate also stabilizes this year hitting a per stream rate of .0675 which is much closer to where it was two years ago at .00783. Our numbers from 2018 showed a dramatic drop in Apple’s rate at .00495 which we attribute to an expansion into new territories and a large number of 90 day free accounts that had not matured to fully paid subscribers.

In looking at the per stream rates for song and album equivalents, you might want to read this article by Billboard (as of 2018) on the current calculation of how many streams equal an album for the purposes of charting. The report states that, “The Billboard 200 will now include two tiers of on-demand audio streams. TIER 1: paid subscription audio streams (equating 1,250 streams to 1 album unit) and TIER 2: ad-supported audio streams (equating 3,750 streams to 1 album unit).” Our numbers suggest however it would be more fair to average all revenues, against all streams (including content ID), and that actually lands at about 3,516 streams per album across the board.

 

These numbers are from one set of confidentially supplied data for global sales. If you have access to other data sources that you can share, we’d love to see it.

  • HOW WE CALCULATED THE STREAMS PER SONG / ALBUM RATE:
  • As streaming services only pay master royalties (to labels) and not publishing, the publishing has to be deducted from the master share to arrive at the comparable cost per song/album.
  • $.99 Song is $.70 wholesale after 30% fee. Deduct 1 full stat mechanical at $.091 = $.609 per song.
  • Multiply the above by 10x’s and you get the album equivalent of $6.09 per album
[EDITORS NOTE: All of the data above is aggregated. In all cases the total amount of revenue is divided by the total number of the streams per service  (ex: $5,210 / 1,000,000 = .00521 per stream). In cases where there are multiple tiers and pricing structures (like Spotify), these are all summed together and divided to create an averaged, single rate per play.]

[royalties][streaming royalties][music royalties][royalty rates]

by trichordist

Google Exec’s Called YouTube “A Pirate Site”. There’s Your Value Gap.

Sometimes we just have to look at a little bit of history to put things into perspective. It’s hard for us to believe that there is even a debate about The Value Gap for recorded music. Check this out as reported by AOL News in 2010.

Google had an internal meeting on competing with YouTube, and its executives were highly critical of YouTube: “A large part of their traffic is pirated content.” YouTube is a “rogue enabler of content theft.” “YouTube’s business model is completely sustained by pirated content.” “… it’s a video Grokster.” “I can’t believe you’re recommending buying YouTube . . . they’re 80% illegal pirated content.”

The whole damning article is right here, titled “Viacom vs. YouTube/Google: A Piracy Case in Their Own Words” and it’s well worth the full read.

In the end, it’s the DMCA that protected Google and it’s the DMCA that needs to be fixed. It’s that type of fix that the EU’s Article 13 sought to address. It would be nice to address those issues here, in the USA, where Google and YouTube are based.

 

by trichordist

2018 Streaming Price Bible! Per Stream Rates Drop as Streaming Volume Grows. YouTube’s Value Gap is Very Real.

Here we go again. To see previous years, click [here].

This data set is isolated to the calendar year 2018 and represents a mid-sized indie label with an approximately 250+ album catalog now generating almost 1b streams annually. 2018 is the year we saw streaming truly mature as the dominant source of recorded music revenues.

In parsing the data provided we find that digital revenues are 86% of all recorded music revenues globally (RIAA Reports Digital Revenues as 90% of Total). Streaming is 80% (or more) of Digital Music Revenues. Downloads are about 20% of digital music revenues for the year, however if we isolate Q4, it would appear download revenues could be less than 15% of digital revenues. The transition from downloads to streaming is well beyond the tipping point and we wonder how long the major services (Apple, Amazon, Google) will continue to support the format.

As we dig down into the physical revenues much of the gross is eroded by manufacturing, shipping and inventory costs of both CDs and Vinyl. In short, the recorded music business is now the streaming music business. Whatever charm there is to vinyl, it is at best still a truly niche business in terms of meaningful net revenues.

Every year there are surprises in the data and this year is no exception. As always we present this data as a single sample, but one we feel is fairly representative of the state of the business. As such, we welcome comments from others with access to similar data to report on their findings. Some of the percentages may vary dependent upon the genre of music and the size of the label or artist. However, we generally don’t find trends that are completely contradictory to our sample where it matters most, in reporting on stream rates and relative marketshare.

We’ve also simplified the chart this year. Just one chart, and only the Top 20 streamers which represent  99.35% of all streaming dollars. The Top 10 streamers account for over 97% of all music streaming revenues. The Top 5 account for over 88% of all streaming dollars. What we see below is a maturing marketplace with a small number of dominant players. Anyone who thought the digital revolution would remove so called “gate keepers” are painfully wrong.

If you want to compare these numbers against the RIAA’s official report for the first half of 2018, click [here]. That data is for the USA and only through June of 2018. It’s hard to get “apples to apples” reporting, so everything should be taken as different perspectives on the overall business. If you are an artist or label, see how your own data compares.

The biggest takeaway by far is that YouTube’s Content ID, (in our first truly comprehensive data set) shows a whopping 48% of all streams generate only 7% of revenue. Read that again. This is your value gap. Nearly 50% of all recorded music streams only generate 7% of revenue.

 

The Spotify per stream rate drops again from .00397 to .00331 a decrease of 16%. Apple Music gains almost 3% for an total global marketshare of about just under 25% of all revenue.

Apple’s per stream rate drops from .00783 to .00495 a decrease of 36%. We need to state again, that 2018 saw a massive shift of revenues from downloads to streaming and no doubt this expansion of scale, combined with more aggressive bundling (free trials) as well as launching into more territories was bound to bring down the overall net per stream.

Apple Music still lead in the sweet spot with about 10% of overall streams generating 25% of all revenue (despite the per stream rate drop). Spotify by comparison has nearly triple the marketshare in streams than Apple Music but generates less than double the revenues on that volume.

The biggest takeaway by far is that YouTube’s Content ID, (in our first truly comprehensive data set) shows a whopping 48% of all streams and only 7% of revenue. Read that again. This is your value gap. Nearly 50% of all recorded music streams only generate 7% of revenue. Apple Music and Spotify combined account for just short of 40% of all streams and 74% of all revenue.

We don’t know how the powers that be at the major labels can continue to allow for this gross inequity. It will be interesting to see how YouTube Red numbers evolve over this year. YouTube Red, the newly rebranded version of the disastrous “Music Key” is off to a slow start in a competitive subscription music marketplace. One has to ask, what incentive is there really for Google/YouTube with the Red subscription service when they already benefit from service 48% of all streams while paying only 7% of the overall revenue?

In looking at the per stream rates for song and album, you might want to read this article by Billboard on the current calculation of how many streams equal and album for the purposes of charting. We don’t know if YouTube Content ID streams count towards charting, but they absolutely should not. The report states that, “The Billboard 200 will now include two tiers of on-demand audio streams. TIER 1: paid subscription audio streams (equating 1,250 streams to 1 album unit) and TIER 2: ad-supported audio streams (equating 3,750 streams to 1 album unit).”

In the coming year Amazon’s Unlimited Music service shows promise. We also wonder about Google Play. The payouts on Google Play are fair, but when bundled into the YouTube ecosystem is largely inconsequential in terms of both streams served and revenue. As smart home assistants grow there could be a larger market segment for paying subscribers to have streaming music catalogs available and on demand.

These numbers are from one set of confidentially supplied data for global sales. If you have access to other data sources that you can share, we’d love to see it.

  • HOW WE CALCULATED THE STREAMS PER SONG / ALBUM RATE:
  • As streaming services only pay master royalties (to labels) and not publishing, the publishing has to be deducted from the master share to arrive at the comparable cost per song/album.
  • $.99 Song is $.70 wholesale after 30% fee. Deduct 1 full stat mechanical at $.091 = $.609 per song.
  • Multiply the above by 10x’s and you get the album equivalent of $6.09 per album
[EDITORS NOTE: All of the data above is aggregated. In all cases the total amount of revenue is divided by the total number of the streams per service  (ex: $5,210 / 1,000,000 = .00521 per stream). In cases where there are multiple tiers and pricing structures (like Spotify), these are all summed together and divided to create an averaged, single rate per play.]

[royalties][streaming royalties][music royalties][royalty rates]

by trichordist

YouTube’s Value Gap is the Record Industry’s Biggest Problem To Fix, and Here’s Why…

If the record industry is serious about growing streaming revenues (and the digital economy in general) it must address the problems with the exploitative practices of Google’s YouTube. We’ve been lucky to be supplied with Content ID data from the same source as our previous data – so we added that into the mix to see where it would rank.

These numbers are just staggering.

If you combine Content ID to the YouTube Subscription numbers you arrive at a whopping 63% of total streaming market share that only contributes  11% of revenue. Ya’ll taking notes here?

yt_istheproblem

 

Look at the combined YouTube revenues of Subscriptions and Content ID together at 11% of revenue. That puts the combined earnings at #3 in market share behind Apple Music. However, Apple Music creates more earnings than the two combined YouTube Revenue streams with less than 4% of the consumption. You’ll also notice that YouTube is the only streaming service with three zeros following the decimal point. That means YouTube is paying hundreds of dollars per million streams while the other leading streamers are paying thousands.

Apple Music generates 12% of revenue with less than 4% of streams. YouTube generates 11% of revenue with 63% of streams. Does that sound like a problem to anyone else?

As of this writing we’re not factoring in the direct channel uploads for artists to YouTube or Vevo, however we just can’t imagine that those numbers are much different in terms of plays versus revenues. We hear from a lot of label folks that they are afraid to give up their annual revenue from YouTube sources, but all we can say is that you’d be gaining more much more than you would be giving up.

We’ve heard of at least one executive who met with resistance when faced with the prospect of potentially walking away from millions of dollars a year in YouTube revenues. But, it’s not walking away from millions, it’s giving up 10’s of millions in true revenue.

Let us not forget, that this devalued revenue will prevent the overall growth of streaming as a format. With streaming revenues (largely from Spotify and Apple Music) now accounting for approximately 40% of overall digital music revenues why should YouTube be able to pay 1/10th of the other major players? Oh, that’s right because of user pirated content uploads…

It’s time for the record business to get serious about cleaning up YouTube.

 

by Trichordist Editor

Updated! Streaming Price Bible w/ 2016 Rates : Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Tidal, Amazon, Pandora, Etc.

The last time we did this was back in 2014, so we thought it was time for an update. Not a lot of surprises but as we predicted when streaming numbers grow, the per stream rate will drop. This data set is isolated to the calendar year 2016 and represents an indie label with an approximately 150 album catalog generating over 115m streams. That’s a pretty good sample size. All rates are gross before distribution fees.

Spotify was paying .00521 back in 2014, two years later the aggregate net average per play has dropped to .00437 a reduction of 16%.

YouTube now has their licensed, subscription service (formerly YouTube Red?) represented in these numbers as opposed to the Artist Channel and Content ID numbers we used last time. Just looking at the new YouTube subscription service numbers isolated here, they generate over 21% of all licensed audio streams, but less than 4% of revenue! By comparison Apple Music generates 7% of all streams and 13% of revenue.

Speaking of Apple, they sit in the sweet spot generating the second largest amount of streaming revenue with a per stream rate .00735, nearly double what Spotify is paying. But, Spotify has a near monopoly on streaming market share dominating 63% of all streams and 69% of all streaming revenue. The top 10 streamers account for 99% of all streaming revenue.

streamrevenuemkrtshr2016

To put this list in the context of our 2014 numbers we’re adding the chart below with the data sorted by the quantity of streaming plays required to match the revenue of a single song or album download. This is important as we work towards defining and setting a fair per stream rate and also setting an accurate economic equivalent of streams to songs and albums for the purposes of charting.

Billboard currently calculates 1,500 streams to one album for the purposes of charting, which at current streaming rates actually matches an economic equivalent. However, that is most likely a highly excessive numbers of plays to achieve that economic equivalent. But, more on that later…

Keep in mind every streaming service has a key piece of data that would allow artists and labels to set a fair per stream rate. Every on demand streaming service, Apple, Spotify, Tidal, Google Play all know how many times a song is played (per person) on average over time. This is the data that is key to setting fair streaming rates. Who will share this information? Apple, Jimmy Iovine, we’re looking at you.

streamspersong2016

  • HOW WE CALCULATED THE STREAMS PER SONG / ALBUM RATE:
  • As streaming services only pay master royalties (to labels) and not publishing, the publishing has to be deducted from the master share to arrive at the comparable cost per song/album.
  • $.99 Song is $.70 wholesale after 30% fee. Deduct 1 full stat mechanical at $.091 = $.609 per song.
  • Multiply the above by 10x’s and you get the album equivalent of $6.09 per album
[EDITORS NOTE: All of the data above is aggregated. In all cases the total amount of revenue is divided by the total number of the streams per service  (ex: $5,210 / 1,000,000 = .00521 per stream). In cases where there are multiple tiers and pricing structures (like Spotify), these are all summed together and divided to create an averaged, single rate per play.]

[royalties][streaming royalties][music royalties][royalty rates]

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by Trichordist Editor

Songwriter Would Need 288 Million Spins To Equal Average Spotify Employee Salary

Screen Shot 2016-05-26 at 8.12.33 PM

 

Spotify just posted their financials and Paul Resnikoff at Digital Music News was quick to point out that the average Spotify employee salary is $168, 747.

Contrast that to the plight of songwriters.  There would be no music business without the fundamental efforts of songwriters. Yet, there is not a free market in songs.  The federal government sets compensation for songwriters/publishers based on a percentage of revenue.  An abysmal below market rate.  In effect a subsidy for streaming services.   Last I checked this rate was working out to about $0.00058 per spin.    This includes both the public performance (BMI/ASCAP) and the streaming mechanical  (IF they happen to pay it).

Best case scenario, if a songwriter retains all publishing rights to their song then a songwriter would need 288,104,634.15 spins to earn the reported average salary of a Spotify employee.

Any questions?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Related see this post on failure of techies to understand that streaming services are subsidized by government mandates

https://thetrichordist.com/2016/05/27/clueless-spotify-defender-illustrates-tech-ignorance-about-federal-cap-on-songwriter-pay/

 

by Dr. David C Lowery

Is The MMF Shilling for YouTube (Again)?

Irving Azoff recently posted an open letter to YouTube on a tech industry news site where he laid out the arguments against YouTube–we think very effectively.  He echoed many of our complaints against YouTube, particularly about how YouTube uses the “notice and shakedown” system of DMCA abuse in the form of “whack a mole” for Google’s own profit.

Of course, it’s not really correct to call it “whack a mole” because the mole never gets whacked. Google’s interpretation of the DMCA has effectively created yet another government mandated compulsory license, this time a compulsory license that is royalty free or more accurately  redistributive because it moves value from the artist to Google.  Add that to the vicious attacks on Prince by Google surrogate EFF in the ridiculous decision in the Lenz case and you’ve got a real recipe for disaster.

You would think that at least some of Irving’s fellow managers in the MMF would have rallied around him, but in the case of the Music Managers Forum in the UK, that’s not what’s happening at all.  As we’ve long suspected, the MMF (at least in the UK) is busily shilling for Google.

Here’s an email that MMF president John Webster blasted out to MMF members:

From: Fiona McGugan <fiona@themmf.net>
Reply-To: “fiona@themmf.net” <fiona@themmf.net>
Date: Saturday, May 14, 2016 at 4:19 AM

Subject: ICYMI 85: Life at a Major, Start Ups, YouTube
Dear Manager,
 
Very instructive view of working at a major label:
 
http://pigeonsandplanes.com/2016/04/what-i-learned-from-3-years-of-working-for-major-labels/s/615114/
 
A digital veteran questions the role of the music industry in the demise of music based tech start-ups:
 
https://medium.com/@pakman/the-music-industry-buried-more-than-150-startups-now-they-are-left-to-dance-with-the-giants-ecfd0b20243e#.kf5m9m5c0
 
A creator defends You Tube:
 
http://www.recode.net/2016/5/10/11645760/youtube-hank-green-response-irving-azoff-artist-rights
 
And the Featured Artists Coalition has launched a survey about YouTube. Please take three minutes to answer on behalf of your artists;

https://fac1.typeform.com/to/DO8VQq


Best Regards

Jon Webster
President, MMF

About: The MMF UK is the largest professional community of artist management in the world. We exist to provide support, training, representation and opportunity for Managers. We want a transparent music business that respects the needs and aspirations of the artist and their fans. If you wish to unsubscribe, please do so by return email.

This email is quite incredible because it cites to “A creator defends YouTube” but never mentions Irving’s open letter that engenders that defense.  It only mentions the attack on Irving’s letter from a YouTuber who for whatever reason was defending Google against Irving.  If they want to give both sides, then fine, but they didn’t.  They only gave Google’s side.

Not surprising considering the email was from Jon Webster, but you would think that even he would be more careful about being balanced.  This is the Music Manager‘s Forum, right? Not the Google Managers Forum?  Wouldn’t it have made more sense to put a link to Irving’s open letter and then give the response rather than just giving the response?

Mystifying.  We’re sure that both Webster and the YouTuber would deny that they are in Google’s pocket which could be true.  They could be “useful idiots”.

If you read both Irving’s open letter and that response from the YouTuber, you’ll notice the response never brings up a really important point that Irving emphasized–YouTube’s utter failure at accounting transparency for the meager royalties it does pay after you cut through all the “DMCA license” and “fair use” claptrap.

You say you want transparency, and I agree that labels and publishers have not traditionally been the best at that. Two wrongs don’t make a right. You need to be transparent, too. Be transparent about your ability to keep illegal music off your platform.  Be transparent about your ability to keep your own content behind a paid wall.

Be transparent about your revenue and, when paying artists, include all the revenue that is generated by music including advertising on YouTube’s home page. If you do this, I pledge to you that I will pressure the labels and publishers to pass on that transparency and increased revenue to the artists.

We would have thought that Jon Webster would be rallying the troops behind Irving on the transparency issue when the shoe is on the other foot.  But Webster appears to have no interest whatsoever in criticizing Google about anything from his mealy mouthed defense of Google’s DMCA practices to this indirect slam of Irving Azoff standing up for his artists and our industry.

Not only is Webster out to lunch again when it comes to Google, he doesn’t even address Irving’s rather generous offer to actually help Google.  That is a major offer from a major manager who could definitely make a difference.  Google, of course, has ignored this generous offer.  Why?  Probably because it is conditioned on Google being transparent about their own revenues.  If they want to pay artists a share of advertising revenue, then Google should be transparent about how that share is calculated and where the money comes from.

They should also stop playing games with ContentID and doing things like putting speed controls in their YouTube viewer to make it easier to pitch bend around ContentID in the first place.

It makes you wonder whose side the MMF is on–if you haven’t made your mind up already.  The unity in the music industry against Google has gelled in a way that we haven’t ever seen before, and that’s what makes Google really nervous.  That’s why they trot out the YouTube lottery winners (many of whom make the real money from distasteful brand integration fees or product placements, not YouTube royalties), that’s why they try to tell us that music isn’t an important part of YouTube’s revenues (so why bother auditing), and that may very well be why they use the MMF to push their agenda.

As Irving said:

The root of the problem here is YouTube: You have built a business that works really well for you and for Google, but it doesn’t work well for artists. If you think it is just the labels and publishers who are complaining, you are wrong. The music community is traditionally a very fractured one, but on this we are united.

And just in case they haven’t figured this part out yet, we’re complaining, too.  We know where Irving is coming from, but Webster needs to decide which side he is on instead of standing shoulder to shoulder with Google and its surrogates.

by thetrichordist

Artists Rights Advocates Make Gains in 2015… Web/Tech Admissions Laid Bare.

So many of the issues we’ve been talking about for years are finally becoming part of the larger and more mainstream conversations about artists rights and an ethical internet.

Seems like there is a little bit more than a slight draft blowing on house of cards that Silicon Valley has built. Here’s a quick recap.

FREE, UNLIMTED, AD-SUPPORTED, ON DEMAND STREAMING IS UNSUSTAINABLE.

Pandora CEO Mike McAndrews first started teasing this talking point during an earnings call in October. You can read those comments at Re/Code. But it was the more direct article McAndrew’s authored for Business Insider that really cemented what we’ve been saying all along…

“This gray market is unsustainable. If consumers can legally listen to free on-demand music permanently without converting to paying models, the value of music will continue to spiral downward to the benefit of no one.”

There is no turning back from this admission.

It’s funny how in years past so many in the music and tech communities could not and would not admit to this simple fundamental truth often telling musicians the true value of their platform was “exposure” so artists could “tour and sell t-shirts”. Well it now looks like the wheels have been run off that nonsense for good.

What would be really great is to see Pandora join the fight with artists against Ad-Funded Piracy. Pandora, Spotify, YouTube and every other Ad-Supported music platform must be aware of the fact that the downward pressure from these infringing pirate sites not only diminishes the value of music, but also the value of advertising on legitimate and licensed paltforms.

WINDOWING WORKS. ASK ADELE, TAYLOR SWIFT AND THE MOVIE BUSINESS.

Taylor Swift, Adele, Beyonce, Prince, Coldplay, The Black Keys, Thom Yorke and other artists have proved that Hits Don’t Need Spotify, but rather Spotify Needs Hits. The Wall Street Journal reports that Spotify is caving in on windowing.

Now, the service is caving in, according to people familiar with the matter.

In private talks, Spotify has told music executives that it is considering allowing some artists to start releasing albums only to its 20 million-plus subscribers, who pay $10 a month, while withholding the music temporarily from its 80 million free users. The company is only interested in withholding albums that can be kept off of other free music sites, such as Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube, for the same amount of time, one of these people said.

There is no turning back from this admission.

This means that Spotify has admitted that it is NOT a discovery medium, it is a retail outlet. Spotify is the digital cut-out bin offering the lowest amount of value to artists. The big problem for Spotify now is who decides who is a lessor or greater artist? Who is going to have that conversation with artists and managers that they are a lessor artist and not worthy of Spotify’s stamp of approval to only be streamed to paying subscribers? Ironically, but predictably the new boss is worse than the old boss.

As with Pandora’s admission about unlimited free streaming being unsustainable, Spotify also recognizes that Ad-Funded Piracy, particularly of the YouTube variety (and mentioned by name) must be managed effectively for windowing to work.

YOUTUBER’S GET PIRATED ON FACEBOOK EXACTLY HOW MUSICIANS GET PIRATED ON YOUTUBE, AND THEY DON’T LIKE IT.

Here’s a shocker. YouTuber’s who create original content through their own investment of time, money and resources are outraged when Facebook users “Freeboot” (aka Pirate) those videos depriving the original creator of the revenue. Hank Green writes a post on Medium that breaks it down.

According to a recent report from Ogilvy and Tubular Labs, of the 1000 most popular Facebook videos of Q1 2015, 725 were stolen re-uploads. Just these 725 “freebooted” videos were responsible for around 17 BILLION views last quarter. This is not insignificant, it’s the vast majority of Facebook’s high volume traffic.

There is no turning back from this admission.

Every argument that has been used against musicians, filmmakers and other creators for using the DMCA to protect their work suddenly takes on new dimensions when the tables are turned.

Larry Lessig had convinced a generation that they we’re being criminalized because musicians were “out of touch” with the “sharing economy”. When musicians issued DMCA notices to YouTube they were vilified, taunted and publicly shamed “Sorry that video is no long available due to a copyright claim by the artist.”

THE DMCA IS NOT A “LICENSE” FOR INFRINGEMENT, COX LOSES SAFE HARBOR IN JURY VERDICT. 

Perhaps the single greatest ruling of the year involves Cox Communications losing it’s safe harbor under the DMCA. Digital Music News reports on the jury verdict.

Ultimately, the court found the situation to be more complicated than that, with Cox now ruled guilty of both contributory and willful contributory copyright infringement by a federal jury.  The jury award is $25 million, though that probably represents a small prelude to damages that could ultimately push into the hundreds of millions.

There is no turning back from this verdict.

For those of you keeping score at home it is the DMCA abuse that has been used as a shield against copyright infringement liability by the internet and web/tech communities. Many businesses including many ISP’s and content hosting platforms such as YouTube have used the DMCA to build massively profitable businesses that are largely comprised of infringing works, otherwise known as User Pirated Content. That may be about to change thanks to this ruling.

THE PIRATE / FREE CULTURE MOVEMENT HAS FAILED. 

In a recent interview Peter Sunde, the founder of The Pirate Bay, the flagship of the free culture movement admitted he had failed and was giving up. The most interesting admission by Sunde is at the end of the interview where he echoes what we and other’s have been saying for years.

So, is there like a concrete thing we should focus on? Or do we need to aim for a new way of thinking? A new ideology?

Well, I think the focus needs to be that the internet is exactly the same as society.

There is no turning back from this admission.

There is an excellent open letter in response to Sunde by David Newhoff at The Illusion of More that is well worth reading with a detailed look at why Sunde has failed. But it is Sunde himself who makes the most profound admission.

We have centuries of rule of law for civilized societies that respect and protect individual creators rights in the authorship of their work. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 27, part 2 states “Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.”

The greatest irony here is that Sunde set up The Pirate Bay as an attack on capitalism, but he started by attacking artist’s and creator’s moral rights firsts. The paradox of “pirate logic” expands when one recognizes that The Pirate Bay was said to be making over four million dollars year. Yeah, that’s the way to fight capitalism, attack the ability for artists to survive and pocket four million a year. We couldn’t make this up if we tried.

SO LETS CHECK THE MATH HERE AT THE END OF 2015

  • Pandora attacks Spotify stating the Unlimited, Ad-Supported, On Demand, Free Streaming is Unsustainble.
  • Spotify attacks YouTube stating that Windowing Can Only Work If Windows Can Be Enforced.
  • YouTuber’s attack Facebook stating that Stealing and Monetizing their work Without Permission is bad.
  • Cox Communications attacked the DMCA stating “F*ck The DMCA” and lost.
  • Peter Sunde attacks Capitalism stating that… oh well, forget it… it’s nonsense.

There is a lot of work to be done, however these admissions set the framework for the future of these conversations going forward.

jean michael jarre IRM 1

[NOTE : THIS ARTICLE WAS UPDATED ON SATURDAY DEC 19 TO ADD THE PARAGRAPH ABOUT COX COMMUNICATIONS]
by Trichordist Editor