YouTube Music Content Takedown Continued 291
pregnantfridge writes "In the ongoing conflict between
PRS for Music and
YouTube over the takedown
of all music related content in the UK, PRS for Music have created a new site,
fairplayforcreators.com,
exposing the views of
the music writers impacted by the YouTube decision.
I am not certain if these views have been editorially compromised, but by reading
a few pages, it's clear to me that Music writers represented by PRS for Music are
largely clueless about what the Internet and YouTube means to the music
industry. Kind of explains why the music industry is in
such a decline — and also why so much litigation takes place on the music
writers' behalf."
What's the big deal? From the FPFC website (Score:5, Insightful)
Fair Play for Creators was established after Internet-giant, Google, made the decision to remove some music content from YouTube.
Google's decision was made because it didn't want to pay the going rate for music, to the creators of that music, when it's used on YouTube.
If Google doesn't want to pay the rate, so doesn't broadcast the music, I don't see the issue. Lower the rate and maybe Google will pay.
Re:Difference of Opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
Is he really owed all that money? Pete, dude, nobody was actually enjoying that song, you know. It's basically the work safe version of goatse.cx
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
> I co-wrote 'Never Gonna Give You Up', which Rick Astley performed in the eighties, and which must have been played more than 100 million times on YouTube - owner Google. My PRS for Music income in the year ended September 2008 was £11.
Translation: I did some work back in the 80's, and I still want collect paychecks from it.
Re:What's the big deal? From the FPFC website (Score:5, Insightful)
I know! These idiots want to get paid for their work, but instead of working with Google or just setting up their own site, all they can think of is to bitch. Come to think of it, this is the we-don't-have-the-budget-for-flesh-eating-lawyers version of what the RIAA is currently doing.
I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
They seem to be complaining that Google chooses not to play their music and hence not pay them. How much sense does that make? Are car dealerships going to complain that I'm not buying a new car?
decline? (Score:5, Insightful)
I only see *large, traditional* music in decline, and organizations built on the assumption those organizations are the only ones with talent - but not the "industry". Such is the effect of rapid change.
See collections, for example:
http://www.jamendo.com/en/ [jamendo.com]
http://bt.etree.org/ [etree.org]
http://beta.legaltorrents.com/netlabel-music [legaltorrents.com]
http://uaradio.net/ [uaradio.net]
and others, going strong and growing
plus *lots* of great, independent net labels and organizations building up to use the Internet the way it works, and an emerging set of well-known artists breaking free from these old organizations to embrace new methods.
Well said... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just ran out of mod points, so I'll rather add this:
Somewhere the public perception of copyright (and other IP rights) went from "a time limited incentive to encourage the creation of novel content" to "content creators have the right to get paid in perpetuity".
Because of the technological and legal environment of the 20th century it was possible for content creators and distributors to make insane amounts of money for a very limited amount of work.
That created the idea that they have some god-given right to get paid for absolutely everything that ever gets done with their content or anything that is derived from it. That has not been the case for most of history and it will almost certainly not be the case in the future ... and no that will not mean the end of music and art.
Thanks For Killing The Music (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that medium is silenced. Way to go fairplayforcreators, you are going to lose more revenue than you know.
And by the way:
FUCK YOU
Free from unfair competition (Score:5, Insightful)
I read TFAs and the comments and do not understand the outrage. Google disagreed on the amount of royalties and obliged the authors and other interested parties by removing the music. That should be considered a win, right? I mean now the authors are free from unfair competition to open their own streaming website and offer their music at what they consider a fair price. Isn't that what they want?
Nice to have a list of artists to boycott (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Difference of Opinion (Score:2, Insightful)
What does Pete still do to promote and grow his song? He should take advantage of the new popularity to release a "rickrolled-remix" or something. Look what Id software is doing with wolfenstein 3d 9opensource the iphone port but also sell it)
of course £11 was worth a lot more when he wrote it...
And this is £11 that he would NEVER have gotten if google hadn't posted it.
---
Copyright should only last 10 years. After that you are on your own.
question to poster (Score:2, Insightful)
"(...) by reading a few pages, its clear to me that Music writers represented by PRS for Music are largely clueless about what the Internet and YouTube means to the music industry. Kind of explains why the music industry is in as much decline â" and also why so much litigation takes place on the music writers behalf."
Question to poster: how does it follow from their statements that the music writers are clueless?
Granted, most of us feel that the music business has taken loads of wrong approaches - the sad lawsuits against individuals by the RIAA for example, or the music business not understanding the concept of selling more by giving away something else.
However, we are not talking record companies here. We are talking music WRITERS. Creators. People that compose the music and write lyrics, that have (in most cases) somebody else sing or play it. These people don't make money by performing the songs, or by marketing it in a clever way. In most cases, all they have is their royalties.
I don't claim to have the full answer to this complex issue, but to disqualify all the comments on the PRS for music website just like that is really quite silly.
Also, the fact that we all love YouTube and would hate to see it shutdown or block certain content is not a very good reason to counterattack anyone who's attacking their way of working.
Re:I don't get it (Score:1, Insightful)
Are car dealerships going to complain that I'm not buying a new car?
Isn't that essentially what they said when they convinced the US Gov to give them tax money?
Re:Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, did I just hear Pete Waterman complain about not having any money?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_Aitken_Waterman [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Waterman [wikipedia.org]
We're talking about a guy who collects railways. Not "trainsets" or "model trains", he collects railway networks.
So, yes. Translation: "I started doing coke off hookers' tits every day in the nineties and I'd like it to continue indefinitely please."
Fuck off Waterman, fuck you and all the other McMusic parasites who turned popular music into fast food. Rather than demanding money from me you should be thanking me that I don't spit on the ground at the mention of your name.
Doesn't add up (Score:3, Insightful)
I had a video that had about 25,000 views in total and when I got my PRS for Music cheque through, I think I made two or three pounds off that maximum ...
Sam Isaac, songwriter
So let's be generous and say 1% of those views resulted in an ad click-through. This guy wants to make serious money out of 250 ad clicks?
Re:question to poster (Score:5, Insightful)
Question to poster: how does it follow from their statements that the music writers are clueless?
Very simple: they seem to focus on how much money Google is making, and how much money they think their music is worth. The question they SHOULD be asking is: how much money is my music WORTH to Google? How much revenue would Google lose if my music was pulled from YouTube tomorrow, and what % of that money might I fairly claim? They should also ask themselves the question: how much money will I lose/gain if my music was NOT on YouTube? If the payment is not enough for you, then don't complain when Google removes your music.
Monetize=Advertise, why don't we trade ads? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless they are a registered non-profit, they are in it for the money, and we know Google is certainly in it for the money and doing well. Our music writers? Whether they wrote the shittiest song of all time or a mega-hit, they really should get something for their work and they aren't. WHY should they be paid you ask?
Here on slashdot we too often side with the open information movement. I myself use open source software as much as possible. Microsoft? F@#$ em. OpenOffice is great. Linux runs my company servers, email, etc. I use Opera and Firefox, Thunderbird for internet. We all do. These sets of software have figured out how to work in an opensource economy. Since we use them and largely subscribe to this vague notion of "free and open is good" we sometimes jump at the music industry for not going the same way.
But there is a HUGE difference.
Open source software provides a solutions to a predetermined goal. It gives it away for free, and then covers costs by selling support for that solution and licensing professionals to do the same.
Suppose we were to open source music. How would that go? We all need to write a song that will accomplish the task of making us feel happy when everything in life is crushing our spirit. Let's start a community for it, open up our development process, track bugs, let users request features such as a second bridge that modulates the chord progression up one half step. Perfect, we have the something so generic that everyone can use it without caring. That's what music is for right, just a mindless background tool that helps you accomplish a task. Just like Thunderbird or Apache.
Then how do set up a community of consultants or license specialists in your song, genre, etc? The problem requires a much different outlook that we have with FOSS or general OSS, because the creativity that goes into writing music is not the same as that which goes into software. It requires personal investment of emotion, a dialogues between a writer and a listening transmitted by another frequently overlooked party, the artist (which in some genres looks more like a programmer these days, but that's beside the point).
We are so used to the idea that the internet is in some way this awesome tool that if you don't get on board and use that we say "you are the short sighted moron" to the musicians struggling to make it. Now don't get me started on record labels, because I think they are really the enemy here, but writers and musicians get caught in the crossfire and treated the same.
IP for software and IP for music are so different, even though their distribution models are almost identical (write it, test it, package it, advertise it, copy it to a zillion CDs and then mark it up to make some $$) While both industries are undoubtedly facing a myriad of challenges in finding alternate distribution methods that focus on web content we need to recognize that there is a real difference.
No one will be making Sgt. Pepper 2.1.18, or Bethoven's 5.2th, they are unique and aesthetically set in stone. You might improve the packaging or remaster the recording but that is a footnote not a new release. There is no competitive improvement to promote by limiting IP. As for monetizing, YouTube thankfully is light on the Advertising, which I appreciate. Perhaps they should offer free ads to people who find their work on the site? Or prioratize ads from legit vendors of their works? Have you ever done a torrent search? Lots of those big torrent sites do just that, why not YouTube? This would allow them redirect watchers to their site, or a vendor like Amazon or iTunes where a legal purchase can be made.
I guess what Irked me about the initial
Re:Well said... (Score:3, Insightful)
The latter would be more "content creators and their children, grandchildren, (great) nieces/nephews, etc
Re:What's the big deal? Artists missing out (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Your occupation doesn't matter (Score:3, Insightful)
FOSS coders have jobs. They do FOSS programming as a hobby.
A lot of FOSS software is written by software professionals as part of their job.
But let's put that aside, and think only of the hobbyist FOSS writers. Many people when they first learn about free software, instinctively decide that it must be second rate. "OK, so I can't afford the good stuff, I can make do with free software." It's quite a leap for these people to realise that non-free software is frequently poor quality, and that free software is frequently of a very high quality.
So it is with music. Some amateur music is better than some professional music.
Could society get on with only amateur music? I doubt we'll ever find out. But I don't think there's a case the argument that if we don#t protect musicians' revenue streams we'll have to live in a world without music.
Re:Translation (Score:1, Insightful)
100 million views cannot be compared to 100 million radio plays.
This says it all (Score:2, Insightful)
"It is important...for future generations of music creators, that they can rely on earning an income from their songwriting."
Why?
Art is everywhere. Art is cheap. How many people are members of garage bands? Play an instrument? Sing? Maybe even give the occasional performance? How many people paint, write, compose, sculpt or dance in their spare time? Most have no expectation of making money - it's a hobby, something they do for fun.
Earning real money with any of this - composing, performing, writing, dancing, whatever - is very, very difficult. But the sense of entitlement from wannabe professionals is amazing: "My work is so great, I deserve to make a living at it". When they find that they can't, why then "life is unfair" and they are being cheated.
Re:Difference of Opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
I take the opposite view. I have one album up for sale on iTunes and Amazon and another being uploaded right now - http://tinyurl.com/cdx44l [tinyurl.com] I don't actually want to be represented by the PRS, but I have no choice. There is no opt out. You will collect royalties on my behalf whether or not I want you to. If I wish my music to be available free for streaming on Internet radio, you will not let me. So who's worse, Google for throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or the PRS for extortion?
Now, /this/ is what you can rightly call theft of copyright. As far as I am aware, this sort of wholesale misappropriation of artists' rights is fairly common in the West and once again emphasizes the point that copyright was created for the benefit of large organizations, not for the individual creators.
Re:Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
Stock, Aitken & Waterman have never been about the music, they have always been a hit making machine. They have one target firmly in their sights, adolescent youths with pocket money to burn who are easily manipulated by crushes and marketing.
It's easy to sell something as "new" if your target age group are unlikely to have the life experience to know it's been done several times before; you only need to look at the amount of covers they do.
They know that age group are always gonna be looking for the next new thing so their "artists" (I use the word VERY loosely in their case) have a shelf life of a few years before they are dropped to fend for themselves or switch careers, with a bit of luck they invested their short term fame and earnings while they had screaming fans mob them.
They know that there's always a new generation of exploitees, as the 10yr olds who spent every penny on one artist have grown older and potentially into better tastes, there are a new group of 10yr olds to be manipulated into falling for the new artist. The same bullshit machine swings into action with every new investment / artist.
It's the proverbial "taking candy from a baby" on an industrial scale. Others do this too, but none quite so blatantly or successfully (in the late 80's anyway).
Aside from that particular example, look at the list of who has signed onto it. All the major names people recognize are those who have made a fortune from their music already. They are either multi-millionaires with several homes / businesses etc and several income streams from their back catalogs being played on TV / radio stations the world over, or they are perceived to be that, where the reality is that they've blown the vast riches they did earn on an excessive lifestyle and have therefor spent their earnings. Either way, the rich gain little sympathy when pleading poverty.
I'd have more sympathy if they really DID fight for the artists, not the top earners, they can look after themselves. If they were a non-profit agency who made sure the little peeps got their fair share, while accepting that things have changed and they need to be realistic. I'd have more sympathy if these asshats didn't try to extort broadcast license payments from workplaces listening to the radio as "more than one person can hear, so it's a broadcast, therefor give us cash".
While this is the only response they offer, I say fuck them.
Re:Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to put this in perspective, if the song had been played 100m times on UK National Radio, he'd have been paid GBP2-5bn instead of GBP11. *That's* how much Google are underpaying compared to market rate.
If he doesn't want Google playing his music without paying him, then that's fine: he's got what he wants. Google are not playing his music. What's his beef?
The going rate is whatever rate can be negotiated between the producer and the consumer. Google, as the consumer, has said 'if that's the rate, fine, we don't need the product.' Astley (and people like him) have to decide whether they want their music to reach an internet audience or not. If they don't, that's fine - Google not playing it works for them. But what they can't reasonably do is complain that Google refuse to buy their product. If the supermarket in your high street tries to sell you chocolates at more than what you think they're worth, you don't buy them - no-one needs chocolate. If the PRS tries to sell Google music at more than Google thinks it's worth, Google doesn't buy it. So - where's the beef?
Furthermore, your computation is wrong. When a tune is played in BBC Radio 1 or Radio 2, it's heard by about 6 million people. When a tune is played on YouTube, it's typically heard by one person. So 100 million plays on YouTube is not equivalent to 100 million plays on Radio 2, it's equivalent to seventeen plays on Radio 2. Not seventeen million, seventeen.
So the equivalent payment is not £2-5Bn, it's £340. Which is a lot more than £11, I'd agree - but is that because Google are offering too little, or because radio is paying too much?
Re:Difference of Opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
"I wish my wages worked like that!"
Yeah, me too. I think most people do, unfortunately.
I'm appaled at how quickly would-be musicians/composers adjust their attitudes when tempted with regular royalty payments. Reading the publications of interest groups for authors, musicians, composers and other royalty-paid professions is pretty disgusting. They'll gladly censor you, spy on you, and demand a private tax from you as long as they get a chance at perpetual income.
It's not just a big industry position, either. Just like when poor people support tax cuts for the rich because they think they will be rich one day, two bit "content producers" support perpetual copyright terms, oppose orphan works legislation, want to obliterate fair use, install DRM in everyone's computers etc. The sense of entitlement is astounding.
Re:Bitchy yes, but they do have a point (Score:3, Insightful)
What, google.com? That being Google's most popular site - you know, the search engine? Is that powered by stolen material? Because I thought Google paid for the computers and bandwidth and electricity they use.
Perhaps you mean youtube.com, which while popular is far less so than google.com. But again, I didn't realise they'd stolen the materials that power that site: if they had, wouldn't the police have raided the data centre, taken back the stolen servers and returned them to their rightful owners? Perhaps you mean that a good deal of the content on youtube.com infringes somebody's copyright? Well, if that's the case, then there's a simple solution: you send in a DMCA takedown notice and Youtube takes down the offending clip. It's not difficult.
But of course the artists don't really want their videos removed from so popular a site: they want them to stay up there, but for Google to give them a cut of the revenue. Fair enough. Unfortunately it seems they haven't been able to agree a fee that works for both sides, so Google have taken down all those clips and walked away. At this point I don't see where the artists have a complaint. What, their problem now is that Youtube isn't showing their videos?
Entitled to free content forever!? (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't know whether PRS has an equitable solution. But the other side of the argument essentially wants and thinks it has a right to all music for nothing. Never pay a cent. This is not equitable.
To suggest that the songwriters are technical dinosaurs who simply "don't get the Internet" is a little bit disingenuous.
The Internet play they get is not paying them anything. "Exposure," you say. What would you say to that promise of exposure... if it meant an indefinite period of working for nothing for the exposure, and near zero actual dollar compensation for your work?
Meanwhile Google and YouTube are getting paid. They are repackaging and generating ad dollars with artist's work that they got for nothing. The artists are getting a vague promise that "the Internet is great for music" but they aren't seeing the money.
The artists are asking to get paid under some kind of royalty arrangement. The writer of the Rick Atley hit that got played millions of times on YouTube got a royalty payment of 11. (that's 11 English pounds in case the character string doesn't work). Clearly he got no money from all the "exposure" on YouTube.
I need to get paid in cash money, not promises, and so do you. I expect to pay people for the valuable things they do for me or sell to me, and so should you. Time to get out of this juvenile rut of petty taking and grabbing stuff for free. Give other people their due and see how you start to get your due as well.
Re:question to poster (Score:4, Insightful)
"Looking" for a way out? No. There is a way out. Don't play the content. Which is what they are doing. This is a service not a mafia family. One can leave.
Why should the authors of songs be the ones who bail Google out of their bad decision to bay $1.65 billion for a loss-making idea?
Who says Google should be compelled to continue a service if it's losing money?
If I decide cable TV cost too much and shut off the service unless they drop the price, am I guilty of demanding the cable company bail me out of my bad decision to watch TV?
Re:What's the big deal? Artists missing out (Score:3, Insightful)
Now I just download the whole damn album. Care to guess if I bother to buy it after that?
Eh, yes? (Score:4, Insightful)
And getting paid billions by the taxpayer because you ain't buying a new car as well. Sorry, in 2009 your car comparissons don't work anymore.
Re:question to poster (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should the authors of songs be the ones who bail Google out of their bad decision to bay $1.65 billion for a loss-making idea?
I'm sorry, but that's not at issue here:
Authors: pay us X or we won't allow you to play our music.
Google: X is too much considering how much we're making from your music, but we'll be willing to pay you Y.
Authors: Y is not enough, we don't have a deal.
Google: Ok, then we'll just remove your music since we don't have permission to play your music.
Authors: That's not fair! Why don't you just pay us X like we're asking? We deserve to be paid for our work, and you have enough money anyway.
.....
Google ANSWERS questions, then DOES NOT shoot (Score:5, Insightful)
Said content is of comparatively low quality and thus is not valuable, since almost nobody would actually pay for it if sold in stores
PRS is already taken for music (Score:3, Insightful)
Paul Reed Smith should sue. Serously.
I love the "If you agree with us let us know, and if you do not then bugger off" approach.
I especially love their complaint:
GOOGLE is blocking UK usersâ(TM) access to premium music videos on YouTube as it is not prepared to pay the going rate for the music that plays on it and contributes to its £3billion annual profits. "
If only we had some kind of Capatalist System [wikipedia.org] where people and corporations could decide for themselves what to charge and what they are willing to pay for goods and services! Then we could all say Google has elected not to purchase your product at that price; good day sirs! Until that day, however, they are Evil, and Bad, and doing something that is just plain Not Fair(tm)
It's like this: (Score:3, Insightful)
Guess what (you greedy bastards), the risk has been mitigated with the advent of digital distribution. Your ability to control the scarce resource is disappearing. That's how capitalism works (well, that's how it's supposed to work anyway)
Think of all the wanna-be Britney Spears who awoke in their dingy trailer homes, wondered who their father was, and then sat happily crunching away on their Lucky Charms at the combination breakfast-nook/Counter-top/Fold-away bed. Maybe it's better they don't get exploited after all.
Re:Difference of Opinion (Score:3, Insightful)
Either way under the current rules the guy gets money for work he did over 20 years ago. I wish my wages worked like that!
If you'e willing to defer most of your wages, get paid slowly over time instead of for once up front, and only get paid if your work is commercially successful, then I'm sure you and your boss can work something out.
It's not fair to complain about people wanting to be paid under the compensation scheme that they agreed to when they did the work, and especially when it involves deferred and conditional compensation. I wouldn't work under those terms, but if I did, I'd make damn sure I got what was owed to me.
Re:"No opt out"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do I need a Music Licence to play music within the bar area?
Yes, if you use live or recorded background music in the bar
And I suspect most landlords do as well.
Therefore my point remains that given that wording and most landlords believing you need a PRS license, that small venues and live music in pubs is dying. And I still contend that the PRS is contributing to this decline and is acting maliciously in not making it crystal clear that you don't need a license to host non-PRS music. Which of course is what the recording industry wants - it still wants that control.
It isn't a profession anymore (Score:3, Insightful)
What these folk fail to realize is that "musician" is no longer a profession--it's just an activity. It follows "photographer" and "journalist" down that trail marked by blogs, flickr, youTube and other broadcast media available to anyone with a PC.
In the long run, we're going to have to find a way to pay the best of them to keep producing stuff we want to hear and see, but the big studio, big distributor model won't be part of it. These guys are already dead, they just don't have the good sense to lie down.
Re:question to poster (Score:3, Insightful)
.
Why do you keep insisting that someone is at fault here? It's simple business negotiation. If I think the price is too high, I don't buy the product.
The PRS's position is ridiculous - publicly demanding that Google MUST keep buying their product at the going rate. Why?
If the product is marketable, let the customer go and find another customer willing to pay the going rate.
Who Cares (Score:2, Insightful)