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: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.
Re:What's the big deal? Artists missing out (Score:4, Insightful)
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Now I just download the whole damn album. Care to guess if I bother to buy it
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This reminds me of a situation I was recently in. My neighborhood was approached by a natural gas drilling company who made a bid to purchase mineral rights for our property. Many of us accepted their bids and now receive a few hundred dollars a year from them. However a large group decided they would hold out, forming an alliance that demanded 4x what we got. Well, after 2 months, the company withdrew their bids and those people who were greedy got nothing.
They acted as if the oil company had stolen money
So the music writers, don't get it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like they just want to take their ball home since they don't get to be the star player (or even get their way).
SO be it. Give them what they want. Take down all music related content everywhere that isn't on their own sites. That means: Discussion boards about their music, Fan sites about their music, album reviews, links to amazon, etc. All of it.
Boycott these people up the wazoo... and just to make it fun... pick on someone specific to make and example of them.
Start by removing their Wikipedia page then systematically begin contacting websites which are highly ranked in Google for their name... ask them to participate in protest.
It doesn't have to be permanent (though the 301 responses need to be ;-p ) - just long enough to make the point.
"Hey [music writer who is famous], what happened to all your google hits? i can't find anything about you anywhere... it's like you don't exist except on your 'official' site. Aren't you supposed to be famous.
Keep it up long enough and maybe they'll even see an economic impact.
Compromised? Heavens no! (Score:4, Interesting)
I am not certain if these views have been editorially compromised but by reading a few pages
Compromised? Certainly not. Specially hand picked by the group? Most definitely possible.
You wouldn't be able to say for certain however unless a UK musician comes forth and says his/her opinions in favor of youtube exposure was not added to the site.
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like this [slashdot.org] ?
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.
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> 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.
Wow. How can I find this wonderful world of make-believe? Will I find Candy Mountain? Oh please, oh please!
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.
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The latter would be more "content creators and their children, grandchildren, (great) nieces/nephews, etc
Re:Well said... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep, it's as stupid as plumbers adding a debit/credit card swipers on every toilet they set up and make you pay every time you go to the bathroom.
MP3s and youtube videos is the same as advertisements for your crap. As in it should be free, and the best advertisement in and of itself for your stuff.
It's a shame things are as they are.
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.
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No, he said he didn't get enough given the number of plays.
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.
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> 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.
Paid for it? He should be shot for it.
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That's the way royalties work. Duh.
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>My PRS for Music income in the year ended September 2008 was GBP11 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.
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?
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Re:Translation (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember also, the 100 million plays are for YouTube *worldwide* but the £11 is just for the UK YouTube audience.
A crap estimate: there are about 300M native English speakers worldwide according to Wikipedia (sounds a bit low?). There are about 58M native English speakers in the UK.
100M YouTube plays scales to about 19M UK YouTube plays, or about 3 plays on BBC Radio 1, or about £60.
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> 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.
'Never Gonna Give You Up'?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickroll [wikipedia.org]
He wants to collect paychecks for an Internet meme making fun of his music.
It is as if Matt Groening should sue Slashdot for usage of the "evil overlord" meme.
Hah, this time I won't fall for this news! (Score:2, Funny)
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
... this is just rickroll 2.0!!
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?
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.
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.
What about the victims of their song writing? (Score:5, Funny)
I've had that damn song forced upon my ears for most of my life. I deserve restitution, he owes me £11!
Re: (Score:2)
I've had that damn song forced upon my ears for most of my life. I deserve restitution, he owes me £11!
Exactly. Just because lots of people viewed the video, (and I'm sure he dragged that number out of his ass), does not mean they liked/would pay for it.
So if they don't like Google's proposed deal, how about letting people vote for clips? Click to share the ad revenue generated by this page with the...well, who? Should be the song's author & the performing artist, I guess.
The trick would be to also allow people to vote songs down; just bacause I stumbled across a clip does not mean I agree to share th
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
Re: (Score:2)
Millions of people have discovered music that was once thought lost
Care to give examples for that lost music? Videos, maybe, but the music itself?
artists have gained new fans, even restarted their careers by people rediscovering their music through the magic of Youtube.
Like who?
you are going to lose more revenue than you know.
Which money? You are arguing that google should get these videos for free, plus the related advertising revenue. The "millions of new fans" you speak of are also getting the music for free. So where exactly are the music creators getting the money?
Bitchy yes, but they do have a point (Score:4, Interesting)
While I will concede that they do seem completely out of touch with the benefits of internet notoriety, there is a very salient point here: How do you hold content aggregator sites accountable for their content sources? Is it really fair that google makes billions a year while their most popular site is powered by stolen material??
Now you could argue that the real solution is for these writers to start their own channel and provide better copies of the content in a regulated manner. Some of my favorite artists have done just that in response to a plethora of their videos being on youtube.
That's only a couple of steps short of extortion though, and doesn't respect the right of the content owner to boycott google and it's hyper saturation of popular culture. And it still doesn't stop xXxRockerBOI from uploading his favorite song of yours with pictures of his girlfriend and lightning pictures as a slideshow.
When will we get a meaningful dialogue about intellectual property and royalties? These people always come across as greedy assholes, but that doesn't mean that they're entirely wrong about there being a problem, just wrong headed about articulating it.
Just my
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The thing is though, and it's not apparent you realise it from your post, is that the artists have been getting paid by Google for the songs on Youtube. The argument here is not whether they should be paid, both Google & the PRS agree that they should be but how much they should be paid.
The music industry has a long history of asking for, and co-ercing lawmakers into forcing content providers to pay enourmous sums of money for their songs and now Google has turned round and said "That's too much. We wan
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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
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 article is just the whole "oh those bitchy music industry folks complaining again about copyright" Damn straight! I'd be pissed if everyone was streaming my source code to youtube, wouldn't you?? I'm not greedy, but I do need to make a living. When you're making 11.00 a year on a video that has 15 million hits [youtube.com] I understand being upset (Ironically there was an ad for Rick Astley ring tones next to the video, Guess how much Rick's writer makes from THAT? HAHAHAHAHA! NOTHING). We just need a sane way to compensate artists and writers for their work, and since most websites are monetized in advertising I think that YouTube should just trade advertising for artist controlled domains for the right to have the works in their collection. Win-Win.
My additional $.10
Re: (Score:2)
Personally I think musicians should be paid for performances
The PRS represents the authors of songs, not performers (obviously one person can be both). I think it's an open question how much a song (as opposed to a performance) is worth, in monetary terms.
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Music videos started off as promotion, but I don't think that's the case any more. Some people who consider themselves music fans don't buy CDs (downloads, whatever), but they leave a video jukebox TV channel on all day.
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Not really. If it was a 10 second clip of the best bits it would be like a movie trailer.
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?
Re:Free from unfair competition (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course that's not what they want. They want to get paid for their content while receiving free publicity without hosting costs.
These people expect to get paid for what should be a hobby while the majority of other people have to shell out money for theirs.
Nice to have a list of artists to boycott (Score:4, Insightful)
great money making scheme (Score:2)
1. put your own music on youtube
2. ask google for money
3. profit? ah.. rats!
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
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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.
Then they need to get their royalties from the people who are directly using their content to make money. This includes the people that perform the songs, and the record companies.
As mentioned in a comment above, creators do not have a god-given right to get paid for absolutely everything that ever gets done with their content or anything that is derived from it.
If a performer is directly using your composition on an album or your lyrics in a song, then get that performer to pay. They are the ones ma
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.
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?
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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.
.....
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.
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.
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Question to poster: how does it follow from their statements that the music writers are clueless?
The individual songwriters' requests for compensation injects cognitive dissonance into the minds of the people who insist that only Big Evil Corporations with their Obsolete Buisiness Model want people to pay for music (to finance Lear jets and hot tubs full of hookers for fatcat executives), and that the Brave New World of music is that all music is free and all artists support themselves through touring and merchandise, and all the greedy recording executives are out of a job, and therefore you are entit
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I'm sorry, but I have to disagree here. I am not condoning copyright infringement, but this is a business deal between two parties. The songwriters wish to get paid for their work being up on YouTube, but don't like the amount Google is willing to pay. Without a deal, Google has to remove said music from YouTube upon request (conform European copyright law), but when they do so the songwriters protest even more. It is clear to me that they have a very different view of what their music is worth from what it
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Actually, I agree with you, and I think the organization's approach to the matter is dumb, and Google has every right to just remove the content.
I just think it's telling that of the actual quotes being addressed by /. posters, most of them are along the lines of "fuck that greedy bastard who wrote that Rick Astley song and is already rich and wants even more money for his 20 year old song so boycott him and everybody else who is a member of that organization", rather than even grazing the larger questions
Look at the membership (Score:4, Interesting)
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The page you linked to is the sign up form for members to get access to the web site. If you want to join the PRS, you want their online application form [prsformusic.com].
Hey man Abba is signed on (Score:2)
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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?
They are reaping what they sowed.. (Score:5, Informative)
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"Royalties are vital in nurturing creative talent" (Score:4, Interesting)
I call bullshit.
Or at least, I don't see this at all. I know a few people who have been creating music for quite some time. And most of the time they didn't get paid.
Also, I and a bunch of others organize a festival (*) every year on the campus of the University of Twente. The performers don't receive any payment, maybe a compensation for fuel. Not getting paid at all hasn't stopped the performers from wanting to show up and show their creative talent.
And to extrapolate this beyond music creators. Not receiving royalties hasn't stopped from people creating mods for computer games. It hasn't stopped creators of open source software.
The only people who are stopped by not receiving royalties are people who are in it for the royalties.
*) it's not a big festival, only about 1000-1400 guests. But compared to other student organized parties it's the biggest event. It's completely organized by people in their spare time. Nobody gets paid to do anything.
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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. Som
It's always about the money (Score:2)
This might look like PRS is being the lame ones, but if you actually know a bloody thing about the music industry you would understand better what this really is about.
Youtube/Google makes millions upon millions of ad revenues from youtube. A clip that gets seen a lot generates more revenues. If it contains music that is 'copywritten' there should be a performance royalty associated to that clip. This is a movement to control the cash-flow of the music industry. There is no sense for Google to retain al
Re:It's always about the money (Score:4, Informative)
Google was already paying royalties. The issue at hand is, how high should those royalties be.
The PRS argument seems to percieve that a 'view' is worth a lot more than makes sense (see the comment on the page about getting 25,000 views and expecting more than a couple of pounds in royalties).
Google does make billions, but it makes those billions by serving trillions of pages. 1000 video views might result in one ad click. One ad click is only worth a few pence.
If they paid what the PRS is asking, Google would make a loss. So, they said "no thanks".
It's a balancing act (Score:3, Interesting)
I understand where these artists are coming from but this is the fallout from a badly balanced system as it was started. Music was well overpriced to begin with, the internet has forced that into a more realistic pricing model and those who benefited from a little-effort-multi-millionaire lifestyle now see their gravy train coming to a crashing stop. It's no wonder they are trying to keep the train moving.
When the record labels, executives, advertisers, promoters etc are making billions from artists and fans it's no wonder the artists want their share of the cash. When both the means to record, release and promote were limited to those with serious money they held all the cards, and so could charge much more than it cost to make and distribute an LP, tape or CD. They also set the rules on what the artists had to give up to get a small slice of the pie. They screwed both ends of the chain and made a fortune off their backs. The internet has bust that gravy train right off the tracks and they just don't see it.
Part of the excuse for high product prices was that it cost so much to make and distribute them. With the internet, people can access the same stuff with little cost.
Part of the excuse for record companies charging for EVERYTHING was that the art of making the music was a skill reserved for specially talented people who needed to spend 6 months in Barbados to "get into the right headspace" to write a 3 minute tune which would gain a high chart position and therefor make them tonnes of cash. This means the artist is treated like some spoiled brat and given whatever they request. Look at the excesses of the large 70's and 80's acts for plenty of examples.
They don't see music as an art, they see spreadsheets with comparisons of chart positions and sales figures.
Part of the excuse is that they play a key role as a gobetween the artist and the fans, in the form of TV appearances, radio appearances, interviews etc.
All of the excuses the recording industry have used over the years to justify their extortionate fees are evaporating as people are bypassing them, legally and illegally. Many artists are choosing to go their own routes, giving them more control and a larger slice of the profits of their work and a direct relationship with their fans.
Costs have come down dramatically and the point of entry is now very low if you want to make music for a living but the days of Elton John or Queen type earnings are long gone, no matter how good you are; the public have changed and the mediums have changed....and won't change back, no matter how much they wish it so.
It's now possible to put a band together with decent quality equipment and record on a simple mixer / PC to get a reasonably professional sound, which coupled with some internet savvy thinking can get you decent earnings.
It's early in the morning and I think I'm starting to ramble so I'll end it there.
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, da
Call their bluff (and capitalism) (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
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: (Score:2, Funny)
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.
-- Pete Waterman, songwriter - 24 March 2009
Why would you admit to writing what has been largely deemed the worst pop song in modern history? If that's the kind of music writers should be paid lots of money for, I'm glad the negotiations broke down.
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
Re: (Score:2)
Pete, dude, nobody was actually enjoying that song, you know. It's basically the work safe version of goatse.cx
Indeed, and a lot of people get enjoyment out of watching other people suffer (otherwise rick rolling and goatse would never have existed).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ahem. I actually *like* that song. It reminds me of when I was riding on the schoolbus and first heard it play on the radio, first crushes on the opposite sex, and it's certainly not "the worst" pop song. It's no worse than what Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers are putting out today. Worse songs include stuff put-out by Kris Kross, Vanilla Ice, and Wreckz-N-Effex (rumpshaker).
OFFTOPIC question -
I just received my "2nd Notice of Copyright Infringement" for Burn After Reading and Evan Almighty. Does any
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hey! That's my tune, man. And don't be picking on VanIce. He made the world safe for Eminem.
Wait, no, I take that back.
Re: (Score:2)
If you re-recorded it, Pete Waterman would have to cram his *performance* royalties up his ass. Unfortunately, making a cover version does not remove his entitlement to *mechanical* royalties.
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!
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: (Score:3, Funny)
That does sound kind of German, doesn't it?
Re: (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
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (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
Re: (Score:2)
An interesting tidbit... on the "news" section of the FPFC site, it shows a short video clip of Waterman ranting about his 11 quid...
http://vimeo.com/3836793 [vimeo.com]
My favourite bit is how he talks about Youtube running a "Rick-Rolling" campaign.. I suppose perhaps he means the April Fools thing last year, but still...
Re:Difference of Opinion (Score:5, Informative)
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?
Re: (Score:2)
hehe. find a journalist, tell them that you were not allowed to explain your opinion on the site - try to create streisandeffect ;)
Re: (Score:2)
To paraphrase a refugee I once saw on TV; It makes no difference. PRS shoot then ask questions, Goggle ask questions then shoot.
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
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't. The mods would mark my post flamebait or troll ;-)
You really still don't get it at all, do you:
"No opt out"? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"No opt out"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Say I want to perform a set of my music in a pub, no covers, just stuff I wrote. The pub has to have a PRS performance license and has to pay the PRS for my performance even if I'm not registered with them.
It's extortion, and as usual it's the artists who get screwed - the number of places to play is dropping for the small local artist as landlords stop paying the PRS tax.
Write to the Lib Dems again (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"No opt out"? (Score:5, Informative)
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, restaurant, cafe, or on your telephone system, then a Music Licence will be required. There is a relevant section on the review form where this music usage can be declared.
How does PRS for Music distribute the income it collects?
It is a condition of the Music Licence that, when requested, the licensee shall supply details of all musical works publicly performed. This information is needed primarily to assist PRS for Music to distribute royalties to writers and publishers. It also helps to identify performances which contain no PRS for Music controlled works for which no royalty is therefore due.
In other words, you still need the public performance license even if no royalties are due.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, I'm right. From the same page you quoted, I've highlighted the important words in bold:
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 means that if you use copyright music in public, you must first obtain the permission from every writer or composer whose music you or hirers of your venue intend to play. A Music Licence from PRS for Music grants you the legal permission to play just about any copyright music which is written and published by our members and those of our affiliated societies worldwide.
The
Re: (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 m
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, if I read that right, I could just as well get a permission from every single artist or other copyright holder if I intended to play their music and bypass the PRS altogether. The PRS only seems to serve as some sort of "blanket license" issuer.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is essentially what this statement says. Get a permission from every writer/composer you play, or get a PRS license to play them all.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting - in Canada we have a similar system in place (SOCAN fee). I believe that there is no opt out here for any public place, but now, since I see it is not entirely what the hard PRS rules are, I wonder if our SOCAN "law" is similarly worded to cause confusion?
SOCAN fees - because Celine Dion should get payed when you play someone else's music at the pub!
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:Difference of Opinion (Score:4, Informative)
(For example, the copyright laws being extended to cover the duration of a musicians lifetime has been discussed here before and seems to be unpopular)
However - I can't understand this:
If I want to use a radio at my place of work - the PRS demand that my workplace pays a license because there is more than one person listening to it - but the radio station has already paid for playing the song...
To me - it is fair enough to pay once - but to pay twice is greedy, ridiculous and unfair...
Re:Difference of Opinion (Score:4, Informative)
So do I. However, if I wish to make my music free to listen to, shouldn't I be able to as the copyright holder? At the moment I can't as the PRS will collect royalties on my behalf even though I don't want them to.
Re: (Score:2)
Clueless or not, they have the IP rights and they can ask them to be taken down.
The material has been taken down. The PRS is most upset about it. Effectively Google has demonstrated that it can manage without this content.