"Newer music videos -- like those from Katy Perry, for example -- show no signs of botting."

kp is the real deal

spk is a snitch...

hahaha i dont think he had anything to do with it

No truth to any of this, you guys are terrible reporters.  

To elaborate on this, the missing views weren't Vevo views, they were YouTube views.

The way I understand it, certain Vevo videos were originally posted to artists' YouTube channels, & migrated to the artists' Vevo channels. The Vevo channel inherited the play counts, but the YouTube channel also kept their play counts, so pre-Vevo views were being double counted in channels' total play counts. To correct this, YouTube removed YouTube plays from the YouTube artist channels for the migrated videos.

Also, this story is like 6 weeks old.

http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1483721/what-really-happened-to-sony-and-universals-2-billion-missing-youtube

And it makes total sense for an established artist like Kanye to have a huge spike when a video is first posted, & for an unknown artist like Psy to have a slow build. How is that not obvious?

On a related note, I would love to have gotten clarification on my comments on the MegaUpload study the other day.

To clarify, the 40m instant views on the Kanye video is a product of the video being migrated from YouTube, inheriting views, not from the video being published & instantly popular. The point I was trying to make was that Psy isn't the comparison to make.

Also, more recent videos "showing no signs of botting" just means that those videos were posted directly to Vevo & started with a play count of 0, rather than being posted to YouTube & then migrated to Vevo.

Also, generating 40m views overnight, even if the process is automated, would require tons & tons of connections, & tons of bandwidth. You can't just hire a guy to do that. I'm not even sure that's possible.

Hmm. Except Britney Spears also got 33 MM views in one 24 hour spike as well. 

But even if this is a transfer, what about the Gaga reduction of 156 MM?

Too many holes.

Any video that was uploaded to YouTube before Vevo existed, & then transferred to Vevo ought to go from 0 to xx million views.

What about the Lady Gaga reduction of 156m? Obviously her videos had 156m views before they were moved to the Vevo channel.

The views didn't actually disappear, they were just removed from Universal's channel & given to Vevo's channel, & those videos "spike" at the point where they were moved from one channel to the other.

This is really simple stuff, guys.

So a transfer? Then those aren't VEVO views as being represented to major brands like Colgate-Palmolive. 

They aren't "VEVO views," but they're views of properties that now belong to VEVO.

The 2b adjustment is a drop in the bucket, that's like a few weeks worth of views.

You're proving my point.  Those aren't Vevo views yet advertisers are getting pitched on them.

I've always believed that YouTube should stop the public display of video views, likes, etc. It is extremely easy for anyone to manipulate all those YouTube statistics. I am sure you all have come across many awful videos on Youtube that had millions of views, and made you wonder how all those videos got millions of views and likes.

In addition, who visits YouTube just to watch ads? I don't know anyone. YouTube should be ad-free. If someone wants to advertise his product, he can upload his own video and market it through his official website and social media for free.

The operating expenses are too expensive for youtube to go ad-free.

The whole Big Tech AND Big Content industrys are both shady as fuck. We are fucked as a society.

best comment i've read on this subject!

VEVO = major labels

Youtube = GOOGLE

If you think Digital Music News for a second that this is all up and up you're sadly mistaken

Let me get this right...  A You Tube employee (prior to any talk of potential investment in Vevo from Google) manipulated Vevo numbers?

How is that "Vevo lying to advertisers"?

Commenter JW seems to be the only person making sense and picking apart the dubious journalism here!

CAN ANYONE EXPLAIN TO ME WHY YOUTUBE DONT GIVE ME EXACTLY FIGURE VIEW RESULT.

CAN MOOZAR BE WRONG ABOUT MY VIEWER COUNT ON YOUTUBE RESULTS?

http://moozar.com/reward/24373

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzBql0p5efs

I sent you this story in December.  Anyone who collects revenue from these services based on a pro-rata share of total monetizable views/streams is affected--it's not just stealing from advertisers.

Thank you!

DMN classically misses the far bigger scam.  So what are you getting paid on x-percent of that 2 billion, huh?  After all they are counted as premium Vevo now.

This is a retroactive 2 billion.

Those videos were viewed, & therefore the related ads were displayed, before the videos were migrated to Vevo. Advertisers were charged then, & rights holders were paid then. And those views being retroactively attributed, statistically, to Vevo post migration does not mean that the advertising revenue is retroactively owed to anyone who shares revenue based on new plays of Vevo videos.

No one gets re-paid or un-paid or unfairly charged for those views. This is simply a statistical adjustment to fix the fact that certain YouTube videos were credited with views of videos that were no longer on the channel, because they had been migrated to Vevo. There is no impact on revenue; these are not counted as new views, nor do they retroactively impact revenue.

This is so simple. It's terrifying that you people are having such a hard time understanding it, but just the same totally expected.

For all the complaints of piracy, this is the true reason the music industry is in the dumper, the ignorance (wilful or otherwise) of the majority.

C'mon.  The "transfering YT to VEVO" excuse really doesn't hold water here.  The numbers don't add up--there are now hundreds of millions of missing views from the combined totals we saw before any of the transferring started.  Where did those views go?  You can't have, say, 50 million at YT and 50 million at Vevo before transferring, then 80 million at VEVO afterwards and say it's all a wash. 

What about the clear examples of botting on countless major label YT/Vevo vids going back years?  

You're not going to find someone more pro-digital and pro-streaming than I am, but it only works if nobody has their thumb on the scales.  If someone is using bots to weight the monetized view & play counts in their favor, then they are ripping off everyone else in the industry.

Here is YouTube's response to what you're saying...

At the end of the day, anything that artificially increases the number of views, either through the use of automatic systems or by serving up videos to unsuspecting viewers, is against our terms. Videos and accounts that are found to be in violation of our terms may be closed down and removed from YouTube.

Correction for this type of behavior during the month in question accounted for 1.5m removals for the labels' channels. I don't know if that's a high, low, or average figure, but at that rate, it would take 111 years to accumulate 2b illegitimate views.

Where exactly are you seeing 50m+50m=80b? I'm willing to examine any evidence you have, I just haven't seen anything like that.

When a video's playcount is retroactively attributed to another channel, no one gets re-paid or un-paid or unfairly charged for those views. This has nothing to do with revenue. What, exactly, makes you think that it does?

This story shouldn't have been run in December & it shouldn't be run now. All it proves is that there is an anti-technology lot who are making no effort whatsoever to understand what it is that they're criticizing.

I'm sure Vevo will keep this on the up and up

"Music Labels’ Joint Venture, VEVO, Shows Pirated NFL Game At Sundance"

http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/09/music-labels-joint-venture-vevo-shows-pirated-espn-game-at-sundance/

Jesus Christ. You guys are incredible at making mountains out of mole hills.

That was a non-story a year ago, & it's a non-story today.

Uh, so tell me how pirating a game illegally at an industry event shouldnt be punished to the maximum extent of the law?

ESPN didn't think so. No charges were filed.

And that story has no bearing on this one.

More proof of John Battelle's point that "infinite" online ad inventory more a function of fraud/skank than reality.

The whole Vevo business model is a skank, a fraud. Now they are DEFRAUDING both ADVERTISERS + their business partners by supposedly paying out INACCURATE ROYALTIES TO ARTISTS based on CONSISTENTLY FRAUDULENT VIEWING FIGURES. Because as you point out, they were produced by SHADY METHODS of a guy sitting in a room with a "BOT" for a week, pounding out PHONEY VIEWS AND DECEPTIVE VIDEO COUNTS. Not surprised, it's all the usual suspects up to more unethical business.  Now Google + Eric Schmidt + Head of YouTube content in the mix. Here comes the start of all the lawsuits from advertisers, partners and investors.