Updated, Friday, January 23rd, 7:35 pm PT: YouTube now says that Zoë Keating’s claims are ‘patently false’ and have demanded a retraction. Full details of YouTube’s response here; the original article (published Friday morning) follows:
_________________________________________________
Last year, this was a threat. Now, YouTube isn’t backing down. The following post comes from successful independent artist and acclaimed cellist Zoë Keating, who just finished talking to YouTube about their upcoming subscription service, Music Key.
My Google Youtube rep contacted me the other day. They were nice and took time to explain everything clearly to me, but the message was firm: I have to decide. I need to sign on to the new Youtube music services agreement or I will have my Youtube channel blocked.
This new music service agreement covers my Content ID account and it includes mandatory participation in Youtube’s new subscription streaming service, called Music Key, along with all that participation entails. Here are some of the terms I have problems with:
1) All of my catalog must be included in both the free and premium music service. Even if I don’t deliver all my music, because I’m a music partner, anything that a 3rd party uploads with my info in the description will be automatically included in the music service too.
2) All songs will be set to “montetize”, meaning there will be ads on them.
3) I will be required to release new music on Youtube at the same time I release it anywhere else. So no more releasing to my core fans first on Bandcamp and then on iTunes.
4) All my catalog must be uploaded at high resolution, according to Google’s standard which is currently 320 kbps.
5) The contract lasts for 5 years.
I can’t think of another streaming service that makes such demands. And if I don’t sign? My Youtube channel will be blocked and I will no longer be able to monetize (how I hate that word) 3rd party videos through Content ID.
I told the rep I’m happy with Content ID as it is. Can’t I just continue to participate in Content ID and not be a part of Music Key?
No. The rep said they can’t have music in the free version that is not in the paid version, it would be bad for their users. All music content has to be licensed under this new agreement.
How many 3rd party videos are there? As of today there are 9,696 videos and last month those videos had 250,000 (*1) monthly views. The Content ID robot sucks up more videos every day.
I got started with Content ID a couple of years ago when someone from Youtube reached out to me and I was offered a content management account to “claim” the soundtracks of these videos. The videos are dance performances, documentaries, amateur films, slideshows, animations, art projects, soundtracks to people doing things like skiing, miming, calligraphy or just playing video games. I love the variety of them all. Who knew there could be so many different ways to dance to my music? The video with the most views (1 million) is a demo reel by the Game of Thrones post production team.
In the majority of these videos the creator was really supposed to obtain a sync license from me but I think a lot of people don’t know. It’s daunting and cumbersome and confusing when all you want to do is add music to slides of your art portfolio. I have a licensing agent who handles the big stuff but there is not enough money in these usages for him and I wouldn’t have time to manage all the requests. Content ID feels like an awkward work around (the language the video uploaders see can be very alarming to them), but it solves a problem.
Here’s how it works: I upload my music and the Content ID robot identifies matches. I never block anyone’s videos or stop them from using the music except for special cases, like videos from hate groups or unauthorized product advertisements. Once Content ID finds a video with my music in it I can decide if I want to just track the video, or “monetize” it, i.e. put Dorito ads on it. That doesn’t always seem appropriate but if I do decide to monetize a video, or if the uploader already had ads on it, Google gives the majority of the ad revenue to them and about a third to me for the soundtrack. It really doesn’t pay very much but it does put “Zoe Keating” and a song title in the description of every video…in other words, credit.
One thing I don’t have on Youtube is music videos I’ve made myself. I don’t have a good explanation for why I’ve never made a music video but as I started work on my new album in 2013 I made a few quick videos about my life for my fans, meaning to make that a regular occurrence. I also thought I’d make a couple music videos to go with the new album.
But then my life changed. My husband Jeff was mysteriously and increasingly ill until in May 2014, he was diagnosed with stage IV non-smokers lung cancer. For most of last year I cared for him and our son and was unable to work much, let alone tour. Making videos was the last thing on my mind. When Jeff’s health stabilized in the fall I started working as a TV composer (for a show called “The Returned”, it airs on A&E on March 9). Working on the show has offered a much-needed creative outlet, steady pay and allowed me to stay close to home (his health is still fragile and we’re living in the moment but I am going to try to get that album out this year).
Anyway, a year ago my Youtube rep let me know there was a new music service coming and she sent along a new agreement. I read it and raised my concerns and asked if I could return the contract with those particular terms struck out. Alas no but the product folks seemed genuinely curious about my concerns and I had a phone meeting with them. The meeting was similar to one I had with DA Wallach of Spotify a couple years ago. Similar in that I got the sense that no matter how I explained my hands-on fan-supported anti-corporate niche thing, I was an alien to them. I don’t think they understood me at all.
The catalog commitment is the biggest issue for me. All these years I’ve yet to participate fully in any streaming service although I’ve chosen to give a handful of recordings to a few of them. If anyone wants more and they balk at paying for it, they can always stream all my music for free on Bandcamp(*2) or Soundcloud or they can torrent it (I uploaded my music to Pirate Bay myself many years ago). I’ve heard all the arguments about why artists should make all their music available for streaming in every possible service. I also know the ecosystem of music delivery made a shift away from downloading last year. Streaming is no longer advertising for something else, it is the end product. It’s convenient. Convenience is king. Yup, got all that, thanks.
This is the important part: it is my decision to make.
Is such control too much for an artist to ask for in 2015? It’s one thing for individuals to upload all my music for free listening (it doesn’t bother me). It’s another thing entirely for a major corporation to force me to. I was encouraged to participate and now, after I’m invested, I’m being pressured into something I don’t want to do.
I re-evaluate and change my mind all the time and I might decide to put everything everywhere at some point. But I want to decide what to do when. That is a major reason why I decided in 2005 to self-publish rather than chase after a record deal. I am independent because I didn’t want a bunch of men in suits deciding how I should release my music (*3). For 10 years I have managed to bushwhack a circuitous path around them but now I’ve got to find a away around the men in hoodies and crocs (I’m sorry, that was low, but that story was so funny).
The Youtube music service was introduced to me as a win win and they don’t understand why I don’t see it that way. “We are trying to create a new revenue stream on top of the platform that exists today.” A lot of people in the music industry talk about Google as evil. I don’t think they are evil. I think they, like other tech companies, are just idealistic in a way that works best for them. I think this because I used to be one of them (*4). The people who work at Google, Facebook, etc can’t imagine how everything they make is not, like, totally awesome. If it’s not awesome for you it’s because you just don’t understand it yet and you’ll come around. They can’t imagine scenarios outside their reality and that is how they inadvertently unleash things like the algorithmic cruelty of Facebook’s yearly review (which showed me a picture I had posted after a doctor told me my husband had 6-8 weeks to live).
I’ve been invited to play at Google twice. I went to the World Economic Forum in Davos last year and bumped into Eric Schmidt (not a croc-wearer) in the crowded halls. I was introduced to him a few months later at Google Zeitgeist (where I performed before a talk by Bill Clinton) but I doubt he has any recollection of me. So I might be well-connected but in the end I am a nobody.
What should I do? As much as it makes me grind my teeth, does having all my music forced onto Youtube’s music service really just not matter all that much? Should I just close my eyes and think of England?
Maybe after writing this blog Google will make the choice for me. They will block my channel and I will have to decide whether to block those 9,696 videos….and anger 9,696 fans. The usual people will talk about it for a day or two (*5) and then it and I will be forgotten.
Anyone starting up a new video service?
Footnotes:
(*1) I know it is not the same thing but it’s interesting that my monthly number of Pandora spins is also about 250,000. I’m allowed to talk about how much that pays, about $324 (sound recording + artist payment combined). It’s a violation of my agreement to say how much a comparable number of Youtube plays pays.
(*2) Here is something weird. Until yesterday a search for “Zoe Keating” would yield a Google Knowledge Graph box on the right with all my info, including links to listen to my music. It always bugged me that those links were only to Google Play, Rhapsody and Spotify, all services which have hardly any of my music in them. If the metadata about me is really pure, why not link to the only services that actually have all my music? i.e. Bandcamp, SoundCloud and iTunes? I know the links were there yesterday because I searched to get the list for this blog. As of today, there are no music links whatsoever. Ideas?
(*3) Real things said to me by men in suits in 2004: “This could have potential if it had vocals.” “I don’t see a market for this”. “We need a sexy photo of you naked with your cello on top of you.”
(*4) I came of age in San Francisco working at a software startup during the dot com boom. The cyberpunks and the geeks were my friends. We worked together, we lived together, we raved together. Yes, a lot of what motivated us was the golden handcuffs (i.e. a salary of stock options only good in a future IPO) but I remember being motivated by the idea of technology changing the world for the better. Sometimes it felt like we were revolutionaries. Unfortunately a lot of those ideals, if they still exist, have become…corrupted is too strong a word….subsumed. The revolution has been corporatized.
(*5) Now commence the usual commentary about stupid artists and their entitled attitudes 😉
enough is enough!
all artists stand the fuck up. this is absurd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How so? YouTube provides a platform. They have spent money building, growing and promoting it. If you want to use it, come correct. If not, then don’t. Go out and build your own platform.
Music industry or musicians DO NOT NEED YOUTUBE. YouTube is and unti-music entity.
VEVO on YouTube is a traitor arrangement by clueless labels with totally useless, idiotic unti-monetization “service”.
Let’s just convert all of Radio and all of streaming to discovery based music store. $100B music industry and happiness for all before 2020.
That would be CDBaby.
buddy, why not just post this everytime…
The internet is perfect for selling all products and services. This statement also applies to music.
It should be very simple, as long as you get the money at the DISCOVERY MOMENT!
All participants of the discovery have to be rewarded and converted to cash registers of the industry.
Let’s summarize the current state of the music industry:
It has decreased from $40 billion to just $16 billion last year.
How is this possible with the obvious synergy between the Internet and digital music?
The answer is an obvious one: Shazam, Soundhound, lyric IDs, and radio displays with YouTube are all free suppliers that keep all profitable content outside of the “translucent music store” and available TO ALL! iTunes, as well as any other music store, don’t have a chance to survive with no barriers to these music providers.
Currently, we are in a state of a streaming ELDORADO – Content owners throw all they have into this fire. This fire is propelled by free ID services, similar tune discovery and portability, providing total convenience to users and little or no cash to creators. I hope this is just a transitional era of TURBO NAPSTERS sterilizing the field for new crop! This situation should infuriate the creators of music and force the brains of the industry into a well overdue state of MONETIZATION, not ideas solely for the consumers’ pleasure!
YouTube, with its desperate VEVO, just adds fuel to this mindless “give all – take little or nothing back” business model… if we can actually call it business!
If uninterrupted, the current course will demolish over $100 billion in revenue from the natural synergy between music and internet and global revenues will plateau at $25 billion in 2020.
LET’S SEE WHERE THE MONEY IS.
The real, easy money is in the payment for a song at the moment of discovery- let’s capitalize and get the cash when a person falls in love with a song, lives it, and wants to hear it again. No matter who you are, whether a streamer or a buyer, the price is 39¢ to live and enjoy that great emotion from that song again and again.
DISCOVERY MOMENT MONETIZATION!
The best and last opportunity for cash in the era of instant access and smartphones.
A reasonable price is the most important aspect to discourage this theft and make purchasing a song a happy event; 39¢ (US cents) should be a perfect global price. Good for a stress-free acquisition to all teenagers in the US, EU, or Japan, and still reasonable in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and most of the Far East.
I would not allow for any regional experiments over 49¢ per song – WE NEED SUCCESS!
THE REST IS A BREEZE! We just need 250 billion transactions per year to create a $100 billion industry. A very easy task, considering that the once $40 billion industry in 1999 was made by 3.3 billion transactions and a $12 average price for a CD.
During this time, most of the revenue came from a select few western countries along with Japan, and with virtually no discovery tools! This is an impressive number considering the lack of the resources we have at our fingertips today.
We are very fortunate; it’s 2013 and we have all we need to double the industry to $32 billion within 36 months as well as GET TO THE $100 BILLION MARK BY 2020!
Let’s review the list of idling and MISSUSED GOODWILL:
Over 5 billion global cell phone users
At least 1.5 billion music fans can afford $0.39 per tune – which is at least 10 times more than number of active CD buyers in the past!
Free Shazam, Soundhound, Gracenote, and other lyrics ID services have over one billion users, and 19 out of 20 ID services go to free YouTube and torrent sites. Billions of music IDs provided for free should be converted at once to mandatory Discovery Moment Monetization. The easiest conversion would be based on changes in “fair use” laws, which are missused and abused. We should start at once with exaggerated financial benefit to ID providers.
Free similar song suggest engines provide total pleasure. Spotify and Pandora providing access to them are outside of “fair use” boundaries and are no different than common thieves. They give access to tunes for free, with no knowledge or permission of the owner, to total strangers – again, legally or solely for their own benefit, those services must become part of the mandatory Discovery Moment Monetization.
Multiple sources assign over 50% of discovery to traditional radio! Together XM, Pandora, and other internet and conventional radios as well as TV provide 85% of discovery. Discovery happens as we live our lives, without enchainment to computer. YouTube or Spotify discovery is usually a secondary event triggered by “as we live” discovery activated by one of the ID services.
This is a very impressive list – it’s clear that we don’t need much effort or promotion to generate seventy times more micro monetization transactions than in 1999!
TIME TO DOUBLE THE BUSINESS IN THREE YEARS!
“Stage one” of Discovery Moment Monetization should include instant elimination or just intelligent limitation of content on radio displays and conversion of all music ID services to mandatory music retailers.
“You like it? Want to hear it again? YOU MUST PAY!” It is that simple!
All ID services, both old and new, must be “bribed” financially or forced legally to comply, and a brand new stream of revenues will open.
Shazam, Soundhound, Gracenote, have to stop their free music pleasure services and become billion dollars corporations by 2015!
We might have to lower royalty payments for some radio operators to convince them to remove all relevant data from displays. Otherwise, it should be a smooth take-off to monetization. Let’s just give ID engines, as mentioned above, what we use to pay the typical brick and mortar CD retailer – it should be a winner for everyone, unless they are part of some “secret anti-music religion”. The music industry situation is so hilarious that I would not be surprised to discover this ANTI-MUSIC PLOT
Let’s do some industry wide promotion and double the business in 36 months.
“Stage two” of Discovery Moment Monetization (PATENT PENDING)
Should start at once, parallel with stage one, and involves creation of the CENTRAL BANK of MEDIA. Google, Sound Exchange, or one of the discovery engines are all perfect candidates for this assignment.
All songs, or any media designated for monetization, should be registered with this bank and receive an interactive “license plate” artist, composer and label data should be consistent! Then we add the liquid part by identifying distribution participants!
This license plate is invisible to the human ear, but will allow THE MUSIC BANK to distribute revenues to the artist, composer, label (if there is one), the radio station that played the tune, or the McDonald’s restaurant for allowing the discovery of the new tune.
Honestly, McDonald’s master DJ might become a new label!
DISCOVERY MOMENT MONETIZATION is simple and fair to all.
There is only one condition: all tunes, including those served by iTunes, YouTube, Spotify, traditional radio, and chain of restaurants have to be coded from one central source.
This is an unbelievable opportunity for new discovery… and monetization at any place!
Just imagine the quality of the playlist on a radio station earning cash from music!
There is even room for subscription free Spotify; just pay $0.10 for the first stream and $0.05 for additional streams – rent to own conversion at $0.40 (just one cent premium to cash buyer) Just NO DISCOVERY TOOLS please!
It is time for DISCOVERY MOMENT MONETIZATION!
“… All ID services, both old and new, must be “bribed” financially or forced legally to comply …”
Forced legally to comply ? …. lost you there, friend. Sorry. Won’t happen, not in this side of eternity.
All we need is new fair use act. Shazam is not practicing a “fair use”.
Current mode of Shazam: free of charge toll box for criminals stilling music.
They collect data on all new music, store it and free of charge on demand of any FREELOADER sort thru someone’s property (data) and provide information making you THE INSTANT OWNER.
IT’S NOT FAIR! IT’S CRIMINAL ACTIVITY BY ANY STANDARD GOING BACK TO ROMAN EMPIRE.
Dude, Taylor Swift is worth $200M. I do not feel bad for music creators.
Funny you should suggest that, Willis. We did build our own platform.
Major platforms like YouTube and Spotify have basically turned artists into commodities. That’s not good for artists, it’s not good for their fans, and it’s not good for culture at large.
Artists shouldn’t have to give up control or ownership of their work, their audiences, or their businesses.
So we’re giving them a platform where they won’t have to. Stay tuned 🙂
Looking at the music business as a business focused on music, artists and their creations ARE commodities.
Rodney,
Perhaps I should clarify how I’m defining “commodity.”
From Wikipedia: “A commodity has full or partial fungibility; that is, the market treats its instances as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them.”
For example, gold is a commodity; wheat is a commodity. One piece is exactly (or almost exactly) like the next, you can replace one bushel of wheat with another bushel of wheat and it has the same value.
Artists and their content are most definitely NOT fungible. You could never replace Billy Joel with Taylor Swift without noticing the difference; likewise, you couldn’t replace “The Downeaster Alexa” with “Shake it Off” and expect no one to notice.
Artists and their content are inherently unique, and therefore not fungible — hence, in no way are they ever properly considered or treated as commodities.
“They have spent money building, growing and promoting it”
So have I, long before Google even existed or the corrupt greedy fuckers who run it were even born.
You’re an asswipe Willis.
If you don’t know what you are talking about shut the fuck up.
YouTube want exclusive rights to use all artists music worldwide completely free for anything they want without ever paying. Artists always get ripped off, it used to be record companies and now its youtube doing the same thing.
suck a D. They don’t make the content.
Remember when Google’s Eric Schmidt visited North Korea?
It all makes so much more sense now.
Google and Amazon are both thieving content pigs of the highest order. So is Facebook. It’s not really even open to debate, and any sad millenial that says one has to roll over is a brainless slug, regardless of what they claim about knowledge of ‘current, trends, right?’ Go put some more black discs in your ears, you posers.
What does anyone really expect? They’re like the old networks. They’re not there to cater to anyone, except the masses. Maybe this will undermine them longterm, because a content provider has to be an idiot to trust almost any digital distribution at this point. Even some for hire distribution companies have a reputation for trying to claim ownership of certain rights. It reminds me of the job recruiters who want to know where else you’re looking, so if that firm hires you, they can try to claim a fee from that other company because you signed up with them.
Thieving charlatans will grab a lot of fish in their net. Content producers have to be smarter than them. I know its infuriating, but the line don’t get mad get even, is still very appropriate.
The hardest part is not knowing who to sign up with because the big fish buy out new companies all the time. Terrestrial radio to me still seems like one of best ways to start word of mouth while having no risk of having signed some loaded agreement. And for hire distribution companies need to advertise they’re not working with the scumbags like Spotify, Pandora, Youtube and anyone else who plays vampire squid.
These neo-dorks really need to get a life, and I’ve got news for their legal dept. There is such a thing in the law as contracts that are written outside of laws regarding fraud and public standards, and therefore are unenforceable or actually may cause liability to the writer of the fraudulent contract for damages. I hope these companies are ready to get slapped with some of that action in the future.
To Mike’s point:
The question becomes one we’ve been asking for years. Do musicians and songwriters have the courage to fight this battle or will they cave, as many of them have in the past, and opt out of their futures?
There’s only one way to solve this — use another service!
The problems associated with Google/YouTube just keep getting worse. Aside from their systematic DMCA abuse, and the type of harrassment and abuse we’re witnessing now, the worst part is their censorship:
YouTube works intimately with every anti-democratic regime on the planet:
You’re not allowed to be pro-Tibet on YouTube if you’re Chinese; you’re not allowed to be anti-Sharia on YouTube if you’re in certain Middle East countries, and so on.
Here is YouTube’s infamous rule that prohibits human rights organizations, politicians, artists and other YouTube users in dictatorships from posting content that for example criticizes anti-democratic leaders, religions, barbaric laws etc.
7.6 You agree that you will not post or upload any Content which contains material which it is unlawful for you to possess in the country in which you are resident
I’ll post a link to the controversial TOS in a separate post below.
Here is the link to the YouTube’s Terms that outlaws blashphemy, criticism of dictatorship, etc.
Please note that the terms differ from country to country; the quote in my post above comes from the UK version. (You can scroll down to the bottom of the page and change your country.)
https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms
You’ve contradicted your original stance with your backup info. YouTube is not working with anti-Democratic countries, as you originally state. They are making a blanket statement to cover themselves regarding laws in different countries.
“You’ve contradicted your original stance with your backup info”
I most certainly have not.
“They [YouTube] are making a blanket statement to cover themselves regarding laws in different countries”
Exactly — countries like North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia and the next Nazi Germany, should such a thing ever exist.
In other words: Google will always be on the dictator’s side.
Not because they have to — nobody’s forcing them to accept laws in Syria, Iran and Russia — but because they want to.
HmmpH1
Pricks in…
Pricks out..
Get Irving on the phone and sign up because you will need some heavy duty lawyering
And litigate with whom over what, exactly?
Google is free to unilaterally set whatever terms and conditions they see fit.
One word: antitrust. Google it.
I think you might need to Google it. There is nothing about this that is antitrust.
I am no expert but I believe that there may be a violation of antitrust law when a business that has an overwhelming majority of market share uses that market power to either force non competitive terms on consumers or force competitors in the same market out of business.
Here, a plaintiff (probably a representative of a class action) could argue that google/YouTube have an overwhelming market share and is using that power to force contract terms on suppliers
It’s a tough argument
“a plaintiff (probably a representative of a class action) could argue that google/YouTube have an overwhelming market share and is using that power to force contract terms on suppliers”
Might work in Europe.
It is a losing argument.
Two reasons why 1 In the USA capitalism is a religion that doesn’t allow blasphemies. 2 In court antitrust cases require lots of charts and lengthy boring explanations of macroeconomics that the average juror loses interest in after about two minutes at which point they start remembering that hilarious cat video they saw on YouTube that morning.
And litigate with whom over what, exactly?
i give enough solid tip-top free advice out, and get stolen from, and get bullied and threatened, and yet still i do what i feel is right and help many people who toss stones at me and treat me like garbage, so basically at this point, yall can figure it out for yourselves… 🙂
“so basically at this point, yall can figure it out for yourselves”
Thanks, we’ll do that.
Over at the Trichordist he believes there is a case and provides a link to contact the FTC
How would Google know if you release a track on another service but not youtube?
With a Google search maybe? It’ll show up under all the pirate sites…
You can release your music to BandCamp, i wouldn’t worry about that, let them initiate any claim as such and let them prove they are a similar provider in court…
Section 4(c) should super-cede Section 3(b)&(c), meaning they should allow any owner to remove what they want and how they want and that makes this contract unfair and therefore someone of high enough stature should just take it to court, cause that’s a bit heavy handed…
1) All of my catalog must be included in both the free and premium music service. Even if I don’t deliver all my music, because I’m a music partner, anything that a 3rd party uploads with my info in the description will be automatically included in the music service too. That does need to change, see comment above, someone will have to litigate, period…
2) All songs will be set to “montetize”, meaning there will be ads on them. As it should be, and can be changed, this is just the default setting, which is how you want it anyways…
3) I will be required to release new music on Youtube at the same time I release it anywhere else. So no more releasing to my core fans first on Bandcamp and then on iTunes. Similarly situated partners, not a big deal, release to BandCamp and your site which are not similarly situated partners, and then honestly with how they operate, do what you want and put the onus back on them to litigate you… If they want to bother taking something like that to court, giddyup, ill release to BandCamp and my own site whenever i want however i want and simply toss the ball back in their court, what about it??
4) All my catalog must be uploaded at high resolution, according to Google’s standard which is currently 320 kbps. Good, as it should, i can’t stand the tactic of uploading poor quality in hopes of luring someone to obtain a higher quality file…
5) The contract lasts for 5 years. Bit long, should be 2, more litigation… Stop negotiating, litigate…
🙂
“not a big deal”
You don’t have a clue.
This is the biggest deal since vinyl — and it’s going to destroy the only source of income you can’t live without as a recording artist:
iTunes.
“not a big deal”
You don’t have a clue.
This is the biggest deal since vinyl — and it’s going to destroy the only source of income you can’t live without as a recording artist:
iTunes.
Greetings and thanks for the reply, always much appreciated… 🙂
I’m sure you are right, i’m a very simple and uneducated man, but for the people in the back, perhaps you could Please explain why i don’t have a clue? Or please provide further detail and evidence into why i or anyone else should believe that i don’t have a clue? You may be right, i just want to ensure there is no character defamation going on and therefore all you must do, since you are sure i am, is post some more information into why i am, and that should be “easy for you”… thanks!
Please post YouTube’s definition of similarly situated partners…
Here is what i would do, and why i’m considering signing up with iTunes directly, but i might see what happens with an album i have sitting on the shelf with a distributor of mine, and not ticking anything but stores i feel are not similarly situated partners…
Release to bandcamp, release to iTunes, do not release to vimeo or any streaming site, and that’s that thank-you very much come again have a nice day!!!
I love google and youtube, but hey, play the game right? If they want to sue and litigate and bully and threaten and give themselves that bad PR, then by all means have at it, really though, id just drag it out in court, sure they can bully and pay everyone off and win that way, but in this day and age, everyone who needs to know will know immediately anyways… Ultimately it’s just not worth it to me, luckily i have many skills and talents i can utilize to my advantage to earn income, i only need to make the music, i dont need anyone else to hear it…
😉
You’re the guy who used to spam this site, right?
What’s your name again — Mayor, or something?
Spam??
No, more like Kobe Steak…
But i do understand that is yalls public positioning of me, anything to ruin my reputation and cause me character defamation, and honestly, dont worry, im so done with music it isnt even funny, so yall won, enjoy, whoop it up, celebrate and partay partay, my life is incredible at the moment and only getting better and music biz and all the people like yourself just make the business of it awful and unenjoyable and not anything im interested in pursuing, which is a major loss to the industry, whether you want to publicly admit so or not…
Just stick to yalls defamation of me, spread your rumors and gossip, make me look bad everywhere you can, all while i do the right things, play legally and honorably, and keep making historically relevant records and chiseling a fine body of work…
id much rather enjoy life then play schoolyard kindergarten games with biff bullies…
🙂
3) I will be required to release new music on Youtube at the same time I release it anywhere else. So no more releasing to my core fans first on Bandcamp and then on iTunes.
Hmmm, not sure this is such a great tactic for Google. Amazon flatly refused to deal with Bjork after she gave an exclusive to iTunes, and iTunes has done the same back to Amazon with all sorts of reported threats going back years. They want exclusives and artists can actually make a lot of money off of them because they are download-based — yet here, YouTube is effectively killing that possibility for every Music Key participating artists.
Paul, does this mean if an artist refuses to sign their music gets pulled down, but if a third party wants to upload part or all of their content YouTube allows this?
I’m not Paul, but here’s how it works:
YouTube has developed the perfect tool to remove — or monetize — stolen files: ContentID.
But there’s a catch. ContentID is also a central part of YouTube’s basic extortion model:
If you don’t sign YouTube Music Key’s contract, Google won’t use ContentID to remove the property it has stolen from you.
The service is, in other words, ransomware.
Google knowingly and deliberately makes it as hard as possible for you to remove the illegal content, unless you sign the contract. And you’ll never sell a song again if you do that because your entire catalogue will be available for free on YouTube — on release day.
“And you’ll never sell a song again if you do that because your entire catalogue will be available for free on YouTube — on release day”
That seems as presumptuous as it is hyperbolic. Larry Page hates the music business, and for many good reasons, but I hardly think his strategy is to ‘torpedo all new releases’ in the manner you present.
Three points suggest you might be underestimating their intent:
1) Many rights holders act like Chicken Little around new services, platforms, and business models. They have developed a reputation for idiocy and panic, leaving potential partners to use highly unilateral agreements to protect themselves from the dependably Pavlovian lizard brain overreaction. Accordingly, your quote above seems a tad overwrought.
2) Like most entertainment contracts, it’s two pages of ‘What I’ll Do FOR You’ and fifty pages of ‘What I Can Do TO YOU’. Just because potentially punitive rights are granted doesn’t mean they’ll be used and abused to your detriment. Generally the goal of agreements is to create a revenue engine of mutually benefit. What’s good for content creators is generally good for the revenue-seeking sites that host content. Take shade in that tree.
3) Google ascribes to extra long term business planning. They pour enormous resources into bets that will take years or decades to pay off. They are hardly inclined to bake a grenade into YouTube, as it’s a tremendously valuable portal and platform, central to their longterm strategy. Given all the activity around other MCN’s and the splintering of the hosted video market, why would they drive content deals to their competition?
Take a deep breath. Maybe the sky isn’t falling.
Hyperbolic? Really?
Reality check for you, my friend: If you sign with Google, your entire catalogue will be available on YouTube for free — on release day.
So, will the average fan…
1) Play the music video for free on YouTube, or
2) Log into her iTunes account, order the song, pay for it, download an audio-only version and play it?
Decisions, decisions…
streaming and file downloading are two very different things and have nothing to do with each-other…
now as boradband increases and wifi spots go up, it could sort of become more of an issue, which i have an issue with, but otherwise they cant really be compared as being much of a problem…
my internet rates went up recently, and im not too happy about it, all so some people can upload and stream more cat videos etc.???? im not too happy having to cover the costs for other peoples usage and consumption and think that ISP’s should be regulated to change their charging habits, but hey, whatever, is what it is, nothing im gonna lose a wink of sleep over, i need to ensure i keep getting that 8-9 hours, at the end of the day we are all just a spec of dust in the sahara dessert, we are just sitting on a spec of dust in the middle of nowhere for a fraction of a planck time, spinning out of control with no way out, so ultimately i think enjoying life now, after thousands and millions of years of utter painful torturous living, is the name of the game, at least for me anyways…
the good ol american dream is dead, so it will be interesting to see how their marketing and advertising and show tactics will keep it looking alive instead of the old anni dummy it has become…
if you want to be some psycho villain super deity for the masses, those guys are currently looking and looking hard, its a screw job, but youll go down in history and be rich and famous, but your life will suck, but hey, its a job right???
good luck with it all, remember to enjoy what time you have…
written fast with no forethought and no editing, while listening to youtube…
🙂
“Hyperbolic? Really?”
Fuck yes, and making trouble over Google’s intentions, which you might not understand as well as you think you do.
Fragmentation is your mortal enemy. The more the markets and platforms splinter, the more risk they present to investors, the less innovation occurs, the greater stagnation ensues, driving market atrophy.
Sound familiar? It should. You’re living in it.
YouTube (Google) is preparing for market warfare, as your proxy and partner, to support a (planned) paid tier for the biggest music service the world has ever seen. The simple truth is, nobody knows what product/market fit looks like and thus they need extraordinary flexibility to A/B test.
Your interests are more aligned than you realize.
There’s a shit ton of hard work ahead, from which all participating artists and rights holders will benefit if they succeed. The fact is, they don’t know how long r&d going to take, or how many product iterations will be required, or what alchemy of features and benefits will tease the market into action. All that fruit is born incrementally, through comprehensive testing and diligence.
Just know they don’t want to give anything away for free that the customer would be willing to pay for. To assume otherwise is to misunderstand the long term objective of optimizing revenue for themselves and rights holders included.
The *only* certainty here is that you’re fucked until someone finds a way for you to make money creating music. Sorry they need to tie you up…but it’s the most efficient way of saving everyone onboard.
See, the beauty of it — and the reason the press loves this story — is not only that Google is harrassing innocent victims and strong-arming the press to remove the evidence.
That’s what they do.
No, the real kicker is that Google, for once, chose the wrong victim:
Zoë Keating is obviously respected, entirely innocent, talented and popular — but she’s also a former software developer.
And that’s where it went sideways for Google…
None of that refutes or diminishes my points above.
I know and have worked with Zoë Keating. She’s the real deal. Smart, talented, articulate. The kind of artist you want to see win.
But it’s a little narrow and Hollywood cliché to cut all the characters into binary roles. She’s not a helpless victim, and Google isn’t the evil villain. That’s media fodder fueling the story perhaps, but it distracts from the ever-nuanced truth.
Could Google bend over backwards to build a SSO dashboard through which rights holders could dynamically admin their millions of published works? Sure. Given tenfold the current effort.
The smart play, arguably, is to prove the paid market first, then optimize afterward. In broad strokes, that seems the more likely strategy.
The downside is that the first product won’t work for everybody, and some customers will be vocal about how it sucks. Enter Zoë Keating.
YMMV
“She’s not a helpless victim”
Yes, she is: She may be able to sue Matt McLernon for defamation, but there’s no way she can undo the harm Google’s bait & switch strategy has done to her business.
She’s either going to lose her network or sign a suicidal contract she doesn’t want to sign.
“Google isn’t the evil villain.”
Yes, it is.
Except that she didn’t put up those 10,000 videos. They are illegal uses of her music and contentID is the only way to make money off them. By not agreeing to these terms she loses that ability, and gets her channel blocked as well.
The *only* certainty here is that you’re fucked until someone finds a way for you to make money creating music. Sorry they need to tie you up…but it’s the most efficient way of saving everyone onboard.
haha all good mind reader, its true, thats not anything that bothers me, thats just the way it is, i can accept many a thing, human idiocy and giving away rights and freedoms for free junk, no, no i cant accept that!!!
so long as they leave the tying me up to women/girls im attracted to who may decide to use some dominatrix tactics on me, well, what can i say, thats ok… but no more of that george konstanza seinfeld tie ups where you strip me naked chain me to the bed, tease and tease and then go through my pockets and wallets for money and then sell my clothes to some thrift shop or whatever, thats not the kind of tie ups im into…
however, if they dont stop being pirates, you know the thing they claim they hate so much and are against, then ill have no other choice but to force each and every captain, and their crew, to walk the plank into the frigid cold waters of the Atlantic, as i am the iceberg…
😉
anyways…
Your interests are more aligned than you realize.
There’s a shit ton of hard work ahead, from which all participating artists and rights holders will benefit if they succeed. The fact is, they don’t know how long r&d going to take, or how many product iterations will be required, or what alchemy of features and benefits will tease the market into action. All that fruit is born incrementally, through comprehensive testing and diligence.
ive seen this play before, its the same play, just tweaked a bit now, its a stall tactic, luckily that works just fine for me, maybe we are aligned, who knows, not that i would stall, why would i be stalling?
anyways, they hammered that long tail plan and attention plan, to cause inactivity, to get people to wait, dont worry, the long tail will come together and you will be ballin, meanwhile we know who is ballin, and it aint anyone waiting for some longtail, its the same plays again and again, yall are playing 2 sqaure hopscotch…
anyways, i dont know anything, me simple man, uneducated, hit stick on stone make noise, pat head rub belly grunt for woman to hit on head with club, make fire with foot, dances with wolves or swims with sharks, heck, you caress those sharks the right way and you can ride them like Toruk Makto…
stupid white man, only they would make such smoke that way…
lol
ahh sundays, gotta love sundays, sundays are my fundays….
I’m almost tempted to go as far as saying Google should be applauded for this.
Why? Because it’s fucking annoying when I can’t find my favorite song on youtube.
So let’s get this right. Screw the artist, I want, what I want, for free and if you’re an artist that doesn’t give me what I want f… You.
Why would an artist have any desire to be your lackey?
A lot of people in the music industry talk about Google as evil. I don’t think they are evil. I think they, like other tech companies, are just idealistic in a way that works best for them.
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Just out of curiosity why are you against wanting to upload high quality? (Though 320 isn’t THAT high)
But yea, I’m convinced if these companies just let you opt out even some music for the free tier, they’d come off much better. That’s always been kinda silly to me, especially since withholding some large artist catalogues would probably convince some people to subscribe.
“I need to sign on to the new Youtube music services agreement or I will have my Youtube channel blocked”
Yes, this won’t work.
We need a YouTube alternative.
Paul, please hire Keating!
She is the best music writer out there.
+1 I love the always articulate, thoughtful, reasoned, and intelligently smirky posts by Ms. Keating. I hope she is compensated by DMN is some monetary way. She gets these set of eyes to graze past the adverts.
“What should I do?”
Depends:
You’ll never sell a song again if you sign with Google! Your entire catalogue will be available on YouTube Music Key — online and offline — on release day!
As for existing YouTube alternatives:
First, you have VIDescape.com — still in beta, but already claims to pay more than YouTube.
And soon we should see Vessel.com, backed by former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar and no less than Bezos Expeditions.
Then there is Yahoo: According to Slate a couple of months ago, the company has been “working on a plan to lure some of YouTube’s most popular stars and networks to show their stuff on the site”.
Yahoo’s plan “aimed at taking advantage of persistent complaints by both video creators and owners, who think that they don’t make enough money on YouTube“.
Many assumed that Yahoo would use its own video platform Screen, but Slate added that Yahoo will let its artists use Tumblr instead.
But the best solution for the industry would obviously be to launch a free, high-quality, ad-financed, artist-friendly, better-paying YouTube alternative — owned and operated by the industry — and use that service exclusively.
I’d like to add another issue:
If Music Key turns out to be the flop it’s expected to be — nobody outside of Google thinks users will pay for a service they already get for free — you will still be forced to give all your music away for free on release day for the next 5 years.
And 5 years is a very long time…
that isn’t me posting that, do not let the … fool people, time to start thinking up a good pseudonym so people can no longer do this to me…1
lol, what are you even talking about?
Dozens of DMN commenters post under the ‘Anonymous’ handle.
(You’re automatically assigned that ‘user name’ if you post without logging in…)
In an almost 100% unlikely coincidence, I just got a mail from one of the services mentioned above — Vessel — that it is possible to try a free month now.
Weird, I haven’t thought of that site for months…
Anyway, you can try it now. I have no idea how much they pay artists though.
i said this was happening and this was why Videscape was built. Check it out it’s the highest paying streaming audio and video service out there. Still in Beta but with a vast amount of features coming out in March including new look and feel GUI
I cannot tell you how much I hope you’ll succeed, I’ve never been more interested in your site.
Can you reveal a bit about your payments to content owners, compared to YouTube?
hi there, last months payments were 0.61 cents per stream compared to youtube 0.00640 cents and spotifys 0.01 cents. You can upload audio and video to our site and the revenue share is quite simple. Every penny we get in from our 5 revenue streams is added together, running costs are removed then 50% is paid to the content creators. We anticipate at 1 million users per month we could see payneys of between 5-9 cents per stream as we have no upper cap on how much the site pays out. We are endeavouring to make straining a viable source of income for everyone
“last months payments were 0.61 cents per stream compared to youtube 0.00640 cents”
Whoa! [Insert shocked smiley]
@Paul — don’t you think it’s about time to ask Mr. Oswald to tell us a bit about his site?
I know it’s still in beta (see my wish list below), but I think a lot of your readers would like to hear more.
How much traffic can you handle? And how does your site work on phones?
A million simultaneous users currently but expandable to pretty much any volume. and yes our site works on most phones, apps will however be built at a later date
Thank you.
Regarding VIDESCAPE:
*You need to hire a designer. If you already got one, you need to fire her and get another. No, you can not do this yourself.
*Thumbnails are too small and uninviting and have different formats (YouTube’s black bar solution for non-16:9 works).
*Text doesn’t align and/or covers other text.
*The default player window is too small (you need to get rid of the Related Videos; it doesn’t belong there).
*The logo is really nice — though hot red, or other warm colors, always beats cold blue (and you’ve got a lot of icy cold blue on the site) — but there’s too much white space around the logo text, and the white-on-black textblock below it is too wide, too black and too ugly, plus it’s the most visible and attention-grabbing part of the page because black and white is the strongest visual contrast you can have. You wan’t people to look at the player and the thumbnails.
*Similarly, the Upload/Login field on top is too black and too ugly.
*A video quality selector would be nice.
Fix that, and you may be the world’s first YouTube alternative to succeed.
If you doubt the accuracy of this unsolicited, anonymous advise, then please do yourself a favor and pay a top designer to at least evaluate your site. S/he can do that in an hour and it will save you a fortune in the long run.
hi there, firstly we use the Amazon AWS server backbone. Right now we can handle a million simultaneous users, however there is virtually no limit on what we can handle with our infrastructure
In regards to the design points; I fully agree with you and the design is being worked on and will be launched early March as I previously mentioned.
OMG, don’t get our hopes up… 🙂
right now we have about 100,000 media files and 5,000 users a week of so. We haven’t started any press or promotional activities yet as we want the site to be finished and out of beta first
I just asked you not to get our hopes up! 🙂
Seriously, I can’t wait. Great to hear you have a solid launch strategy.
Here’s the most relevant question about your new company. Will you guarantee you will not sell when Google or some other vampire squid offers you 20-50 million? Yeah, I didnt think so. I’ve seen so many great stock photo companies come and go in the last 10 years its ridiculous, all promising great things, and then poof! we sold to Getty or Corbis.
Our exit plan is currently a flotation via AIM or any major stock exchange. The reason for this is that the buyers of the company would be typically google and that would be completely against the ethos of myself and the company
Our exit plan is currently a flotation via AIM or any major stock exchange. The reason for this is that the buyers of the company would be typically google and that would be completely against the ethos of myself and the company
Don’t sweat it Tom, no one has any morals or values or integrity anymore, especially in the states… These days, its get in and cash out as soon as possible for as much as possible, by any means necessary, no one stopping anyone or fixing any loops or keeping anyone honest, just straight mafia gooning all over again, and the more you bank the more you will be lauded and rewarded and celebrated, and obviously no one cares to do anything about it and no one will judge you negatively, or at least, no one that has any power to do anything, so again, don’t worry about it…
Sure back in the day people used to have valor and honor, they had courage and values and morals and would do the right thing and stand up for their rights and their freedoms, but, those days are long gone, so build it, pimp it, sell it to google or whoever and laugh all the way to the bank…
thats the world we live in, thats people these days, thats what people want, spineless, legless, snakes…
“no one has any morals or values or integrity anymore”
Nonsense.
prove otherwise then else let it stand in perpetuity by default as it is and should be…
This is an important thread — many of us really want to know more about YouTube alternatives.
Could you please try not to ruin it with irrelevant comments?
Thank you.
hi there, greetings and the kindest salutations… that being said, i would say in the nicest way, just please dont reply to me, im working and im working hard here, there is a method to my madness, and besides, i have enough trolls trolling me and enough people tossing stones and bullying and threatening, i dont need anymore please, im not your enemy and im not derailing threads…
maybe you will learn something, and if you have noticed, i mostly leave him and his alternative alone, so again, just leave it out, please and the kindest and warmest of thank-yous…
whine to Paul, it’s his site, his backend, he can easily unapprove or delete any comment he wants at any time he wants, all im trying to do is help, everybody, whether you see as such or believe so or not…
thanks…
🙂
how’s the sunshine?
you’re entitled to your opinions and thoughts however I pride myself in my honesty and integrity and this is also borne out in my ventures
Whoah, I can’t remember the last time I had to read DMN before breakfast.
But that headline is still up! 🙂
Paul 1 — Google 0.
Sure is exciting, isn’t it!?
This does NOT apply to all artists who put their work up on YT, but rather those who have Content ID monetization accounts. I read Zoe’s article this morning. She’s quite clear about that.
However YOUR headline, “YouTube Is Removing Any Artist That Refuses to License Its Subscription Service…” appears to mischaracterize the issue.
The responsible thing to do is to correct that and publish a note to those who may have read an earlier, incorrect version of your own post, to make the facts clear to people who might otherwise think their non-monetized YT account is in jeopardy.
If in doubt, I suggest people read Zoe’s post, itself.
Who cares about non-monetized YT accounts — they are, per definition, worthless.
And again: Paul’s headline is identical to lots of other headlines on BBC, Forbes, Financial Times, TIME, etc, especially from June 2014, and most of these headlines were directly based on statements from Robert Kyncl — YouTube’s own head of content and business operations — who told Financial Times in June 2014 that YouTube would start blocking videos “in a matter of days” to ensure that all content on the new platform was governed by its new contractual terms.
Please see Paul’s other article “YouTube Says Zoë Keating’s Claims Are ‘Patently False'” for more information.
boom…
http://www.directlyrics.com/outta-here-singer-esmee-denters-auditions-on-the-voice-uk-almost-doesnt-get-picked-news.html
as ive been saying about a bunch of different things… oh heil the hollywood 2.0ers and the new industry youtube sensation super deity stars…
its all going down innit?? wowzers… top 10 hit stars now going on a played out redundant star maker show, looking for a bad deal?? again, wowzers…
still its the right play for any career of any monetary substance….
“Anyone starting up a new video service?”
In fact, yes.
Most video services are just slight variations of each other – tweaks on existing ad and subscription models.
We’re doing something totally different, with the goal of giving artists control over their work, their audiences, and their businesses. You’re gonna love it. 🙂
“We”
Who’s we?
“We” are not public yet, unfortunately.
When we are (est. 2-4 weeks), I’ll be all over these sites inviting artists to come check us out, talk to us personally about our vision, and tell us what they like/don’t like. Our site will work nicely for labels but it’s made for independent artists.
Here’s something fun to think about:
In an earlier comment, Tom Oswald wrote about his new platform Videscape. He wrote “last months payments [on Videscape] were 0.61 cents per stream compared to youtube 0.00640 cents and spotifys 0.01 cents.”
Well, Videscape’s 0.61 cents per stream is definitely better than YouTube’s 0.00640 cents and Spotify’s 0.01 cents per stream.
But why should platforms control how much an artist’s work sells for?
Shouldn’t that be left up to the artist and his or her audience?
Maybe your fans would pay 1 cent per stream, or 0.9 cents, or 3 cents. Artificial pricing (from platforms, rather than fans) hurts artists.
The relationship is between the artist and his/her audience. When a third party takes control of that relationship – like on YouTube or Spotify – artists almost always lose.
So, you know . . . let’s fix that 🙂
p.s. Love that Tom Oswald is offering an alternative to YouTube. Check it out at http://www.videscape.com. Competition in this space is good for creators.
Thanks for the mention Sarah, very much appreciated
“We” are not public yet, unfortunately.
When we are (est. 2-4 weeks), I’ll be all over inviting artists to check us out, talk to us personally about our principles and our vision, and give us feedback. We work nicely for labels but our platform was built specifically for independent artists.
Here’s a fun thing to ponder:
Why should platforms dictate how much an artist’s work is worth to his fans?
Tom Oswald points out in an earlier comment that his platform Videscape paid out .61 cents per stream last month, compared to YouTube’s 0.00640 cents and Spotify’s 0.01 cents. per stream. Now, it’s certainly an improvement and that rocks – but what if your fans would actually pay 1 cent per stream, or 0.9 cents per stream, or 3 cents per stream for your work?
The relationship that matters in this context is the relationship between the artist and his/her audience.
Whenever a platform takes control of that relationship – like on Spotify or YouTube – the artist almost always loses.
So, you know…. let’s fix that 🙂
I thought I should point out here that we have no cap on our payments per stream, we are fully expecting to pay out at least 6-8 cents per stream as the platfo
Grows 😉
Tom,
That’s awesome, and I hope you get there.
But the amount isn’t my point – my point is that the payout is determined by the platform and by advertisers.
Payout should reflect the value of the exchange between artist and audience, and an ad-based (or subscription based) model simply does not allow for that.
Also, I’d love to know how you expect payments per stream to go up so significantly when your payments are derivative of advertising revenue. You’re competing with big players (now including Vessel) for advertising dollars, which are dropping dramatically, not increasing.
Hi Sarah,
The reason we expect our payments to go up significantly is because our payments arevt based solely on Ad or subscription revenue but a combination of multiple revenues. We have also heavily invested in some technologies that I’m not going into on a public forum but ensure our costs don’t rise as the platform grows 😉
I wish you the best of luck with your endeavour and look forward to seeing the site when it launches
Tom,
That sounds great, I look forward to seeing Videscape grow. It’s certainly in the best interests of artists to have more options. 🙂
That i fully agree with, perhaps we should chat behind the scenes and see if we can assist each other in any way? Feel free to connect with me on linkedin should you fancy a chat
Best of luck to both of you! 🙂
Thanks, Anonymous! 🙂
Tom, that’d be great, will be in touch.
Zoë Keating, thank you for the article. YouTube Music Key, while in beta, has temporarily put many artist’s works as ‘Various Artist – Topic’ instead of their actual artist name. Here is an example: Over 4 hours of my music, but only two albums of it have ‘Steven Cravis – Topic’ as they should, the rest, you’ll see on the right column only say ‘Various Artists’ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAcG9CUa5R2Tx0jekUDgh1H4Ev8Ovl94O I’ve submitted feedback to YouTube to please fix this, but they won’t respond at this point.
At this point, if any artists are interested to see if their music exists on YouTube Music Key, on YouTube you can search for the channel ‘Various Artists – Topic’ and then within that channel’s search bar, (lower down) you can search your artist name. Additionally you may be able to find your own channel, with [Your artist name] – Topic as the channel name.
“I’ve submitted feedback to YouTube to please fix this, but they won’t respond at this point”
Send a mail to YouTube spokesman Matt McLernon:
mattmclernon(at)google.com
Here is a good blog post about the situation, back in July 2014:
http://blog.thewildcat.co.uk/post/91151130569/some-cold-analysis-of-the-youtube-indie-labels
This is so incredibly well put. Fuck them all.
Stick It youtube !!!! Hello Vimeo
Same old story. instead of a large record company making demands it the new marketing medium. Its simple to say no thanks, as there are many quality independent artists who don’t want to sell out like this. We own our music. Youtube is nothing more than a video playing site and can be copied and improved, it owns nothing so it now wants to steal things. Not going to happen
In My personal opinion you guys make some good points and it was a decent reads. Quite a bit of flaming and back-forth related flair but I understand the artist’s point and her independence throughout her life has given her this mind set and mentality. Just sign the contract and live your life corporations run the world and you are picking a fight that can not be won which is actually only one of the infinite unspoken & unknown about corruptions that the public us will never even be aware of. Good luck with your music career and just try to be happy that you are alive and even able to moan and criticize this alarmingly tight agreement that you should not fight. Sometimes you have to go with the wave and not against it..even if you get past that wave your in an ocean and all there really happens to be is endless waves based on changing weather and other factors. It is a cycle that will never end and we are only a small portion of this eternal conflict merely a grain of sand in the beach of the universe.
You know, it was one person that refused to give up her seat that changed the world. Someone has to get the ball rolling. Speak up now! Or the inch you give today becomes a mile taken tomorrow. Stand up for your rights and your beliefs. Or eventually you will have none.
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/06/17/youtube-not-going-remove-music-videos
The law of God frees, The law of man constricts others putting them into bondage. Leave people alone. That is what Jesus did.
It is natural for the young to view the nude form. They think to themselves when young: why are the adults acting weird about a normal thing? Did God say, make adult only? Did God say, censor the nude form? Seeing that God did not give those commands or laws why do we implement them? Did God say. All of the things that God made has a stigma to it. Man made things don’t have that stigma to it. The devil wants God made things to have a stigma to it. Let people use their own discretion as to what they want to post. They alone are responsible to God for what they post. People are put into bondage when people try to control what another person does. People end up obeying the doctrines of men rather than the laws of God.
Google and AdSense are pure evil and think they are gods. They have entirely too much power. I’m a singer/songwriter, have real videos with real views, and I’m not even allowed to participate in ad revenue program because of an unknown mistake I made that they will neither explain to me nor allow me to appeal. That’s it. Blocked forever. And let me make it clear that I didn’t do anything unethical like click on my own ads. They simply kicked me out and said I violated their policies and am not allowed to participate in adsense, EVER.
I am a part of the content ID licensing program through digital distribution/cd baby, but that’s it. It looks like based on this article that may be coming to an end. It seems like the amount of money artist can make releasing music just keeps reducing and reducing, even for major artists. Streaming pays an insulting amount. I’m disgusted with them all. I miss the days of owning an actual physical record.
I hope someone does start a new video platform.
I have a catalog of music that a number of people think is some of the most amazing works they’ve ever heard but I will never release any of it as a result of the stupidity and greed of humanity. It will die with me as is directed in my will. Congratulations to those of you destroying the world for your own selfish pleasures and jealousies!!