Music Comes Back To Life On YouTube In The UK

from the but-who-caved? dept

Thu, Sep 3rd 2009 9:21pm — Mike Masnick

I still can't quite figure out what sort of leverage the various music labels and collections societies think they have over YouTube. Musicians who have embraced YouTube have found that it can help boost their careers and turn out more fans at their shows. And, without music videos, YouTube still gets a ton of traffic. The only ones who lose out with the music taken off the site are the musicians and the labels -- and that was seen in the way the musicians who first complained that Google wasn't paying them enough then freaked out that Google took down all their videos in the UK, after being unable to agree on a payment scheme. Clearly, the musicians valued the exposure a lot more than Google needed to have those videos.

It only took about six months, but PRS for Music (the UK collection society) and Google have finally worked out a deal so that the music videos will return to YouTube. It's not entirely clear what the details are, but it certainly sounds like it was PRS who caved (which makes sense, given the leverage situation). Google is paying a lump sum, rather than a per stream fee. PRS had been pushing for per stream fees that were significantly higher than anything Google could have made on ads. So it certainly seems like PRS folded here, and Google tossed them some spare change just to get them to stop whining and get the videos back online.

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Filed Under: music, uk, videos
Companies: google, prs, youtube

9 Comments

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Blatant Coward (profile), 3 Sep 2009 @ 11:05pm

Big 'ol Fuzzy hug
Hmph, Google should have left them off till PRS paid them! Heck I would have dropped the songs from google searches too. Let them sell while invisible.
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Jesse, 3 Sep 2009 @ 11:31pm

Yea, but if PRS asked for something extremely ridiculous, and then "caves" for something ridiculous, can Google really be congratulated?
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mike allen (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 1:12am

what you tube need to do
They should support their users who use music on the sound track of their videos and not P* them off by killing audio.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Sep 2009 @ 1:18am

Re: Big 'ol Fuzzy hug
Thing is, Google can't start charging them for their music videos since YouTube itself is free for 100% of the rest of users, and the labels themselves aren't necessarily the ones uploading the videos (otherwise they wouldn't be crying "infringement!" every second). But I agree that they should haven't accepted anything short of "if you want, I'll put your videos for free again", Google had no reason to pay them at all.
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Chargone (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 1:20am

heh. i still hold up TVNZ as the gold standard for how to do this: they locked the relevant music companies out and refused to negotiate so that they ended up buying AD SPACE for their music videos. which is... insanely expensive for that length of time on tv. didn't let up until that started to hurt enough that the deal was back to 'we'll give them to you, you show them. that is all'.

or at least, that's how i seem to remember it going.

honestly, if a carrier is giving in on this sort of thing for anything short of no cash changing hands, they're loosing out. really, they should be charging [though maybe not much] for the service. hehehe.

[i may have my terminology an details wrong here. much like American newspapers, i don't fact check much :D]
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Enrico Suarve, 4 Sep 2009 @ 2:07am

Shame on Google
The PRS are nothing better than old school protection racketeering thugs with slimy lawyers

Giving them anything is nothing better than assisting organised crime in my book. Any group who start leaning on soup kitchens and the like to turn off their radio or pay up, since owning a $5 portable has somehow turned them into broadcasters, need stamping out like the vermin they are

Every time I see a 'PRS' sticker or license inside a shop or pub I want to puke
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Richard, 4 Sep 2009 @ 3:05am

Did the music really go missing?
I didn't notice - everything I wanted to hear was still there.
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Hephaestus (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 8:29am

Re:
A links on the TVNZ story

April 1986
only one I could find .... any more out there ???
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Sep 2009 @ 3:04pm

Thanks google!!!!!!!!!!!
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