Ok Go Singer Explains How Lack Of Embedding Videos Hurts Everyone
from the embed-me dept
As he's done before, Ok Go's lead singer Damian Kulash has taken to the NY Times Op-Ed pages to discuss the fact that his own record label seems a bit clueless. Basically, he's repeating what he said a few weeks ago on the band's website, claiming that YouTube only pays royalties on videos streamed on site, rather than embeds (someone from YouTube told me this is untrue, but when asked for specific confirmation I got no response). However, what is interesting, is that Kulash highlights two things:- Their original video (the treadmills one) was made entirely on their own outside of EMI's influence, and the success of that video has helped make EMI and the band a lot of money:
In 2006 we made a video of us dancing on treadmills for our song "Here It Goes Again." We shot it at my sister's house without telling EMI, our record company, and posted it on the fledgling YouTube without EMI's permission. Technically, this put us afoul of our contract, since we need our record company's approval to distribute copies of the songs that they finance. It also exposed YouTube to all sorts of liability for streaming an EMI recording across the globe. But back then record companies saw videos as advertisements, so if my band wanted to produce them, and if YouTube wanted to help people watch them, EMI wasn't going to get in the way.
As the age of viral video dawned, "Here It Goes Again" was viewed millions, then tens of millions of times. It brought big crowds to our concerts on five continents, and by the time we returned to the studio, 700 shows, one Grammy and nearly three years later, EMI's ledger had a black number in our column. To the band, "Here It Goes Again" was a successful creative project. To the record company, it was a successful, completely free advertisement. - Once EMI disabled embedding on that video, the number of views dropped drastically, harming everyone's bottom line:
When EMI disabled the embedding feature, views of our treadmill video dropped 90 percent, from about 10,000 per day to just over 1,000. Our last royalty statement from the label, which covered six months of streams, shows a whopping $27.77 credit to our account.
Clearly the embedding restriction is bad news for our band, but is it worth it for EMI? The terms of YouTube's deals with record companies aren't public, but news reports say that the labels receive $.004 to $.008 per stream, so the most EMI could have grossed for the streams in question is a little over $5,400.
Damian does go on to claim that record labels are an important part of the business in funding new acts, and helping them do more expensive things early on, while aggregating risk. Indeed. I don't deny that at all -- and, as I've said plenty of times before -- there's still a place for labels that wish to do things like that. The problem is that the labels have set up their business models to rely on a single revenue stream, album sales, that is increasingly less important. The rest of the music ecosystem is thriving and will continue to do so, and if it's not the old record labels giving advances and aggregating risk to promising bands, others will step in to fill that gap. There's too much opportunity and too much money for it not to happen.
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Filed Under: damian kulash, music, ok go, viral
Companies: emi
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Everyone but the corn farmers.
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If it's true that royalties are only paid on direct views, then content creators should be focusing on giving people good reasons to head to YouTube - in many cases it could be as simple as a quick "See our channel for more" bump at the beginning/end of a video, but it could get more creative with contests in the comments or something like that. YouTube could provide people more tools to do this too, ultimately benefiting everyone.
Or everyone can just disable embedding. I'm sure that will work just as well.
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Um...
That last point you're "qubbling" with? His original point says exactly what you are attempting to dispute: by prohibiting embeds, EMI could have made at most $5400, which is a pathetically small figure and far less than that much promotion should generate.
I can only think that you read $5400 as a large figure and thought that Damian was saying that was an upside for EMI. In fact, he's saying the opposite, and you're somehow arguing a point where you two are in agreement.
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Re: Um...
The loss of overall business from cutting out free advertising is a point Mike often makes, and Damian clearly made in his article.
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Re: Um...
I know that.
That last point you're "qubbling" with? His original point says exactly what you are attempting to dispute: by prohibiting embeds, EMI could have made at most $5400, which is a pathetically small figure and far less than that much promotion should generate.
Right. I recognize what he's saying -- I just think he should point out how they could have made much, much more than that tiny amount. The "quibble" is in not showing the ancillary benefits as well, even if he implied them.
I can only think that you read $5400 as a large figure and thought that Damian was saying that was an upside for EMI. In fact, he's saying the opposite, and you're somehow arguing a point where you two are in agreement.
Uh, no. That's not what I meant at all. $5,400 is nothing in this context.
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Can someone explain this to me?
Sure when I give an interview about my business to a newspaper and people buy that copy because of the interview someone else makes money off of my interview other than me, but I get free advertising!
Sure I let some website see my product before it is for sale and then they talk about it and thus make the money not me. Which again is free advertising.
I just really don't understand how any business model WOULD NOT include giving everyone and anyone the opportunity to talk about your product. Sure it has to make bottom line sense who gets free (but costs the company)stuff but when you product is "infinite content" I would think that giving everyone every chance to talk about it and then maybe buy it would be pretty high up on the marketing agenda. Internet buzz is worth A LOT more and MUCH cheaper than a 30 second commercial on the local evening news.
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Re: Can someone explain this to me?
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Record companies' and bands' futured tied together?
- Damian Kulash Jr
This is the point that I have a quibble with. Kulash appears to see the problems being faced by the big recording companies, but then misreads the solution. He's saying that the fates of both big music and musicians are inextricably tied together. But as his band proves, you can promote your band without a huge bankroll. If he doesn't want to or doesn't know how to monetize the attention from his videos, fair enough, but that doesn't mean that big music is the only ones that can do this. In short, if record companies can't "adapt to this new world", they will die out, not the talented bands.
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Re: Record companies' and bands' futured tied together?
No, he is saying that the fate of "many talented bands" is tied to the big music companies. I would have to agree with this. Although you CAN self-promote and build a business around your own band (with the help of technology) these days, many bands will need help with this. At the moment, the big recording companies are really the source of this "help".
I think what he is saying is that if they can get their act together and help new bands come up with workable business models, everyone will be better off. If they don't, the gap between the reign of these big companies and up-and-coming companies that do "get it" will result in a lot of great bands never getting off the ground.
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Re: Re: Record companies' and bands' futured tied together?
That's a mighty big if. It's like saying, if a fish were a chair, it would be a chair. The if is so big in fact that it's all but irrelevant to this discussion. The future of music, the solution that is truly going to make everyone better off, isn't going to include a company that will be recognizable as what the big recording companies are today.
If they don't, the gap between the reign of these big companies and up-and-coming companies that do "get it" will result in a lot of great bands never getting off the ground.
If that's what he really meant, I would agree. Your interpretation makes sense, but based on the tone of his editorial, I still think that's he's placing too much faith in the record companies, relying on them to solve the problem instead of the up-and-coming musicians themselves or news businesses that can help the up-and-coming musicians.
Also, so what if the recording companies fail and the "many talented bands" who put their faith in them never get off the ground? Since when has there been a shortage of talented bands? The issue is not whether thousands of bands will fail. That's happned ever since there have been bands. The question is will there be a shortage in the marketplace of music made by great bands. My opinion is that even if every record company in the world were to disappear today, there would still be plenty of really good music to listen to out there.
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Re: Re: Record companies' and bands' futured tied together?
So, yes, perhaps the death of large labels will cause some (perhaps many) bands to remain undiscovered and unsuccessful, but is it more or less than now?
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