YouTube Has Paid $1 Billion To Copyright Holders Via ContentID; What Happened To Stories About It Destroying Content?

from the curious... dept

Wed, Oct 15th 2014 8:03am — Mike Masnick

Remember those days when YouTube was "killing" the entertainment industry. You don't even have to look back very far. There are artists who still insist that YouTube is killing creativity and is nothing but a den of piracy. Viacom spent years trying to argue that YouTube was the equivalent of Napster, but for video, until that lawsuit finally settled just a few months ago.

However, reality is looking pretty different these days. A couple months ago, Businessweek had a big cover story about how YouTube has become Hollywood's "hit factory", and just this week, YouTube revealed that its ContentID program, which allows copyright holders to monetize unauthorized uses of their works, had paid out over $1 billion since its inception. This isn't to say there aren't problems with ContentID. We've noted in the past the problems with false flagging, revenue diversion and other issues -- but the simple fact is that it appears to be making money for content creators. Actually, quite a lot of money.

And this brings us back to a key point that we've hit on over and over and over again: given a chance to operate, these business models tend to come about without the need to pass draconian copyright laws and without the need to completely takedown and destroy businesses. When allowed to thrive, innovate and experiment, it's only natural that workable business models develop. We've seen it over and over again in the industry. The recording industry insisted radio was going to kill the entire industry -- and then it made the industry into a massive juggernaut. The movie industry insisted that the VCR would be its "Boston Strangler," but four years later home video outpaced the box office in generating revenue for the studios.

The continuous claims of "Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley" on copyright issues is so clearly bogus. As we've argued for years, it's the innovations of the tech industry that keep saving the entertainment industry over and over and over again. There's no "war" between the two when it appears that Silicon Valley is the one supplying the "weapons" that's making Hollywood very, very wealthy.

But when will those folks in Hollywood learn this? Instead, they keep attacking these new services, demanding more copyright "enforcement" and blocking these forms of innovation. Who knows what other innovations might have occurred had the industry not shut down Veoh. Or Grokster. Before the US government completely shut down Megaupload, it was experimenting with new revenue models were attracting the interest of lots of famous musicians. Imagine if that had been allowed to continue. Who knows what other kinds of cool business models would be in place today making more money for artists.

Attacking innovation seems to be the legacy entertainment industry's default position, no matter how many times that innovation actually opens up new markets, provides new revenue streams and makes pretty much everyone better off. Oh, except some of the gatekeepers. Those guys tend not to be able to keep quite as much of the revenue generated by these new platforms. And maybe, just maybe, that's the real reason they're so angry about innovation.

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Filed Under: business models, contentid, copyright, culture, experiments, hollywood, innovation, silicon valley, youtube
Companies: google, youtube

55 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 8:10am

I'd be very interested to know exactly where that billion dollars went. RIAA? Collection agencies? What fraction of a percentage went to the actual musicians?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 8:21am

Re:
I'm going to hazard a guess of about 5 cents to the dollar.
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AJ, 15 Oct 2014 @ 8:22am

Re:
"I'd be very interested to know exactly where that billion dollars went"

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797370?hl=en

Looks like to me like 100% goes to the rights holder if they choose to monetize it. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if there were hidden "fee's" .. processing and the like...
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 8:31am

"rights holder," thats a loaded term and has little to do with the 'artist' or 'creator'
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John Fenderson (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 8:32am

Re: Re:
"rights holders", huh? So, independent artists get paid but the rest don't.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 8:34am

Who knows what other kinds of cool business models would be in place today making more money for artists.

And there you have the problem, the traditional middlemen are not getting the money when artists can go direct to their fans for their income, or use a service that pays them most of the income, and only take a reasonable amount for the service offered.
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Andreas (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 8:35am

Yeah, just wait when John Cage - 4'33'' claims a share...
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jackn, 15 Oct 2014 @ 8:36am

Re: Re:
I think 'rights grabber' is more apt
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 8:45am

"But when will those folks in Hollywood learn this? Instead, they keep attacking these new services, demanding more copyright "enforcement" and blocking these forms of innovation."

As long as all the money earned from new innovation isn't going into Hollywoods pockets then Hollywood will continue to attack and sue the new innovation.
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John Fenderson (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 8:53am

Re:
"As long as all the money earned from new innovation isn't going into Hollywoods pockets then Hollywood will continue to attack and sue the new innovation."

I disagree. Their hated of innovation is not directly because of the money. It's because of the loss of control. My version of your statement would be: as long as the major media companies don't have total control over how the innovation is deployed and used, they will continue to attack and sue."
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 8:54am

Nice and all
but wasn't the Content ID system only implemented after heavy pressure from the content industry?

It's an example of the innovation that can be done, but to say it's 'in spite' of the content industry is a bit disingenuous.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 8:57am

it was only destroying content when it wasn't paying!
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 9:17am

It's not really about revenue. It's about power and control.
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AJ, 15 Oct 2014 @ 9:38am

Re: Re: Re:
IANAL.. so my exact verbiage may be incorrect. It says specifically "content owners" ... which I equated to rights holder... if i did so incorrectly, my apologies, it was an innocent mistake.
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John Fenderson (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 9:59am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
No, your wording was correct. In the US, "content owners" == "rights holders".
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Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 10:14am

Re: Re: Re:
"Independent artists" as a term has been corrupted pretty heavily. There's so many independent artists on "independent labels" which really are still owned by the big guys, or have deals and contracts just as onerous as a typical music industry contract designed to screw over artists.

Artists who hold their own copyrights get 100% of the proceeds, while artists who have allowed someone else to hold it get whatever their contract says (if they're lucky).
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 10:28am

As an artist, I'd like to thank Viacom for suing YouTube, for that is why Content ID came into existence, thus allowing me to get paid.
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bob, 15 Oct 2014 @ 10:33am

They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
Yah gotta love the loons around this joint. The recording industry alone used to gather well above $20b a year in sales in the early part of the 2000s. Now it's down around $15b a year. Even if GOOG is only responsible for 20% a year of that collapse, they're still destroying on more revenue in ONE year than GOOG has generated in ALL of those years.

And let's talk about fairness. GOOG is pocketing a pretty penny by keeping a share of that ad revenue. What a way to cut yourself into the business. The recording company didn't ask to be partners with GOOG. GOOG just muscled its way in with their army of pirate ants. So the recording companies can either fight a long battle with the pirates in court go along and let GOOG profit off their hard work.

If I poke around YouTube I see a gazillion videos uploaded by "fans". It's easy to find almost every song you want up there. But only a small fraction are enrolled in this ContentID. GOOG is still getting rich off of piracy. They're still not paying the pirate ants at all (suckers!) and kicking back very little to the artists.

So that's why no one is celebrating. It's like a thief came along and took a $20 bill from your wallet and replaced it with a $1. Then the thief kept saying, "Why do you keep talking about how I took the $20. Can't you just focus on the $1 I gave you? Come on. Don't be so negative."
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 10:33am

Youtube has a policy that if something's flagged by the Content ID system and the monetary option is chosen, the person who submitted the content to the CID system gets payed even while the claim is disputed. Due to this, several groups of scammers would claim things and then let the 30 days expire on the counter claim, earning money the entire time. It's not just scammers ether, I had this problem with Sony (they let it sit the entire 30 days).

So my million dollar question is: how much of that billion went to the wrong people? It's probably not the majority, probably not even close (let's face it, there is a lot of infringement on Youtube), but I'd bet that it's a noticeable percent.
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Blackfiredragon13 (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 10:39am

An old saying.
Whatever happened to "don't bite the hand that feeds you"?
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Jun, 15 Oct 2014 @ 10:52am

The share is not fair
I think they preview power; not all about the money.. and this should change
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John Fenderson (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 10:55am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Good point. By "independent artists," I mean those who don't have a record label deal at all, not those who only have deals with certain labels. An artist signed to an "independent" label is not an independent artist.
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Just Another Anonymous Troll, 15 Oct 2014 @ 10:58am

Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
"Yah gotta love the loons around this joint. The recording industry alone used to gather well above $20b a year in sales in the early part of the 2000s. Now it's down around $15b a year. Even if GOOG is only responsible for 20% a year of that collapse, they're still destroying on more revenue in ONE year than GOOG has generated in ALL of those years."

[citation needed]
Wild conjecture about why sales figures are going down =/= a good argument.

"And let's talk about fairness. GOOG is pocketing a pretty penny by keeping a share of that ad revenue. What a way to cut yourself into the business. The recording company didn't ask to be partners with GOOG. GOOG just muscled its way in with their army of pirate ants. So the recording companies can either fight a long battle with the pirates in court go along and let GOOG profit off their hard work."

If Google doesn't take money, YouTube shuts down. Glad to see you've got your priorities straight. Also, YouTube can be a great way to "expose" your music. Someone might listen to one of your songs on YouTube and think "Hey, this is a great song and I want to buy the album!" Congrats, YouTube made you a sale. Otherwise, people may be more likely to go onto a pirate site and pirate your music for real.
Also, why pirate ants? That doesn't make any sense.

"If I poke around YouTube I see a gazillion videos uploaded by "fans". It's easy to find almost every song you want up there. But only a small fraction are enrolled in this ContentID. GOOG is still getting rich off of piracy. They're still not paying the pirate ants at all (suckers!) and kicking back very little to the artists."

Because it's their fault that:
a) They make money
b) Users upload pirated stuff

"So that's why no one is celebrating. It's like a thief came along and took a $20 bill from your wallet and replaced it with a $1. Then the thief kept saying, 'Why do you keep talking about how I took the $20. Can't you just focus on the $1 I gave you? Come on. Don't be so negative.'"

I thought you said the revenue was 'destroyed'. Now it's been stolen. Google isn't stealing their money, genius.
In conclusion, go back to the RIAA and tell them no one is falling for your act. Mostly because we're not as dumb as they think we are.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 11:14am

$1 Billion
If you really think about it, $1 billion since the creation of Youtube is actually very little. Spotify is going to pay out more than $1 billion this year alone with only a fraction of the users or revenue. Granted, the two have very different business models and uses and Spotify is arguably paying too much. But despite the sheer size of Youtube, the money Youtube pays still accounts for only a sliver of content holders revenue.
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jupiterkansas (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 11:23am

Re: $1 Billion
Most of the content on Youtube isn't part of ContentID and isn't making money for the creators, so it's not all of Youtube that's generating that income. Just a smale slice of it.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 11:28am

Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
Got a source that proves the loss in revenue is a result of google?

A lot of attention and cash i would have paid to larger producers of content has gone to indies ever since I got steady access to Internet. that 5 billion is probably losses due to the lower barriers to entry for legal competitors
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 11:47am

Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
I'm afraid you aren't counting the right reasons. Sales were down because the cd is obsolete. Been to the store and tried to buy a CD in the dash player? Or tried to buy blank CDs? No one today wants to tote the cd library when they can put it in a smaller space. CDs just aren't selling like they used to. That makes you the loon, not the site.

Talk about fairness? Well after years and years of being screwed, I've went from buying 500 vinyls a year to none. I put them all on reel to reel and quit the repurchase constantly. That was years ago.

If you talk to the artists they tell you the labels aren't fair, so you're purposely picking partial arguments that are transparent in where your bias is.

The kick back to artists as you claim it, was shown to really be an attempt at black mail when you look at what Pandora went through. The judge in the case ruled Pandora would not have to pay the new fees though they had agreed in essence to pay them. So the real pirates aren't the fans.

After all the thievery by major labels out of my wallet, it is high time I quit supporting them and did. I have purchased not one single song nor album since the days sue'em all started. When you piss your fans off, keep pissing them off, you can expect the market to reflect that.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 11:49am

Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
"The recording industry alone used to gather well above $20b a year in sales in the early part of the 2000s. Now it's down around $15b a year."

Maybe the loss is due to the fact that more people are becoming independent and therefore less people are signing up to the recording industry!
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uRspqF7L (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 12:04pm

more great humor
plenty of places on this site where it's clear you oppose the very forms of compensation and minimal "rights holding" that make even this ghost of its former self work (a little). remember, "the grand unified theory of free," you're not supposed to make money from content at all, etc. but thanks for making me laugh!
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 12:32pm

Re: more great humor
Ah, but YouTube does not make and distribute money from content, but rather makes its money from advertising, with the content attracting the eyeballs, and the content providers being rewarded for doing that.
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bob, 15 Oct 2014 @ 12:34pm

Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
Sorry bub, but it's not a wild conjecture. Your rejection is the wild conjecture. It's straight from the IFPI.

Year Revenue Change Notes
2005 $20.7 billion -3%
2006 $19.6 billion -5%
2007 $18.8 billion -4%
2008 $18.4 billion -8%
2009 $17.4 billion -5%
2010 $16.8 billion -8.4%
2011 $16.2 billion -3%
2012 $16.5 billion +0.3%

And you can choose whether you like the word "stolen" or "destroyed" better. If people are taking something for free and not paying for it, both fit. But I'm sure you've got some wackjob rationalization about how you're really giving people publicity or something like that.

There are tens of thousands of artists who used to make a living in the recording industry and now they can't. But GOOG is getting a big, fat cut of the revenues that used to go to the artists.
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bob, 15 Oct 2014 @ 12:36pm

Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
See the table above. And of course there's no source that proves the causation without a reasonable doubt. If there were, GOOG would be in jail.

But all it takes is five seconds on YouTube to convince anyone with a brain that it's evolved into one huge jukebox that destroys the need for people to purchase music. Only a fool can't see the effect.

But I'm guessing you're one of the loons who's not going to feel guilty and cling to any rationalization that maybe, just maybe, the band really authorized that upload. Yeah.
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bob, 15 Oct 2014 @ 12:41pm

Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
You were screwed in the process of buying 500 vinyls? How? Did you know the price before you purchased it? I bet you probably even heard the music before buying. How were you screwed?

If you didn't like the music, you could have recorded your own. Or simply purchased things from the cutout bin. But you didn't, did you. You weren't screwed.

Perhaps you like to believe that you were screwed because the record companies only gave, say, 15% to the artists. People love to latch onto that small number while forgetting just how much work it is to publish anything. It took the hard work of thousands of people in the recording companies to bring to you that vinyl you purchased. They need to be paid too.

So you could have bought a cassette tape from some folk singer at a concert but you chose to spend your money willingly for a record album from a major company. You got what you expected: expensively produced music that was artfully packaged and distributed. I don't know why you think you were screwed.

It's amazing how the pirate sleezeballs gin up this woe-is-me attitude among the music lovers in order to convince them that it's better to give their money to the pirates.

How much did you give Kim Dotcom? Or one of the other fake services on the web?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 12:50pm

Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
The labels are loosing income more from people turning to self publishing sources for entertainment, and or alternative entertainment. You might as well blame the world of warcraft, or minecraft, for the labels loss of income, as these are also eating into the time that people would otherwise spend listening to music from the labels.
Competition, which the Internet has enabled, rather than piracy is reducing the labels income.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 1:17pm

Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
Gee, I'm sure that the losses have nothing to do with a changing economy, the growth of alternate forms of entertainment, the simplification of independent publishing/creation, or any other dozens of factors.

Nope. Just the big bad Google monster that puts you in a constant state of fear.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 1:25pm

Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
Every time you write GOOG, everybody who used to write M$ is laughing and wondering if they looked as foolish as you do now.
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silverscarcat (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 1:32pm

Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
Hey, good to see you making false arguments again, bob!

You know what else came out in the early 2000s?

iTunes.

Know what happened then?

People bought less and less records, causing the recording industry to lose money that way, and went back to the pre-1970s model of buying singles.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 1:54pm

Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
But all it takes is five seconds on YouTube to convince anyone with a brain that it's evolved into one huge jukebox that destroys the need for people to purchase music.

Just like pirate radio removed the need in the 60s, and cassettes did in the 70s. It's a wonder that there is any music industry left.
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Gwiz (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 1:55pm

Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
There are tens of thousands of artists who used to make a living in the recording industry and now they can't.

BULLSHIT ALERT!!

Actually, prior to the internet, only a very, very tiny percentage of musicians were able to make money recording music and of those who were able to become somewhat successful only a very, very tiny percentage of them were actually able to recoup the advances given to them.

You must have pulled this "tens of thousands of artists who used to make a living" out of your ass, because it isn't based in truth.
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That One Guy (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 2:02pm

Re: more great humor
remember, "the grand unified theory of free," you're not supposed to make money from content at all, etc. but thanks for making me laugh!

[CITATION NEEDED]
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 2:11pm

The profit losses are easy to account for have you heard the cookie cutter music that's been coming out lately , I know every music era has it's copy cats , but now one artist sounds like the rest , bar a few.
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John Fenderson (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 2:15pm

Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
"Sorry bub, but it's not a wild conjecture. Your rejection is the wild conjecture. It's straight from the IFPI."

It looks like wild conjecture to me. Your revenue changes table in no way indicates what the cause of the revenue change is. You are asserting it's because of YouTube. Common sense would point in a different direction.
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John Fenderson (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 2:19pm

Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
"But all it takes is five seconds on YouTube to convince anyone with a brain that it's evolved into one huge jukebox that destroys the need for people to purchase music. Only a fool can't see the effect. "

I have to hand it to you Bob, this was actually a pretty slick way of slipping a general insult into your opinionating. What you're actually saying is "the only reason that you wouldn't agree with my unsubstantiated accusations is because you're an idiot."

Sorry, that doesn't fly. You'll need to actually substantiate something or face the fact that your argument isn't actually an argument at all. It's just an opinion backed by nothing.
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Gwiz (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 2:22pm

Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
Year Revenue Change Notes
2005 $20.7 billion -3%
2006 $19.6 billion -5%
2007 $18.8 billion -4%
2008 $18.4 billion -8%
2009 $17.4 billion -5%
2010 $16.8 billion -8.4%
2011 $16.2 billion -3%
2012 $16.5 billion +0.3%

Those numbers make me wonder how much of those loses are due to the labels wasting their money on senseless lawsuits, failed education programs and massive lobbying to further their pointless agenda of "fighting piracy"
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That One Guy (profile), 15 Oct 2014 @ 2:25pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
Just you watch, any year now, any year, and the entire music industry as a whole will come crashing down, just like it's been said will happen for decades now.

Any year now...
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 2:27pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
Maybe if the trend continues they can lobby themselves broke ,go out of business and we can actually have a grown up discussion about who deserves to be paid the studio or the artist.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 6:10pm

Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
"Oh, no! Rich artists in a corporation couldn't get richer to afford their next yacht with an indoor pool because people chose to give their money to ANOTHER corporation!" - Accurate summary of every single one of your tirades.

It's hilarious watching you squirm, trying to convince people that you're not in support of corporations.

You want more money, go be a professional cocksucker like antidirt.
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RD, 15 Oct 2014 @ 8:21pm

Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
"But all it takes is five seconds on YouTube to convince anyone with a brain that it's evolved into one huge jukebox that destroys the need for people to purchase music."

Then, perhaps, technology and society have moved beyond the need or desire to pay for music as was the previous fashion. The music industry is not *entitled* to X profit year after year, decade after decade (which, btw, you conveniently left out the entire *previous* decades MASSIVE year-over-year increases in music sales, from about 1955 straight on through to 2000 or so. Every. Year.) If there is less interest, then perhaps they need to find new ways to get paid, new avenues to get people to listen to music, new ways to monetize. Just because it's been done that way for years does NOT mean they can expect it to stay that way FOREVER. What hubris.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 10:56pm

Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
Not to mention a Global Financial crisis caused by the American Banks irresponsible behaviour that cost me personally over $100,000 of my superannuation.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2014 @ 11:59pm

Re: more great humor
Attacking a strawman because you can't argue against mike's actual points I see
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2014 @ 12:10am

Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
Wow, you have so little actual facts to stand on you just make assumptions about who you reply to.

I do in fact know the artists authorized the uploads because they themselves announce such. And easily verified too.

Do you just have your head so up the industry's ass that it's inconceivable that anyone would try to make it on their own or even give content for free?
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2014 @ 4:41am

Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
Maybe you should be more angry with Apple and iTunes. I believe it was they who popularized the ability to buy one song off a CD for a buck, instead of having to by the entire CD for $14 or so. Not, of course, that there's any going back.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2014 @ 4:56am

Re: Nice and all
The industry was able to upload and monetise their own content on Youtube but chose not to and instead started legal challenges to the service.
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Just Another Anonymous Troll, 16 Oct 2014 @ 9:16am

Re: Re: Re: They destroyed $10-20 billion and gave back $1b
I didn't deny that their revenue went down. I pointed out that you have zero proof it's because of YouTube.
[citation still needed]
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Google sucks, 16 Oct 2014 @ 10:50pm

YouTube is dead.
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