'Piracy' That Creates Amazing New Music

from the here-we-go-again dept

More than five years ago we first wrote about Kutiman, an Israeli musician who created an album of incredible new music simply by editing together a bunch of unrelated YouTube clips. The end result is... astounding. I still listen to it frequently. In some ways this is a "mashup" or a "remix" but it's unlike most that you've heard. Many remixes take a known recorded song and change it around or take a few different recorded songs and mix them all together. Those can be amazing too. I've found that by artists like Girl Talk or D.VELOPED often create music that I, personally, find to be more enjoyable than the originals. But Kutiman is different, and takes it to a new level by taking totally random bits of music -- often amateurs messing around -- on YouTube, and converting them into astoundingly complex and beautiful songs.

We've highlighted some of the examples in the past, but here are two examples from that first album, of taking a random video that most wouldn't consider to be anything all that special and turning into a part of an amazing project. We'll start with taking a simple kid playing a scale on a trumpet which becomes integral to an entire (great) funk song. Here's the trumpet bit: And here's the full song: Or how about this basic trombone solo becoming such a haunting and compelling part of this dub reggae song (trombone comes in at 42 seconds). Here's the trombone: And here's the full song: Kutiman is back again with a new track from a follow up album of songs clipped together from YouTube (the full album is expected to be released soon), and once again, it's quite amazing: And yet, some might argue that this is all nothing more than "piracy" or "infringement." Others may argue that this is not "real" music because it's just "remixing." I have a hard time taking any of those arguments seriously. Here is someone using those pieces as instruments to create a beautiful new work. It takes nothing away from the old work.

Unfortunately, however, there's already been some (now resolved) controversy with this new work. One of the cello players, Deryn Cullen, featured in this work apparently complained to Kutiman. It's this video in which she plays Bach's Prelude from Cello Suite no 2 in d minor. She apparently was initially upset and felt that Kutiman should have first asked permission to use her performance. After they talked it over, and she understood the nature of the project (and, perhaps, because she saw how much positive attention it was getting), she agreed that she was happy to be a part of it. It's good that they were able to have a discussion on this and come to a mutual appreciation -- but it's yet another unfortunate situation that one comes to when we live in a world of "permission culture," where some people feel that you should always get permission first. And to sort of prove how silly this is, one need only ask whether or not Cullen received permission from the estate of Johann Sebastian Bach before performing his piece.

I'm happy it worked out in the end, but imagine if every time someone wanted to create new music they had to get permission from everyone up and down the chain whose work played a part? What's happening here, with Kutiman, is so blatantly obviously brilliantly creative, new and original -- and yet, under our broken copyright laws it might be deemed "infringing" by some, "derivative" by others, and illegal by many. Isn't that a problem? Isn't the idea behind copyright law to encourage new and beautiful works like these? Adding the friction and tollbooth of "permission culture" to the process would make this kind of artwork impossible, and that would be a loss to everyone.

Filed Under: creation, creativity, culture, kutiman, mashup, music, piracy, remix, youtube

Forbes Praises YouTube Censoring Steven Sotloff Beheading Video

from the getting-it-wrong dept

Following the horrific actions of ISIS/ISIL, in which the group beheaded American journalist James Foley and plastered the video in online forums like Twitter and YouTube, I argued that it is important that the American Public be given the chance to repudiate the aim of the video: paralyzing us with fear. Adding to that thought, Glenn Greenwald argued that the reason one must fight against censorship in the most egregious of speech cases is that such cases are often where the limitation of speech is legitimized. While this may not be a First Amendment consideration, since those sites are not affiliated with the government, it would be a mistake to suggest that free speech is limited as a concept to that narrow legal definition. Free and open speech is an ideal, one that is codified into law in some places, and one which enjoys a more relaxed but important status within societal norms.

I can only assume it's a lack of understanding in both arguments above that has led one Forbes writer to rush to praise YouTube for taking down the latest ISIS/ISIL video. You've almost certainly heard that another American has been beheaded at the hands of civilization's enemy, yet you'll have a much harder time finding the video of Steven Sotloff's death on YouTube this time around. Jeff Bercovici suggests this is a good thing.

With 100 hours of new footage uploaded every minute, YouTube says it doesn’t, and couldn’t, prescreen content, relying on users to flag violations. In this case, its monitors were, unfortunately, expecting the Sotloff video to be posted after weeks of threats by his captors and a widely circulated video plea by his mother to spare his life. That readiness allowed them to remove the video and shut down the account that posted it within hours.

This is how you get an American public uninformed about the brutality of groups like ISIS/ISIL. It's how you legitimize terror groups who themselves wish to impose limitations on the types of things the people under their rule are allowed to see and do. It's the start of how the American public is refused the opportunity to witness the full story. And that last part is especially egregious in a time and place where images rule the news cycle. Here the public is, inundated with the story of an American journalist being murdered at the hands of a group that considers that public a target for violence, and the public isn't even given the opportunity to see the images at hand.

This, of course, isn't to argue that people should be forced to watch the brutality. But, as I argued before, denying the American people the opportunity to disabuse ISIS/ISIL of the notion that they can scare us into inaction is something we shouldn't stand for. YouTube can do this, but they shouldn't, and they certainly shouldn't be praised for it.

YouTube, on the other hand, has given itself more latitude to make judgement calls by basing its policies on common sense rather than First Amendment absolutism...For tech companies to embrace the principle of free expression is laudable — but they should also leave themselves the maneuverability to deal with bad actors who care nothing for that or any other civilized value.

This misunderstands the most important value of free speech: allowing the evil in the world to identify itself. Once we start down the road of disappearing the speech we deem to not have any value, you open the door for alternative interpretations of the value on a whole host of other speech. Censoring the bad actors doesn't make them go away, it only refuses to shine the public light on them. It keeps people from being able to confront the horrible reality that exists and the group that wants to do us harm. That can't be allowed to continue.

Filed Under: censorship, companies, free speech, isis, james foley, jeff bercovici, steven sotloff, youtube
Companies: google, youtube

Premier League Uses Copyright To Pull Down YouTube Video Of Professor Advocating For Stronger Copyright For Premier League

from the circular-reasoning dept

Via Bas Grasmayer we learn that the English Premier League and its insane take on copyrights has struck again. We've written many times before about the Premier League and its wacky belief that every possible use of its content must be licensed. Just a few weeks ago, it said that it would start taking down animated gifs and 6-second Vine videos of goals, even though it knew this would piss off fans. Still, the Premier League said it had to do this because "copyright."

The Institute for Information Law (IViR) recently held its Information Influx event, and it included a panel discussion on "Who Owns the World Cup?" discussing the very question of copyright and sports clips. IViR put video of all the sessions online, but if you go visit the "Who Owns the World Cup" video, you'll see this instead: Yes, that's right, the entire video of a discussion on the copyright issues around sharing tiny clips of football/soccer videos was taken down by the Premier League, because one of the panelists showed a brief clip to raise some of the questions concerning copyright issues.

Amazingly, it appears that the only clips of Premier League matches were shown in a presentation by Prof. Lionel Bently who was arguing in favor of stronger copyright protection for sporting events. As Thomas Margoni from IViR explains in his post about this, this seems like an "own goal" for the Premier League, abusing copyright law to censor a legal discussion in which the "offender" is advocating on their own behalf:

It is not unlikely that the FA Premier League requested the removal on a semi-automatic basis without really watching the video (a sort of good faith mistake) and hopefully YouTube will reinstate the video soon. In spite of the abovementioned brilliant intervention by a leading IP scholar arguing in favor of more (copyright) protection for sporting events, I am inclined to say that right now, looking at the disconsolate face that appears instead of the video on the blocked YouTube webpage, sports organizers have enough rights as it is.

Not so much a penalty as an own goal.

But, you know, gotta take it down, because "copyright."

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, lionel bently, own goal, soccer, sporting events, takedowns, youtube
Companies: ivir, premier league

Musician Whose Works Are At Center Of Copyright Lawsuit Against YouTube Star Slams Lawsuit And Copyright

from the good-for-him dept

A couple days ago, someone sent me the lawsuit that Ultra Records and Ultra International Music Publishing had filed against Michelle Phan, an incredibly successful "YouTube star" who has over six million subscribers to her YouTube channel where she shares makeup tips. Ultra, a label for artists like DeadMau5 and Kaskade, sued, claiming that Phan used at least 50 of the songs it holds a copyright on without a license. The reason it's both the record label and the publishing arm that's suing is that they're going after her for both reproduction and sync rights (you need a sync license if you use music with a video). Of course, it's also important to note that, these days, Ultra is effectively Sony Music under a "strategic alliance" in which Sony basically runs all of Ultra.

Phan's spokesperson is apparently claiming that she had a license. Ultra insists she did not. Perhaps as interesting, rather than just claiming statutory damages of $150,000 (the maximum for willful), it leaves open the possibility of going after her for "actual damages." This almost never happens in a copyright lawsuit, in part because actual damages are nearly impossible to prove (often because there are none). However, Phan is apparently making a ton of money these days, so the company seems to be leaving open the possibility that it can score some of the "profits" from the video. Though, I imagine they'll have a hell of a time proving that the profits are due to the music, rather than the other parts of the video.

Still, what makes this most interesting is that one of the musicians whose music is at the center of the case, Kaskade, has spoken out strongly in support of Phan, arguing that "copyright law is a dinosaur," that he supports Phan rather than his label and... that she has great taste in music. He also has highlighted that having folks like Phan promote his music helps people love that music (and buy it too): A bunch of sites have covered those tweets, but few looked at the fascinating Tumblr post that Kaskade did a month ago, in which he trashed today's copyright laws after a bunch of his music was taken down off of SoundCloud. He talks about doing a deal with the devil in signing with Ultra/Sony:

When I signed with Ultra, I kissed goodbye forever the rights to own my music. They own it. And now Sony owns them. So now Sony owns my music. I knew that going in. Soundcloud is beholden to labels to keep copyright protected music (read: all music put out by a label, any label) off their site unless authorized by the label. Am I authorized to post my music? Yep. Does their soulless robot program know that? Not so much. So some stuff they pulled was mistakenly deleted, but some tracks were absolutely rule breakers. The mash ups. (Read about those little beauties in “Politicking of a Mash Up”.) I post mash ups mainly because I don’t need to keep these things tucked under my pillow, pulling out my little Precious only to be played at gigs. You want to hear it? Grab it. Like it? Great. The end.

But the labels, they aren’t feeling this approach so much.

But then he digs in deep on how broken copyright law is, how scared old men running record labels are doing stupid things, and how it's all harming musicians:

There’s always been this cagey group of old men who are scared to death of people taking their money. Back in the day, they were upset that the technology existed to record onto cassette tapes directly from the radio. “What! (Harumph!) Why will people buy music if they can just pull it out of the air?!” Yet, people still bought music. Because it was more accessible. Because more people were exposed. Because Mikey played it for Joey on the corner and then Joey had to have it. It’s music, and we buy what we love. We can’t love music we haven’t heard.

Innovation helps the music industry. The industry only needs to make the effort to keep up and adapt. Make no mistake: exposing as many people as possible to music - all music - is a good thing. Everyone wins. The artist, the audience, even the old guys who just want some more cash.

The laws that are governing online music share sites were written at a time when our online and real-life landscapes were totally different. Our marching orders are coming from a place that’s completely out of touch and irrelevant. They have these legal legs to stand on that empower them to make life kind of a pain-in-the-ass for people like me. And for many of you. Countless artists have launched their careers though mash ups, bootlegs, remixes and music sharing. These laws and page take-downs are cutting us down at the knees.

And yo, musicians definitely need knees.

And, from there, he notes that music sharing has been great for musicians by getting them more attention. And he argues that the labels should get with the program:

We have moved beyond the exhausting notion that our greedy hands need to hold onto these tunes so tightly. The world just doesn’t work like that anymore. I’d happily parse out the pieces of every song I’ve made for others to use. Remix that. Use that. Think you could do it better? Show me. It’s laughable to assert that someone is losing money owed to them because I’m promoting music that I’ve written and recorded. Having the means to expose music to the masses is a deft tool to breathe new life into and promote a song. It’s the most compelling advertising, really.

But it’s more than advertising. It’s sharing. If a person likes one song, then you know what’s likely to happen? They’ll press the download arrow and own it for free. You won’t believe what happens next! They become familiar with the artist, and seek out other material. Maybe they buy that. Maybe they talk about it online. Maybe they go to a show. Maybe they simply become a fan and tell a friend.

I’m cool with that. The labels should be too. It’s exactly what they’re trying to accomplish by funneling endless money for Facebook Likes, Twitter trending hashtags, and totally ridiculous impotent advertising campaigns. Let the people have the music. Or, to put it in language that makes more sense for the ones who can only speak dollar bill - Free the music, and your cash will follow.

It's a great read. And yet, now his works are at the center of a massive lawsuit that could end up costing someone millions of dollars even as he speaks out against the lawsuit. And, of course, Ultra could have just made use of YouTube's ContentID tools to either monetize or silence or take down Phan's videos. But, instead, the company chose to sue. It's not hard to see why. With so many of these lawsuits it's the same thing: jealousy. They see Phan being successful -- and they stupidly believe that it's just because of the music. And so they want their cut. And the way to do that is to sue. Because these days, that's pretty much all the legacy music industry knows how to do. To file lawsuits that just anger pretty much everyone else -- including the very musicians they claim to "represent."

Filed Under: copyright, kaskade, michelle phan, youtube
Companies: sony music, ultra international music publishing, ultra records

Fair Use Continues To Pay The Price For YouTube's Direct Takedown Deal With Universal Music Group

from the please-file-counter-notice-in-nearest-recycle-bin dept

… And so, undeterred by technological advancements they both feared and misunderstood, the major labels continued their quest to "disrupt" fair use and further dwindle into irrelevance. [If you feel you're missing the first half of that sentence, these two posts will help you out.]

As noted recently, Soundcloud has given Universal Music Group the power to directly take down content, bypassing the site's internal takedown process as well as the few remedies it offers users who wish to dispute deletions. YouTube has also given UMG this same level of access, again bypassing the normal notice and takedown system.

While sites may claim (as Soundcloud did) that they need to give powerful rights holders direct access in order to comply with the DMCA, this simply isn't true. Utilizing the normal notice-and-takedown system would be more than adequate. The only thing giving a label direct access does is increase the amount of abuse.

It's long been noted that the DMCA takedown process tends to encourage rights holders to disregard fair use and fire off notices. The toothless "perjury" language included at the bottom of every takedown notice is almost never enforced, making false or bad claims painless for those sending takedowns.

UMG, with its direct access, certainly isn't going to consider fair use when it starts pulling the plug on content, as one YouTube remix artist discovered. Elisa Kreisinger has been remixing cultural touchstones for years. This video -- one that never even made it past YouTube's upload process -- was no different.

Last August, I saw Jay Z’s HBO mini-documentary commemorating his 6-hour “unprecedented performance experience” of “Picasso Baby” at Pace Gallery. The movie was ripe for remixing: Within the first minute, Jay Z reflects on the similarities between performance art and his usual concert performances, arguing that art galleries have separated art from mass culture, presumably unintentionally.

With one simple twist, I recontextualized select scenes of his performance and set it to Taylor Swift’s “22." The remix illustrates how both Jay Z and Swift use their status as outsiders to relate to audiences despite being very much insiders. [...] I uploaded the mashup to YouTube on Aug. 5, 2013, and it was immediately blocked globally. Ten months later, I finally uncovered the reason.

The reason was simply this: where fair use could be reasonably argued, UMG (and its bots/lawyers) saw nothing more than two of its videos being "stolen."

It turns out no defense would have revived my video. YouTube had cut a private deal that gave Universal Music Group the power to take down any video, even those videos (like mine and countless others, including creators as diverse as Patrick McKay and Megaupload) that didn’t require Universal’s permission in the first place.

The only plus side was that's UMG's deletion didn't result in a strike against Kreisinger's account. But that's of little comfort when fair use is steamrolled by "contractual obligations" YouTube (or Soundcloud) really don't need to have in place to stay compliant with the DMCA.

When fair use gets damaged, so does free speech.

Fair use prevents rightsholders from silencing critics with the threat of a copyright infringement lawsuit.   By giving UMG the ability to take down videos that use their content regardless of fair use, YouTube has given UMG sweeping power to control what is – and is not – said about UMG and UMG artists. UMG should not be asking for this kind of power, and YouTube should not be granting it.

Labels and copyright industry lobbyists love to call these sorts of deals "voluntary." But they aren't. They're coercive. Lobbyists lean on politicians and politicians lean on internet services to do more to help out struggling, billion-dollar industries. Rather than see IP laws get any worse (or target them any more specifically), they comply with increasingly ridiculous demands. And the users pay the price by having their uploads deleted, their accounts closed and their mouths shut -- all without any genuine level of recourse.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, elisa kreisnger, fair use, takedowns, youtube
Companies: google, universal music, youtube

Warner Brothers Pulls Plug On Viral Greenpeace Ad Utilizing 'The Lego Movie' Theme Song (And Legos)

from the WB-execs-say-real-life-story-needs-more-villains dept

Another clear case of fair use is greeted by a major studio with, "Hey, that's our stuff!" A new campaign from Greenpeace targeting Lego's partnership with Shell has been nuked from orbit by Warner Bros. Entertainment. The short video depicted a stylized, Lego-built Arctic (complete with Eskimos, arctic wolves and Halo's Master Chief) being slowly swallowed by oil to a downtempo cover of The Lego Movie's impossibly catchy theme song "Everything is Awesome."

You used to be able to watch it on YouTube, where it had racked up nearly three million views before this happened.

Apparently, Warner Bros. Entertainment took issue with the use of the theme song and the inclusion of the two Lego Movie characters (seen briefly near the end of the 90-second video) and issued a takedown. Whether or not you agree with Greenpeace's complaint, there's no denying the fact that its use of the theme song and very brief use of these characters is clearly parodic fair use.

Greenpeace has now moved the video to Vimeo, where it will possibly receive a stronger fair use defense from the hosting company, although still in the form of "oblige takedown request first, investigate later." It may work a little harder to defend this one up front, considering all the viewers that were heading to YouTube to catch Greenpeace's new viral video are now landing on its doorstep.

Warner Bros.' action here isn't exactly censorship (as it probably was agnostic about the video's message) but it's not exactly forgivable either. Seeing as this video probably didn't trigger an automated takedown by YouTube's content-matching system, it was most likely the result of an active search for infringement, which means whoever's policing content for WB ignored everything but the song and the brief appearance of its Lego Movie characters. Once again, digital shouts of "MINE!" trump fair use.

Filed Under: copyright, criticism, free speech, greenpeace, legos, parody, political speech, youtube
Companies: greenpeace, shell, warner bros., youtube

YouTube Quietly, But Publicly, Shaming ISPs That Make Your Video Streams Stutter

from the good-for-them dept

For years, people have wondered if one of the best tools to prevent ISPs from behaving too badly in breaking net neutrality would just be public shaming. Netflix has long released data on ISP performance, and then got into some hot water last month when it started directly blaming ISPs for network congestion, leading Verizon to send a cease-and-desist letter. Quartz is reporting that YouTube has been doing something similar, though it's not quite as in-your-face as the Netflix example. If the connection is weak, YouTube displays a blue bar beneath the video, with the words "Experiencing Interruptions?" in white: Click on the "Find out why" link and you get taken to Google's "Video Quality Report" which tells you some information about your ISP and how congested the network is (or, at least sometimes -- in my case, it tells me it doesn't have enough information about my provider, which happens to be Sonic.net, to determine any results).

Of course, all the public shaming in the world isn't going to matter much if ISPs are free to clog up interconnection points and you have no real competition to go to.

Filed Under: congested networks, isps, net neutrality, public shaming, youtube
Companies: google, youtube

More On Indie Labels And YouTube: Some Legitimate Concerns, But Still A Lot Of Misplaced Anger

from the monetization-fight dept

Last week, we wrote about how some of the stories making the rounds concerning YouTube "blocking" musicians from using YouTube and taking down videos if they didn't agree to non-negotiable contract terms for YouTube's new music service were... exaggerated. We pretty clearly noted within that post that there could be legitimate arguments about the terms of the contract, but the claims about being "blocked" from YouTube were not really accurate. That story got a bit of attention, as people dug in to try to understand what was going on. Various versions of the contract that YouTube has been offering to indie artists have been floating around and Digital Music News has posted a copy of the whole thing, as it's done in the past with other music services.

I've also heard from a number of folks in the indie music community who have raised some good points about their concerns, going beyond the whole misleading "but they'll block my videos." One of the best summaries of the concerns was actually placed on a comment to our original story, which highlighted a bunch of other points that people were concerned with, some more reasonable than others. Having looked at the contract on DMN and talked this over with some folks, a few things become clear, which we'll discuss with a few screenshots from the copy DMN uploaded (though it's worth reading the whole thing). First, YouTube is in fact raising the rates it pays people: As we noted, there is a little something strange about complaining about YouTube offering all its artists a deal better than the existing deal, and claiming it's somehow unfair. And, perhaps that's why most (between 90 and 95%) artists seem to have agreed to sign up for this deal with no problem.

The second issue is the "major label" issue. That is, it's been reported, but not confirmed, that the major labels got nice advances from YouTube to join this program, and the indies feel that's unfair and that they're being cut out. As some have pointed out, some of this anger is really indies angry at the major labels plus YouTube as opposed to them just being angry at YouTube. But, on that front, it's somewhat difficult to figure out how YouTube can really do anything here. Of course it's going to provide greater guarantees and advances to the major labels, because they can be reasonably sure that those will make economic sense. It's much tougher to do that with a diverse group of independent artists. There is this tidbit in the contract, though, that has raised some eyebrows: There seems to be some fear here that the major labels will cave and agree to lower rates, and thus the indies will be locked into that. Again, this is where the "indies vs. majors" issue really comes into play. Though, again, I'm a bit hard pressed to figure out what else is makes sense for YouTube to do in this situation. The basic point here is that if the overall economics change so much that the majors are willing to accept lower streaming rates, then the indies will likely have to get pulled along as well. I can see why they're uncomfortable with that... but at the same time it also seems like a perfectly reasonable contract term for a variety of reasons. And, at the same time, does anyone really expect that the major labels are going to agree to cut rates? That seems doubtful. They're going to seek to increase them, rather than the other way around.

The final point that has raised some serious concerns is the apparent provision that artists need to hand over their full catalog and that it has to give their works to YouTube at the same time as any other "similarly situated" service. Here's the clause in the contract DMN posted: On this one, I can definitely see both sides of the argument. Some artists are willing to give some music to some services, and other music to other services, as they think will best serve their audience. At the same time, YouTube obviously has its reasons for wanting to make its service as comprehensive as possible. There is what appears to be that vague exception for "limited exclusives" to other sites, but some might not find that to be enough. As for the "entire catalog" issue, it's important to note that the definition of "Provider Sound Recordings" and "Provider Music Videos" seems to only include those given to YouTube, so it's not clear that it really requires artists to hand over every song they've ever created. It's basically just saying that if the artist does post a song to YouTube's monetization system, it has to be included in the program: That said, we've also heard that this covers ContentID. So... an artist that doesn't want to post a video of their own song, but does want to reserve the right to monetize others' use of his or her songs, is put in an uncomfortable position. Because by using ContentID, they've basically agreed to license their music to the program. That's a point that I can see might reasonably make many artists uncomfortable. If I were in YouTube's shoes, I'd think it might be better (at least for public perception) to offer two options here: one that is a direct monetization option, wherein the artists upload their own songs for monetization across the board, and a second one that is solely for monetizing user videos through ContentID, unrelated to the subscription music service.

Still, that's a contractual choice that Google/YouTube is making about how it wants to run its service, and it really doesn't seem that crazy for the company to try to put together a deal that will likely lead to the best overall experience for end users. Separately, as we pointed out last time (and at least one independent artist noted to me via email), it does seem to be looking a gift horse in the mouth a bit to basically argue that they all want to use YouTube's platform for free -- getting all the advantages of hosting, bandwidth, community, streaming software and more -- and then whine about how YouTube looks to make that more sustainable while at the same time providing ways for the artists to make some revenue as well.

So, in the end, there do seem to be some reasonable concerns by artists about the specific terms in the contract -- but that's going to be true in almost any contract negotiation. YouTube's never going to please everyone all the time. I do think YouTube could have done a few things to better anticipate some of these concerns and to provide artists with greater flexibility in some of the decisions they need to make, but looking over the key concerns, you can also make the argument that YouTube is structuring this offering to be better for users -- and doing so in a way that will help artists make money. And thus... the specific complaints do feel a bit more like nitpicking. The concerns about the deals with the majors are... just kind of a fact of life. It's hard to see how YouTube could realistically do much different in that situation. Negotiating individual deals with every single indie provider is a logistical impossibility (and, if anything, would likely require lower royalty rates, as the management of so many different deals would require significant overhead).

Once again, after looking at the details, it does seem like artists have some legitimate complaints, and YouTube could have been more open and transparent about some of the details of all of this. I definitely see the point from my artist friends who don't want to put everything on YouTube. But, having also dealt with music services where it's frustrating to see them missing songs that really ought to be available, you can see why the company is trying to drag some artists into accepting the fact that making more of their work available is probably best overall as well.

Filed Under: content id, contract terms, indie artists, indie labels, music, youtube
Companies: google, youtube

That Story You've Read About YouTube 'Blocking' Indie Artists... Yeah, That's Not Accurate

from the a-bit-of-spin-and-you-can-make-anything-look-evil dept

As you may have heard, there's been some hubbub this week about claims that YouTube is going to remove some videos from indie musicians/labels who don't agree to the contract terms for YouTube's upcoming music subscription service. Ellen Huet, over at Forbes, has a good article explaining how this isn't as dire as some are making it out to be, but the more I'm digging into it, it seems even less than that. There's no doubt that this is a royalty dispute, with some indie labels upset about the basic terms that Google is offering, but, if you haven't noticed, the complaints seem to be coming from the same folks who complain about the royalty rates of every single online music service. There are some people who will just never be satisfied. Furthermore, the deeper you dig into this, it becomes quite clear that any artist who wants to have their videos on YouTube can continue to do that.

Here's the main issue: YouTube, which has long been the most popular place for people to find and listen to music, is about to launch some sort of premium subscription service. This has been rumored for ages, and it's expected to build a Spotify-like service on top of YouTube's existing content. As part of this, YouTube is going around and negotiating royalty deals with labels and artists, most of which have signed on. This is providing a new revenue stream to those artists. Currently, for artists on YouTube, they're only able to make a cut of advertising revenue (which isn't that much) via YouTube's Partner program. By launching a premium subscription service, YouTube is adding a brand new revenue stream, which by all accounts will pay noticeably better than the current partner offering. Just as Spotify pays more to artists when a "subscriber" streams a song than when an ad-supported user streams a song, it appears that YouTube will do the same.

Now, the one big sticking point is the removal of certain videos. While Huet points out that there are very, very few videos likely to be impacted by this, it is likely to still hit a few. And, that's why it's quite reasonable to look at that and have the gut reaction: "that's bullying" or "that's unfair." It's even easier to try to spin it, as some critics have, as Google threatening people who don't agree to the royalties that it's offering. But where things appear to have been muddied is in understanding what is meant by "removing" the videos. As far as we can tell, Google is just saying it will remove those videos from its partner program. YouTube is an open platform. Anyone can go and upload videos for free. Any musician who wants their video on the platform can do so for free. However, for videos that are already in the partner program, if they reject the new deal (which, again, is better than the existing deal), Google will no longer have a license to host that video as a part of its partner program, so that copy may be removed because the artist has effectively pulled its license from YouTube to host it. The musicians and labels can still go back and re-upload their own videos -- it's just that they've chosen not to monetize the video at all by joining the partner program. You could argue that Google could just "move" the video from the partner program to outside the partner program, but then these same folks would probably try to spin it as Google infringing on their copyrights by hosting their videos without a license...

Put yourself in the shoes of the indie band here. Under the existing system, you can "monetize" your videos by getting a cut of the tiny ad revenue that comes in from each view. From what everyone says, unless you're absolutely huge, the money just isn't that great. Such is the nature of online advertising these days. But the new offering gives you a cut of subscription revenue also, which is likely to be higher. So, now, as an indie band, the options are: take Google's music streaming deal, which is better than the crappy ad share deal you're currently getting or... have your video removed from YouTube's partner program.

In short: before, you had two options:

1. Post your video and monetize it via YouTube's partner program with a bit of ad revenue.
2. Post your video and don't monetize it.

And now you'll have these two options:

1. Post your video and monetize it via YouTube's partner program with a bit of ad revenue and some subscription revenue
2. Post your video and don't monetize it.

And, somehow, the same folks who complain about every music service are spinning this second option as some sort of insult, even though it's better than the existing options. It takes some kind of special level of bullshit to argue that a company offering to improve your deal is doing something bad.

Sure, perhaps it's fair game to argue that the new deal isn't good enough for a subscription service, but it's difficult to see how acts are complaining that their videos will be taken out of the partner program when the existing deal is even worse. So, basically, Google is offering these labels a better deal than before, and it's being attacked because it's removing the option for the old not so good deal. It's a little difficult to see how that's a fair complaint. After all, YouTube has given these artists a massive, powerful and robust platform to put their videos up for free with no bandwidth costs at all, and even given them a variety of monetization options, from ad shares to linking people to buy MP3s and such. And now it's removing one option while adding a better paying option... But a few indie labels are spinning it negatively because they want an even better deal. And maybe the royalty rates they want are justified. But to present this as somehow hurting those indie artists just seems to be pure spin.

Hell, go back to the time before YouTube, and think about the deal that indie artists had if they wanted to put videos online? They would have to pay through the nose for something like a Real Video Server, then pay for all the bandwidth, and then know that it was still almost impossible for anyone to watch the video. Then YouTube came along and made it both easy and free for anyone to put their videos online, plus build a large community of people who want to watch those videos, and then added ways to monetize those videos. Now, YouTube is adding another way to monetize those videos even more, and the artists are suddenly claiming it's an attack on them? Yikes.

Filed Under: blocking, indie artists, partner program, reporting, royalties, subscription service, youtube
Companies: google, youtube

Back To Normal: Nintendo's YouTube Plan Sounds Like A Big Bucket Of Terrible

from the bzzzzt-wrong-again dept

A couple of weeks back, I brought you news that Nintendo had announced they were creating an affiliate program for YouTubers who wanted to use its content. This seemed like it might just be good news, coming on the heels of the gaming company putting the whack on tons of "let's play" videos that covered Nintendo games, because free promotion is something to be squandered, apparently. In that post, however, I noted that there were some serious concerns about how Nintendo would approach this and whether it would attempt to exert some kind of control over video content. It turns out I massively underestimated how badly Nintendo would screw this up. The first quote in the Kotaku post contains only a hint of the problem:

"Think of it as an affiliate program where we will be providing access to executives, information, etcetera, encouraging that group of affiliates to create content on our behalf," Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told me when I asked him for details at E3.

Did you spot the problem? You did, didn't you? Creating an affiliate program that generates extra access to Nintendo executives and all that isn't a bad idea, but focusing on using that access specifically to get "affiliates to create content on our behalf" sounds exactly like the reputation-murdering I had worried about when it comes to the trusted YouTuber names. If you're trading access to become a Nintendo sock-puppet, best of luck keeping your fan base. But it's when the interviewer specifically asked about "let's play" videos that Nintendo showed its true colors.

"When we unveil our affiliate program it'll be clear how different entities can play," Fils-Aime said. "And likely there will be a place for the kinds of examples where you reference, like, look, 'All I want to do is capture some of the content and put it out there,' not add a lot of value. There'll be a role for that. The first thing we needed to do was make sure that the content that's out there was representative of the franchises. These are our lifeblood. These are our children. We needed to make sure that the content there was reflective of what these franchises are. The next step is working with the YouTube community to provide access to information, access to executives, to help them create world-class content, leveraging our franchises."

Note that there is no promise to actually free up all that free advertising for Nintendo in the form of "let's play" videos. All there is are a lot of maybes, might-bes, could-bes, and, oh by the way, we don't think those kind of videos actually have a whole lot of value anyway. Add on top of that a good old-fashioned dose of that Nintendo protectionism and we're right back where we started. Nintendo will allow content it likes and take down content it doesn't feel is "representative." For the YouTube personalities that have built up their reputations as game reviewers and let's-play makers, they shouldn't be touching this affiliate program with a ten-foot pole.

Filed Under: affiliates, fans, let's play, reggie fils-aime, youtube
Companies: nintendo