I'm hearing lots of surprise from lawyers too about the five year licensing term: it's rare to get anything beyond 18 months / 2 years at the moment, if you're a digital service.
Not an example of YouTube being 'evil' – understandable they'd want to chance it on this kind of point – but would be surprised if that really is a non-negotiable length.
"Does anyone really expect that the major labels are going to agree to cut rates?"
I think the argument here is that the majors *might* accept lower rates in return for big advance payments (which - this being the music industry's can of worms – they might also not be obliged to pass on to their artists).
And that may or may not be likely, but this is why indies are angry about that clause. They already suspect YouTube has agreed to pay big upfronts to the majors ($1bn is the figure that's been suggested a couple of times, although it is suspiciously round as figures go).
So say next time the contract is up for renewal, if YouTube were to say to (for example) Universal 'hey, how about we pay you $X upfront and lower the per-stream rates' the latter could then be enforced on indies, without anything upfront.
This is why the indies set up Merlin in the first place: to negotiate collectively and (possibly) get a slice of those advance payments – which Merlin would then distribute to the indie labels. This is why Merlin has equity in Spotify (an alternative to advances) on behalf of its members.
So that's another reason, I think, why some independents are cross about YouTube sending them contracts directly rather than sorting out a deal through Merlin.
As a quick follow-up, though, I don't know if those claims are correct or not. It's more that it frustrates me that the labels' specific complaints aren't being discussed more.
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Another small point
Not an example of YouTube being 'evil' – understandable they'd want to chance it on this kind of point – but would be surprised if that really is a non-negotiable length.
The majors point
I think the argument here is that the majors *might* accept lower rates in return for big advance payments (which - this being the music industry's can of worms – they might also not be obliged to pass on to their artists).
And that may or may not be likely, but this is why indies are angry about that clause. They already suspect YouTube has agreed to pay big upfronts to the majors ($1bn is the figure that's been suggested a couple of times, although it is suspiciously round as figures go).
So say next time the contract is up for renewal, if YouTube were to say to (for example) Universal 'hey, how about we pay you $X upfront and lower the per-stream rates' the latter could then be enforced on indies, without anything upfront.
This is why the indies set up Merlin in the first place: to negotiate collectively and (possibly) get a slice of those advance payments – which Merlin would then distribute to the indie labels. This is why Merlin has equity in Spotify (an alternative to advances) on behalf of its members.
So that's another reason, I think, why some independents are cross about YouTube sending them contracts directly rather than sorting out a deal through Merlin.
Re: There's more to it than this
As a quick follow-up, though, I don't know if those claims are correct or not. It's more that it frustrates me that the labels' specific complaints aren't being discussed more.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by creatif.
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