YouTube and the Deleting Independent Artists

[Candlejack000]

I have not seen any posts on either the forums or the main site so I thought I would put this up.

YouTube has recently announced that it will take down any music that is produced by people not in contract with YouTube. The main focus has been on people such as Adele whose label does not wish to enter a contract with YouTube, but this will affect even solo artist just trying to get their music out there.

Apparently this is all in anticipation for the new paid music service that YouTube plans to roll out which would be similar to iTunes or Spotify.

I have no problem with them trying to make even more money by having a paid service. I would even be fine with them making it so that independent artists never made it on the front page, it would be shady but word of mouth would still work, but to delete all videos that are not YouTube approved is just awful.

Source

http://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2014/06/18/youtube-is-about-to-delete-independent-artists-from-its-site/

 

[DefunctTheory]

EDIT: Totally misread. I should be getting to bed.

Dick move, Google. Dick move.

 

[Candlejack000]

Ok, here's what they forgot to mention (But do in an article below the linked one).

Music that is monetized (Generating ad revenue) will be taken down.

So what Google is actually doing is saying you can't make money on Youtube unless you sign a contract.

Is that bad? Up to you to decide. But it's not like their going to start denying people the ability to share their musical creations. They just can't make money off of it without paying the Piper.

EDIT: It does look like they may be deleting (Or more likely blocking) the current videos, but it appears to be more as a clearing out then an absolute rule. You're independents should be back up and running in no time.

Thank you for making me look at the article again. I read it yesterday before the edited it. And it seems more reasonable, but the thing is that YouTube made over $5.6 BILLION dollars on the ad revenue from these people. I get the whole, we do not want people to pay for a premium subscription (or whatever they will use for the paid stuff) and then find things missing idea, but they could just put a list of what labels are signed on somewhere on the site and say "sucks to be you when a customer does not read it". It is not like YouTube actually cares about the users.

 

[TheIronRuler]

So is this the point where we will start to see someone replacing youtube then? Since sooner or later someone will be taking advantage of this shot to the feet after all.

.
I agree and expect the same. Do you know of something that could replace youtube once it sells-out?

 

[SweetShark]

So if I get it right, Youtube will have the right to delete music from users that aren't made somekind of contract with Youtube?
Ok, a question:
Does this include also the ban of the user uploaded the music track or the Youtube just delete the music track?

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Oh, shit. I'm off to download my music playlists in their entirety.

Seriously though, that's fucked. I will be finding another site for my music-related content in the hopes that others do the same.

 

[shirkbot]

So is this the point where we will start to see someone replacing youtube then? Since sooner or later someone will be taking advantage of this shot to the feet after all.

.
I agree and expect the same. Do you know of something that could replace youtube once it sells-out?

I don't think that there currently is one. Blip and vimeo is fucking up plenty on their own I'm told. Twitch is being eyeballed by google as something they want to buy as well. I don't know if there are anymore beyond these. So only time will tell and it depends on just how much more badly google screws the whole thing over.

It will happen eventually. It's just a question of when. All empires die sooner or later after all.

I remember that Yahoo had mentioned some interest in starting a video service. I don't know any details beyond that, but if they actually wanted to try, now would be the time.

OT: Google, what happened to you?

 

[Someone Depressing]

Ok, we need to find a replacement to YouTUBE. Vimeo is out because it doesn't allow video game content, Twitch is slowly falling apart, and the rest were never or are not good.

We can't keep using YouTUBE, Google is totally ruining it. I'm going to go searching for a decent video service, like, now.

 

[sXeth]

Yeah, I commented elsewhere that 90% of musicians apparently needed to grow their nuts back since they signed into this terrible deal. Especially given the gigantic issue with Spotify/Pandora paying next to nothing, and somehow expecting Youtube will do better?

Adele being the centrepoint kind of confuses me. She's on Columbia in North America (alongside such folks as AC/DC, John Legend, Daft Punk, Foster the People, Iron Maiden, and Beyonce, none of whom are mentioned), which did sign up, and is definately not independent. Her UK label has Radiohead and Jack White, amongst others, both of whom are strangely absent from the news.

So did the labels sign up the artists, or did they all throw in their own towels on this?

 

[Rob Robson]

I'll prep rations for the mass exodus to....Vimeo I guess?

Vimeo has like a 1GB upload limit per month or something insane like that.

Yahoo is currently working on a competitor to YouTube, they might be able to pull something useful off.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

Here's another Forbes article that talks a bit more about it. This is worth the read:

YouTube has confirmed that certain videos will be removed from the site - not just the YouTube paid service - very soon. But it?s not just any video with content from artists that have been tossed out as examples, like Adele, the Arctic Monkeys, or The xx.

The content that will be blocked is official content that comes from the artist or the label - like an official recording of a live performance - and only if the label has not signed onto the deal.

Notably, any music video currently available on Vevo - even from artists whose labels are holding out - will stay on YouTube, a Vevo spokeswoman told Forbes.

Any user-uploaded video of copyrighted content will likely stay up too, a YouTube spokesman said, though it?s yet to be finalized. But the videos will not be monetized - which means that videos that stay up will not have ads running on them (so neither YouTube nor the rights holders earn money), or videos might be taken down. Currently, rights holders can monetize user-uploaded videos of their copyrighted content through YouTube's ContentID system, which alerts rights owners of copyrighted content on the site and lets them choose to take it down or get revenue from ads that run in front of it.

Right now, the top results for "Adele" on YouTube include two user-posted concert videos, her Vevo channel, and three Vevo music videos. It?s impossible to know for sure, but it seems likely that none of those videos would come down because of the dispute.

Another wrinkle: many artists may also have different deals with different labels in different countries, meaning some songs declared ?blocked? may only be so in one country.

So it seems like this is a power play against the labels, forcing them to sign contracts with Youtube if they want their product to be monetised on the site. The average user won't be touched, except if a label or artist they like refuses to sign- in which case, if I'm reading correctly, the user can upload that song, but it won't give any money to the label or artist.

Google is many things, but stupid they are not- they aren't going to cripple Youtube for short-term contracts when they stand to make a lot more by only squeezing businesses, which the average Joe is all for. My guess as to the big impact? We'll start seeing Youtube-only labels that do the equivalent of trading penny stocks, signing thousands of tiny artists to monetize them, trading quantity for (financial) quality.