YouTube to block indie labels as subscription service launch

[_ronzlo_]

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2014/06/g ... more-33784

[_ronzlo_]

Oh.Fuck.

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2014/06/t ... ummarized/

I can sum it up roughly this way, unless I’ve seriously misread the terms and their intentions:

Sign this contract. It covers everything Google does – free (like YouTube) or otherwise. It lets us specify license terms and royalty rates, not you, and not any organisation that represents you. It gives us rights to all your music, and all your music videos, and everything else. It gives us rights to pirated music and videos other people upload, too. And you promise never to sue us.

(and another thing.) Sign it, or we’ll ban you from YouTube for your own content.

The key sections to watch out for: not only is there a “do not sue” covenant that prevents labels from protecting their own content, but it merges free services (apparently including YouTube) with the upcoming premium ones. At the very end, you’ll also find the royalty rates that had frustrated indies, which are reportedly lower than those they had gotten from other sources and lower than what majors had been offered. (The numbers are now out there for discussion.)

[legend4ry]

The thing is, they can do this and no one can fight it. They're the most valuable brand in the world with money to just throw at any problem they come against.

The general population are not going to flock to other places, they're just going to accept it and buy into it.

The only people who are going to be finding other content streams is the markets no one cares about : children & people who are all conspiracy theory crazy.

I don't really give a fuck either way, I don't really use YouTube for music - I use Spotify or buy the tracks, I also haven't really found a YouTube presence as important as a active soundcloud/facebook so it doesn't affect me as a producer either.

[test_recordings]

Lol certainly that's aiding and abetting criminal activity by refusing to take responsibility for pirate material on their servers? I thought a precedent would have already been set by killing Napster, the pirate bay etc.

If labels can't sue then, can they issue a take-down notice or take down the site?

[nowaysj]

Having a player in the game as big as google distorts all the rules. There was a time when a corp like Google would have been (successfully) hit with antitrust and broken into competing pieces. But nothing is too big to fail, they just take longer, and fall harder.

I find a lot of/preview a lot of music on youtube. It is pretty central for me.

But if I need to go back to shortwave to hear about reality, I'll do it. Fuck google.

[test_recordings]

Shortwave as in radio? I think Spotify etc will pick up the pieces from this quite happily

[nowaysj]

Yeah yeah, dat radio shit.

[m8son666]

lol people are talking about this as if youtube owe them something

they can do what the fuck they want they don't owe any of us anything.

if you don't like it stop using youtube

it's like if a shop gave out free chocolate everyday, you could hardly complain if they change it to a flavour you don't like

[nowaysj]

That analogy doesn't work on so many levels, and you know it.

[_ronzlo_]

Was gonna say - that's the most disingenuous comparison I've seen here in at least 4 or 5 days, and that's fuckin' saying something innit.

It's more like:

~ Utilities provider comes along to provide you with a service on par with telephony or global library access;

~ lets you use it completely for free and encourages widespread adoption under the pretense of it always being free with the only revenue coming from advertising presented en route;

~ starts monitoring who you call or what books you check out after a while but says it's only to better help you - people just nod and allow it;

~ suddenly one of the sections of the library you've come to enjoy visiting or person you rely on calling regularly is off limits or banned from the service entirely because they are arbitrarily deemed to be 'competing' advertisers who have to pony up a fee or a share of their revenue or be shunned forever.