My first thought: She should form a subsidiary company that releases her stuff on YouTube. Then she can give the sub her music as she sees fit. That way she can still control her YouTube presence, but Google has the right to do what it needs to do with the stuff she releases to it.
This is a very interesting suggestion. I think you might actually have a point. The reason I state this is because this type of licensing is how movie studios and production companies, um, well, cook their books to the best of their ability.
In the terms of technology and commerce, it seems very similar to licensing a patent / technology to a sub in a tax-haven jurisdiction. Isn't that what certain tech firms do (Google?) to minimize their exposure? What's good for the goose...
If I understand this right, this would have the subsidiary be ONLY distributing to Youtube, and a different one distributing to the other services, which would then fall within the "release it here at the same time you release it anywhere else" clause, right?
Point of note: that model is now explicitly illegal in UK company law -- any directorship must be occupied by a human being: if you interpose shells in the way, they're collapsed until a human being is identified as the responsible party.
(Let me also add that I approve of this. My opinions have shifted in the past 10-15 years and I now think that permitting autonomous corporations to exist -- or even continuing the doctrine of corporate personhood -- are a terrible idea for humanity (because they're effectively AIs that compete with us, and not in a good way).)
> any directorship must be occupied by a human being: if you interpose shells in the way, they're collapsed until a human being is identified as the responsible party.
But what if there really is no human ultimately responsible?
I' thinking, here, of a goal-driven agent that self-replicates by forming corporations, having those corporations purchase machine time on cloud hosting services, and then running algorithms (e.g. Bitcoin mining, e-commerce) which are more profitable on those hosts than the cost of said cloud resources.
The first such entity might be "blamed" on the person who wrote it—but what if its codebase includes code to detect beneficial open-source patches to itself (on Github et al), and spawn its descendants with those patches in place? Eventually there could be a whole ecosystem of these things doing different things, coded effectively "by the world" but running for nobody's benefit in particular but their own. They'd be "AIs that compete with us" in the literal sense. (And if you think about what a real autonomous AI agent would have to do to survive fault-tolerantly on the Internet, it'd probably look very similar; this is sort of a porto-AI-rights thing.)
As the history of fraud-detecting "algos" has proven, such pseudo-organisms would quickly be compromised by earth's apex predator: creative human attackers.
Thank you for posting. I've gone through a similar transition after reading the thought-provoking Accelerando. It will be cheaper for society to experience this provocation and immune response via Accelerando, rather than Ethereum et al.
On the other hand, a wide variety of layers-of-indirection exist in corporate finance and are widely wielded against the rest of society, sometimes aided by millisecond-level decision making such as HFT.
Until such unfair advantages are illegal, would it be better if more people had understanding and access to them, without gatekeeping lawyers? Many comments here are excusably about goose and gander, i.e. reciprocal proliferation.
What about an aggregation company to whom artists can give a global, non-exclusive, irrevocable license that only gets licenses to songs and albums if and when the artists want?
This company would not be owned by the artists but rather by a benevolent third party that promises to do no evil (no sarcasm intended).
I am still not sure how the revenue will flow back to the artists as they do not own this new totally legitimate facilitating entity though. Ideally, we'd want to retain as little money as possible and send as much as possible back to the artists. My motivation is to let artists be in the driving seat as much as possible which means they reap as much of the profit as possible and also bear as much of the risk of their investment as well.
I have no expertise to comment on the contractual merits of this general approach.
On the specific issue of payments: if there was a way to perform real-time "splitting" of bulk payments from distributors to the "broker", they could subtract their small fee and pay the artists at the same time.
Somewhat like PayPal Adaptive Payments, but with a potentially very large number of recipients per transaction. This way, none of the artists' funds are ever held by the broker, even for a short time.
There are lot of details here around varying fee percentages for different services, and ensuring that information does not leak between distributor, broker and payment gateway.
If I've understood it correctly, the subsidary in the tax haven actually owns the IP and then licenses it out to the proper company at high rates. This way, the profits are shifted from the regular firm to the company in the tax haven, and as only profits are taxed the company can stay largely tax free.
Well, if the IP is generated in the US, then gets transferred (sold) to a wholly owned subsidiary at a "negotiated rate" (not mark-to-market), which is then charged back to the inventing parent who no longer technically owns the IP, it's a matter of paperwork...if I understand the situation correctly from what I've read...
It seems like it should, but the more likely consequence (at least based on inference from what Youtube customer service is like and Google's general attitude towards people who use their services) is that she would simply be banned from ContentID and have her Youtube account shut down.
Actually, it would be bad for YouTube users and that would violate YouTube's own claim that she can't selectively choose just the Content ID system based on their "all-or-nothing" proposition.
Not if you have specific knowledge of infringing material being uploaded because you SCAN IT WHILE its being uploaded with Content-id and it so happens you already have content-id signatures of this artists work.
I was just thinking that this is reason 10,000 that artists, designers, developers etc need a guild. Getting them all together under a subsidiary would serve the same purpose.
Perhaps a subsidiary of subsidiaries so that as each is fined/sued/shut down, they can go bankrupt without harming the core.
There was a quote in a documentary called Four Horsemen I believe that said "the rich discovered that the poor were honest" and used that against them to contrive an infinitude of ways of ripping them off. For example bankruptcy is just one of many legal tools to a corporation but is a last resort for individuals, so corporate power grows over time disproportionately like a latch that catches profits but lets losses slip through. It would be nice to see some of the same legal avenues readily available to the little guy.
My first thought: this reopens the market for video streaming services.
YouTube may permanently suffer for this. Anyone who reads and understands the conditions will consider whether they can agree to Google's terms, and secondly, whether they can trust Google's future T&C updates.
Exactly this. This is the first thing i though of. You need multiple entities and multiple channels, so you can manage them independently and have different permissions on each.
Her fans are already uploading all her music in derived work, and she doesn't want to ban the derived work. The rep's argument seems to be that she can't allow derived work to be published unless she also publishes the original tracks in the premium service. Since Google is lumping these things together, the best this suggestion can do is allow her to only publish some of her music in the premium service so that she only has to ban some of the derived work. But what she wants to do is publish nothing in the premium service, but allow almost all the derived work.
That might work, but it might be better to ask directly. She should be able to control how her music is released. Someone should talk to Google directly about how that can happen and get a clear answer for everyone.
That's a good idea that could probably solve the release it to different services at different times issue, but it still doesn't split the exposure of Youtube from its forced monetization that she's having an issue with.
Indeed. But it allows her to control what gets monetized. I can feel Google's point of view on that particular issue- but it's not right for them to therefore say that they require you to turn over your entire library.
In my experience with releasing material, it comes down to the copyright owner releasing property. That means the owner is properly labeled on the contract, whether that's a label, sub corp, or individual matters not.
I think that solves some of the most severe issues.
But one problem with that plan, if I understand correctly, would be that the contentID program would not be available for music she hasn't released through youtube.
So if she releases a track to bandcamp exclusively, then a 3rd party uses that track in a video without paying a license, she still will be in the position of needing to identify that herself, and then issues a DMCA takedown request at her discretion.
But that scenario seems far more reasonable than the one Google is trying to force, where all her catalogue must be made available at all times and on their terms.
I think the said company would have to hold the IP (intellectual property) to be able to register with YouTube, thus ending up in the same situation as now
Yup, call it "Zoe's YouTube Band" and make every release under that, maybe add a slide whistle at the end of each track so it's unique, and BAM...applesauce...
Um, it's pretty clear what she needs to do. Let Google block and take her fans to a different service. And encourage other artists to do the same. And then sue Google for infringement when Google doesn't actually manage to keep their music off of YouTube. That's the only way that Google will ever pay attention.
If she doesn't help overturn this, Google will just keep doing it.
Yes, this is the standard problem. She, individually, has to take the hit so that the musicians, collectively, benefit. It sucks.
The independent artists really need to get together and build their own service with the terms they need so they don't have to keep fighting Google, Spotify, etc.
I'm not sure that strategy would work. Her only recourse would be to file DMCA take down notices on unauthorized content uploads. As long as Google complied with the take down process, they could not be sued.
If she doesn't file a DMCA, they could not be sued.
Google isn't held accountable for the uploads of their as long as they follow those rules. Remember, if they _could_ be sued solely for content appearing on their site and even if no take down was filed Youtube (or any other content site) would likely not exist as they would have been sued out of business long ago.
Content ID brings up an interesting twist on the DMCA. If a provider has "actual knowledge" of infringement, safe harbor doesn't apply. When Viacom sued Google/YouTube, they claimed that Google/YouTube had "general knowledge" of infringement. That isn't enough.
Google is paying this person for use of their work. They have knowledge and it could be argued that they obtained a license. They want to renegotiate the terms of that license. The DMCA isn't a tool to be used to force artists to license their content on terms that favor YouTube.
The actual safe harbor text (17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(1)(A)):
i. does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing;
ii. in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or
iii. upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material.
It's certainly questionable whether Content ID gives Google "actual knowledge" of infringement happening. But the rule isn't that content only has to be taken down when given a DMCA notice. Once Google has "actual knowledge", they need to take action.
And I think that's the alternative that Google would do. Videos that match the Content ID would be removed. I think the issue is that the artist doesn't want to be so punitive to fans who are caught in the middle. Google knows that artists don't want to hurt their fans and is leveraging that against them. I don't think this would become a DMCA issue at all. It's more an issue of Google having the market power to be a price/terms setter. Google seems more than willing to use Content ID to block infringement, but also has the positioning to reply to the user, "this artist has decided you, the uploader who worked hard on that video, that you're not allowed to use their music. Maybe you should hate that artist and like one of these other artists. . ." A bit of hyperbole, but you can see how an artist wouldn't want to position themselves that way.
Google needs more than actual knowledge that the video is a copyrighted work–they need to know that it is unauthorized or be "aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent". If they no longer have a formal relationship with the artist and no longer have the artist's original works to have the Content ID system compare to, then they have very few ways other than DMCA complaints to become sufficiently aware or certain of infringement.
What I find more interesting is 17 U.S.C. § 512 (i):
(1) Accommodation of technology. — The limitations on liability established by this section shall apply to a service provider only if the service provider —
(A) has adopted and reasonably implemented, and informs subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network of, a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network who are repeat infringers; and
(B) accommodates and does not interfere with standard technical measures.
(2) Definition. — As used in this subsection, the term “standard technical measures” means technical measures that are used by copyright owners to identify or protect copyrighted works and—
(A) have been developed pursuant to a broad consensus of copyright owners and service providers in an open, fair, voluntary, multi-industry standards process;
(B) are available to any person on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms; and
(C) do not impose substantial costs on service providers or substantial burdens on their systems or networks.
----
Thus, they don't have to provide Content ID themselves, but they have to allow for a third-party Content ID that doesn't have all the strings attached.
> If they no longer have a formal relationship with the
> artist and no longer have the artist's original works to
> have the Content ID system compare to
Google threatening to remove their ability to identify copyrighted music, simply because they can't negotiate the business terms they want? For future releases, sure, but for content they can currently identify, they plan to say "Nah, we're going to pretend we can't identify it any more"?
That sounds like the mother of all punitive damages lawsuits waiting to happen.
Somewhere a scumbag attorney's wallet is getting warm, and he has no idea why.
Google is not obligated to provide a Content ID system; they're only obligated to make it possible for someone else to do so. So if Google wants to tie their Content ID system to their monetization system and put other restrictions on it, that's 100% ok. If you don't like their terms, you're still free to use other means to police for infringement of your content.
As for them no longer being able to identify other instances of your work after you sever the relationship with Google: once you do so, they've got no license from you that authorizes them to keep authoritative copies of your works around.
She already pointed out that, more often than not, a sync license should be in order. YouTube is trying to claim their Content ID system usurps this right? Wow, people have accused me of hubris, but...wow...
Your logic is very, very appreciated by me in this case, as what you've described pretty much sounds like a cliché of a protection racket...
"My, it's a nice collection of songs you have here...it'd be a shame if you didn't accept these pennies for the effort we are going through to give them to you..."
Considering a sync license is a very solidly established issue (just ask Monster vs. Beastie Boys), I think YouTube is really setting the stage for a hard, hard reality check.
As far as I understand the issue (and I am not a lawyer or involved in this kind of thing on either side), it would be the uploaders that would need sync licenses, not YouTube, as YouTube is a hoster and the uploaders are ultimately responsible. If I understand correctly, YouTube's responsibility is based in the DMCA and is limited to taking things down and having some way of kicking off repeat infringers.
Maybe not directly relevant, but in the case of Waves Audio Ltd. v. Skyline Recording Studios NYC, the jury ruled that "[a] person is liable for copyright infringement by another if the person has a financial interest and the right and ability to supervise the infringing activity, whether or not the person knew of the infringement" [1]. Although this is a very different case (cracked software was used to mix music), I wonder if something of a sort can be applied to Google here—they have the right and ability to "supervise the infringing activity" i.e. the Content ID system gives them the ability to know precisely if an infringement occurs, so a DMCA notice that is not compiled with might not be necessary for this to go to court. I'm not sure how it would hold, though, this is just a thought.
Even if the DMCA protects Google themselves from legal action as long as they properly comply with the takedown procedures, can she not still sue uploaders personally?
Whether she'd want to or not is a different question, of course. But let's assume she has some of those "special cases" she mentioned -- an unauthorised advertising campaign or two, maybe -- as handy targets with no moral or commercial dilemma attached.
I imagine YouTube would suddenly get a lot fewer contributions if legitimate copyright lawsuits resulting high awards of statutory damages started landing on uploaders' doorsteps, even if Google themselves only participated by providing evidence under some sort of disclosure procedure or court order.
I bet independent artists would love to live in a world where they, even collectively, have the kind of money it would take to win a legal fight with Google, or to build a viable competitor.
Wikipedia: "Viacom did not seek damages for any actions after Google put its Content ID filtering system in place in early 2008." Google and Viacom ultimately settled. So the issue of whether Google can tie Content ID to giving them rights to content hasn't been litigated yet.
Meanwhile, Facebook is getting serious about taking on YouTube. Maybe they'll offer a better deal.
DMCA is in no way pro web-host. You can send out mass takedown requests and some hosts will choose to remove the content without even contacting the host of said infringing content.
That alternative isn't even plausible. Hosts have no practical way to determine whether the users own or have licensed the content they post so it makes no sense to impose liability on them. The realistic alternative is the CDA safe harbor which has no takedown procedure. If you have e.g. a libel claim you have to go after the actual poster.
It also isn't clear whether they would even have any liability without the safe harbor, because it was put into place early enough that we don't really know what happens without it. But you don't generally expect the Post Office to be liable for what people send in the mail.
That's worse than the current system. In the current system, the host can just take down the infringing content (until the uploader challenges the takedown), and pass along a warning to the uploader. The person complaining about the infringement never gets personal info about who the uploader is. In your scenario, the webhost would leave the content up but they would have to identify the uploader.
> In your scenario, the webhost would leave the content up but they would have to identify the uploader.
What part of 47 U.S.C. Sec. 230 do you read as a requirement to identify the uploader?
Obviously a plaintiff who wants to sue the uploader might be able to get a subpoena (assuming the webhost can identify the uploader), but how is that different from the DMCA?
It would be cool to see a worker-owned cooperative, 100% owned by its member artists, become established in this space.
It's not as infeasible as you might think; artists' cooperatives, as a business structure, have a long history, and creating a digital space is, in many respects, more cost-effective than a brick-and-mortar location.
It is challenging, if not impossible, for a cooperative to obtain funding for that push into "really big" that nearly every major tech company has had to raise. There is no exit strategy for a cooperative, no cash out option for investors. Cooperatives historically raise money from their members, or use traditional loans, neither of which is feasible for the kind of independent artists that would benefit from this type of entity.
It would need a benevolent, and very wealthy, collection of artists or sympathetic patrons to fund growth, or it would simply be out-gunned by the rest of the industry that actively works against artist independence.
One of my businesses is a worker-owned cooperative. It has challenges that are completely novel to me (having started two small traditional corporations before that), and they're very difficult to overcome. Herding cats is hard, operating under the cooperative principles is hard(er than doing it all for profit), and raising money is effectively impossible for many types of cooperative, as far as I can tell.
Building a competing music or video service to YouTube and Spotify would require tremendous resources, and without the big cash-out promised by those ventures, I don't know how one would make it work.
Easier than you'd think maybe? There are some VERY wealthy artists that might take a personal interest in an effort like this. A few big players could start the coop and bank roll it.
There are very, very few living billionaire musicians (I can think of only three, maybe four), and most of those few have a vested interest in seeing the industry remain the way it is (because they've built their fortune within it and have become moguls within that industry in their own right; for example Jay Z and Kanye West and Madonna who all have rosters of artists effectively in their employ, using the traditional indentured servant music industry model). And, the definition of "VERY wealthy" looks different in the tech industry than it does in the music industry.
I'd love to be wrong. But, I've been an indie and DIY and punk music fan almost my entire life, and I've worked in the music industry. It's better than it's ever been for independent artists in many regards, but Google and Apple aren't on the side of artists all that much more than the historic record industry was/is, and it's very hard to have them as an adversary. Would you want to try to compete directly with Google or Apple? And, if you were someone with tens of millions of disposable income would you want to risk it on a venture that is likely to fail and if it succeeds won't do much more than pay back your investment capital and a small bit of interest?
You are very on-point - what does a successful artist do as soon as they have enough clout in the industry? Start their own label. Sign artists. Take a cut. Negotiate deals with advertising, take a cut of that. Tell the artists on the roster that they're better off with you than without you.
The parallels are stunning in this case. Thank you for mentioning your perspective, as I think it bears repeating that the "music industry" has always been like this - the names and methods may look different, but the model is the same. Ain't nobody signed to iTunes or YouTube, near as I can tell...
These exist. Here in Germany, the major (actually, only) rights-management agency is the GEMA, which is wholly controlled by "the artists".
It's a nightmare, though. It is ruled by the bureaucrats running it, in conjunction with the artists that actually profit from it, i. e. old people with a large back catalogue. It's constantly fighting with the businesses using music, i. e. youtube still blocks 90% of videos with music because they haven't agreed on prices. Clubs might have to close because they've tripled prices recently. Small bands sometimes sign up, only to find out they actually have to pay to play their own songs, and through the magic of the most convoluted payout formula ever, might not actually get as much back as they pay in. Even if they get something out of it, it may take 18 months.
I've had thoughts in this area before. Such a co-op could build a platform on which they can share media, crowdfund, sell whatever, and whatever else the artists want to do to get themselves out there.
Even if they didn't build and run the platform themselves directly (due to the fact that a bunch of artists have better things to do) - if they contracted out the development and maintenance to a third-party company - they'd have ownership over the platform, be able to switch maintenance company, and therefore take their fanbases with them if things start going wrong.
It's not ethical for a distributor to strong-arm the hands that feed it on a 5 year basis, no matter how small a slice of the pie it may be.
Google has DMCA takedown capabilities. I'd suggest simply hiring a third party to monitor Google and send appropriate take-down notices. Then, on an annual basis, submit the invoice to Google. It's dirty pool, but then again, when has the music industry ever been a transparent and constructive and profitable enterprise for anybody outside of the top 1% of performers/acts/songwriters?
5 years is way to long for a social media platform that iterates almost every 2 weeks to the newest fad/trend/pop song. These contracts should be for 1 year max. Especially since they force to you release all and any of your new work there for free and pay. WAY to long of a time for that kind of control.
In artist-land, it's unethical to not give artists the services they want on the terms they want. Because art is the most important thing in the world.
I know that sounds sarcastic, but it's actually how a lot of artists behave and speak.
To clarify, this has more to do with controlling distribution - most artists want to retain ultimate control over when they can choose to terminate distribution.
To add a firsthand story, I am a part of an online music community, OverClocked Remix (http://ocremix.org ), that had to craft a formal content policy agreement for legal reasons to protect itself in the event a game publisher/rights owner decided to sue the site for hosting rearranged music from one of their games (the site only sells officially licensed music - the rest is free), or if an artist imposed many fickle demands such as 5+ artist handle change requests or a sudden takedown request of a track, which would affect distribution methods such as torrents. The site solicited feedback from the community, and we came to the decision to require a non-exclusive right to distribute with an identifier of our copyright (meta information in ID3v2 tags and the file name), no DRM), while the artists would maintain full rights of their track. Termination of distribution is left at the site's hands.
A few artists balked at this, and expressed strong disagreements based on the view that artists should retain full rights over distribution. They ultimately signed and most, even those who complained, ended up content with it.
> It's not ethical for a distributor to strong-arm the hands that feed it on a 5 year basis, no matter how small a slice of the pie it may be.
In the business world, this is known as negotiation. It's normal and ethical. Here, it's like being in a big store. You can buy the thing on the shelf or not, but you don't get to haggle over the price.
Zoe wants to haggle over the price until it's something convenient for her.
> I'd suggest simply hiring a third party to monitor Google and send appropriate take-down notices.
This is abuse. This will have a chilling effect on free expression.
As far as most anyone is concerned, monitoring YouTube for user-initiated copyright violations to send takedown notices is precisely what the DMCA was intended to be used for.
Agreed. My then-3 year old daughter danced to the tune of Da Funk and I uploaded it. The sound was removed, even though it was in the background. It was Fair Use for sure.
Shame on YouTube, quite seriously - I didn't cost Daft Punk anything!
"Terms are offered. You can accept them or reject them"
Isn't this the exact opposite of a negotiation? By definition, doesn't "negotiation" imply that both parties enter into a discussion in an attempt to reach an agreement.
When you buy a cup of coffee, Starbucks doesn't force you to sign a legal document saying that you will only drink Starbucks coffee for the next five years, or that whenever you buy a cup of coffee from somewhere else you must simultaneously buy a cup from Starbucks. Also, if you refuse to buy the cup of coffee, Starbucks will not post your picture in every branch in the country to prevent you from ever buying a cup of coffee from them again.
In this case the "product" is an automated system for paying royalties on the customer's creative output which Google is making money off the back of, and they haven't so much "dropped" it as changed the terms to compel the customer to agree to a distribution deal with YouTube.
If any other online hosting service (with substantial network or lock-in effects) changed their terms to give themselves rights to host and slap ads on any of your other public output there would be an outcry. Why is this one different?
And google uses search, in turn, to juice their own properties (such as youtube) by pushing them higher in the SERPs. See, eg, the europe antitrust stuff for demonstration.
Zoe's music is the product here, not Google's service; it's Google that's unilaterally demanding she monetize or block it, and trying to prevent her from entering into any exclusive agreements with any other distributor.
Note: In this specific instance, YouTube is using the automated system to monetize it for themselves and give a portion of the proceeds to the creator. This is an important distinction. Also, they are dictating rights with respect to distribution.
For comparison, Best Buy purchases the CDs outright from the Publisher/Label/Artist collective, and often sells below cost (first week release) to incentivize customers to patronize their store. In your mind, should Best Buy be taking a cut of the Publisher/Label/Artist agreement like YouTube is proposing in this case?
If Best Buy were to replace their markup with that agreement and offer labels the option of working with that or not, I wouldn't see a problem. It offers the supplier the option to walk away and do business with someone else.
Unlike Best Buy, YouTube can only guess at who the creator is. Best Buy has the luxury of a known supply chain.
So, sort of like Apple did with the Publishers in order to move in on Amazon's turf? I believe what you're describing is against anti-trust laws, if not in exact legal terms, then certainly in the spirit of the law. Best Buy still has exclusive releases (as does Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon, iTunes), but they are part of a larger dynamic market.
YouTube effectively has monopoly status as a "Videos-with-music" service. iTunes/Spotify/Pandora/Beats/Deezr/Rdio are a different service class, so don't even try and throw those into the pot, because that won't fly.
YouTube is a monopoly in the same way that iTMS is a monopoly. Many of the terms (like the release-here-first) ones are reminiscent of how Amazon and iTMS do their pricing.
Release-here-first is not mandatory for all artists on iTunes, I know this first-hand. Maybe it is for certain artists with record label contracts, but they signed those contracts through other parties. I signed no such contract, and if I want to release something first on Soundcloud, Facebook, VIMEO, YouTube, or by burning CDs and leaving them tacked to boards in coffee shops, it is not in my distribution contract with iTunes or Amazon beyond the negotiated pricing platform.
Might I ask you to re-read my comment? I never claimed that iTMS used that particular stipulation. I compared it to a common pricing-relate stipulation.
YouTube chooses to only guess who the creator is, because that's convenient for their business model.
There are other choices available to them, they weren't forced into this one. They chose it because it's easy for them, and most importantly, it allows them in rapidly increase the amount of user-generated content they offer.
It's a problem that derives from the complexity of copyright law. The result is that the only way to be certain renders user-generated content sites completely unworkable.
If your intent is to have a chilling effect on free speech on the internet, requiring a huge and messy legal process to publish something is a good way to do it.
"In technology-land, it's unethical to not give companies the content they want on the terms they want. Because their service is the most important thing in the world.
I know that sounds sarcastic, but it's actually how a lot of technology firms behave and speak."
I don't know any tech people or companies who believe that about their services. I know a lot of artists who do.
Unscientific sample, obviously. I'm also not arguing that Zoe should accept what YouTube is offering. Just that YouTube isn't obligated to offer her want she wants.
Tell you what. Want to start a company offering distribution services to artists on the terms they want? Sounds like your kind of thing. I'm sure artists, publishers, labels, and customers will all love it and shower it with money.
I already have one that I pay for out of my own pocket, it's called DistroKid, and it's wonderful.
So, no, I'll stick to the business of creating things, sharpening my National Forensics League trained debate skills in forums such as this, and reminding myself that I do these from my soul. I gain absolutely nothing by engaging with you, other than heartache at the state of affairs in this world, but it comes from within and I choose to embrace who I am. I hope Zoe succeeds in whatever she does, and applaud her for trying, especially in the face of hostility such as yours.
My heart also aches at the state of affairs in intellectual property law. It's a terrible system from top to bottom that serves mostly to suppress creativity. It badly needs to be re-engineered, but there are far too many vested interests to make that practical.
I haven't thought back to Forensics in a very, very long time. Geez.
If you think my attitude is hostility, then I submit that you could stand to benefit by reading my comments more carefully.
EDIT: Also, DistroKid doesn't allow me to set my own terms. It doesn't look like what I proposed at all.
I have a hard time understanding how the copyright system suppresses creativity considering we have available now more creative output, in a wider variety, conveniently available at reasonable prices including free, than has ever been the case before
Part of that is the result of easier distribution, cheaper production, and more available leasure for classes able to do creation.
How the copyright system influence this is (to my mind) uncertain. The system may be positive, or it may be negative. There isn't sufficient research nor natural experiments to know. I strongly suspect some level of copyright protection is positive, but there are too many variables to be able to be certain.
If they had put it there themselves, I'd agree with you. They haven't. They have an automated system that accepts content from users.
Vimeo from conception made an ethical stand to get rid of all content that wasn't directly uploaded by the creator.
YouTube from conception decided to not only allow but to itself seed the network with content that its submitters didn't create.
YouTube ended up having more content than Vimeo and thus more users even though Vimeo was first to market and had a much better product and user experience.
YouTube won because it decided to ignore the ethics of distributing content that it had no rights to.
They were from the very beginning and still remain an unethical company when it comes to profiting from other people's copyrights.
Bear in mind that there is not and is unlikely to ever be any kind of system that can determine what color your bits are with any kind of reliability.
There are many forms of smart contracts and decentralized digital asset management systems that could be utilized to create an open platform for publishing and claiming ownership over digital goods. All it takes is software willing to opt-in to these contracts and people who would rather use an honest system over a dishonest system.
Systems that subsidize the storing and distribution of digital media with advertisements never allow for the creators to have any power in the conversation about their digital rights. They just get blanket contracts written by the largest rights-holders.
YouTube is designed for consumers and not producers. It is in the DNA of the product. It can't be removed. It will be its undoing.
They're not going to get safe harbor if they've got the ability to block and monetize--that's not common carrier and they are exerting control.
The first problem is that YouTube is effectively a monopoly. The app is default installed on 2/3 of all smartphones, and the server bandwidth is subsidized by Google so that competitors really can't get traction. If we had a viable YouTube competitor, these terms would get smashed.
The second problem is that DMCA takedown is an unfair burden on the artist. After you have to file some number of the things over time, it should be considered a willful infringement by the service if it is collecting money.
Instead, Google gets to have it both ways: it gets to extract money while sitting behind the DMCA as a shield.
They're not going to get safe harbor if they've got the ability to block and monetize--that's not common carrier and they are exerting control.
"Common carrier" is an ISP term, it doesn't apply here anyway.
Google won't be liable as long as they (1) aren't aware of the infringing videos and (2) take them down after receiving a DMCA complaint. I don't see how their ability to block them changes this - it's pretty established that these services are not required to proactively monitor their content.
After you have to file some number of the things over time, it should be considered a willful infringement by the service if it is collecting money.
That would kill any user content service that has ads, not only Youtube. How exactly do you propose they'd do such a thing? ContentID is far from infallible, and many sites can't even afford to build such a technology - in fact, if you required automated takedown based on content recognition, you'd only be strengthening Youtube's position.
Instead, Google gets to have it both ways: it gets to extract money while sitting behind the DMCA as a shield.
And the phone service gets to charge money when criminals place calls to conspire to commit crimes. So what?
By the way, I agree that this move is pretty shitty by Google. No argument there.
> Google won't be liable as long as they (1) aren't aware of the infringing videos and (2) take them down after receiving a DMCA complaint. I don't see how their ability to block them changes this - it's pretty established that these services are not required to proactively monitor their content.
Asking what another comment asked above this thread - doesn't ContentID exactly fill the requirements for clause (1) - Google knows which videos are potential infringement.
ContentID won't know what videos are hers if they delete the reference videos from the database. And I don't see how could they be forced to keep them there, since that would be tantamount to forcing pro-active monitoring.
But if Google is paying her now for the use of her music in YouTube videos, how can they then claim after the agreement ends that they were unaware of the same videos?
> The independent artists really need to get together and build their own service with the terms they need so they don't have to keep fighting Google, Spotify, etc.
Isn't that what Bandcamp is? And SoundCloud, and probably gazillion other similar services?
I am confused about the terms used in this post, some details need to be explicated. If a user uses a song they don't have the rights to in a youtube video, the content holder has the right to issue a DMCA takedown request. Google also, alternately, offers the rights holder the option to monetize that third-party use instead.
Is Google seriously removing that monetization option unless the rights holder agrees to release ALL their music through Google, and on Google's terms?
Because that's what Zoe's post is implying, and that would be some serious next level anti-trust bullying kind of nonsense.
> Is Google seriously removing that monetization option unless the rights holder agrees to release ALL their music through Google, and on Google's terms?
Yes, the independent artists have been screaming about YouTube licensing terms for a while now.
> Because that's what Zoe's post is implying, and that would be some serious next level anti-trust bullying kind of nonsense.
But there's competition. You know ... Vimeo, NicoNico, etc.
That fact that they have less than .1% of the market in the US isn't relevant. </sarcasm>
iTunes, Google Music, Soundcloud, Spotify, etc. are all competitors in this situation. YouTube is a LOT less than 99.9% of the music distribution market.
And yet whenever any of the 15-30 year olds I know want a specific piece of music, they go straight to YouTube. I have yet to see anybody push "Buy" on any of those services
"The average iTunes user spends ~$40 per year on the service"
That matches my experience, and that's average. Presumably the in-app purchase whales are skewing that high; it's probably closer to $20.
Between apps and video, that doesn't leave much for music. Almost all the money goes to Top 40 for that.
You need to meet more 15-30 year olds. I'm part of that demographic, and many of my friends view Spotify as the first stop and Youtube as a backup if Spotify doesn't have the desired content
And some have all 320s, and a surprising number are buying mostly vinyl. But everyone uses YouTube to listen to tracks they don't own, aren't available to stream (many, for Spotify), or are vinyl-only. It's always the go-to for house parties.
There's a lot of variety out there, but you're right, YouTube is the backstop.
Yes, lots of people use YouTube. But bsder claimed that everyone in that demographic that they know goes "straight" to YouTube, and I was presenting the countering anecdote that I know loads of people in that demographic who use YouTube as the backstop, not the first stop.
On the house party subject, my roommates and I in college through roughly weekly parties, ranging from a few people to several hundred people, and we defaulted to Spotify (but used lots of other things as well). We could have definitely been an outlier, though, as I agree lots of people default to YouTube there.
Of those, YouTube has the lowest barrier to entry for users. I'd guess because of that low barrier to entry that YouTube serves the most music traffic, but I don't have any stats to back up that guess.
YouTube is such a popular resource for music that someone has taken to making a Chrome extension based around playing music from YouTube. https://streamus.com/
The creator mentioned when talking about the motivation behind this project that they've had issues with the gaps in the subscription based services (Spotify, Google Music, etc), whereas they've had good luck with finding music on YouTube.
If I were a musician in this situation I'd definitely not want to pull my music from YouTube.
Removing the monetization option is one thing. It's not nice, but I think they have the right to say "this is a service where artists upload all their music..." If it had started that way, it wouldn't be terrible.
OTOH, allowing artists to use the tech to find infringing videos and deal with them by taking them down or leaving them up with a "song by xyz" credit shouldn't be contingent on this. That technology is Youtube's way of complying with copyright. It shouldn't go away if users don't participate in this program and agree to these onerous terms.
Ok I think Zoe should create a t-shirt on tee spring with "I don’t think they are evil. I think they, like other tech companies, are just idealistic in a way that works best for them." that is such a great quote.
And I agree it is bogus what Google is asking. Next step is the ContentID equivalent robot that runs as a service and just sends DMCA takedown notices to Google forcing them to remove the videos and get no ad revenue on them and piss off their users. She really does have the power in this fight, applying it will take some effort but I think it can be done.
Yes, she's being very kind in her opinion, IMHO a bit too much. This sounds like something to be angry and up-in-arms about, but she's got other, closer battles to fight.
Another wonderful quote, regarding her past youthful tech idealism, is: "Unfortunately a lot of those ideals, if they still exist, have become…corrupted is too strong a word….subsumed. The revolution has been corporatized."
It's like the post-hippie era all over again. Someone page Gil Scott-Heron's ghost, we need an update to his poem.
She is being extremely generous. Corrupted is exactly the right word.
The parent comment highlights the two sentences starting with "I don’t think they are evil." But I was particularly struck by the end of that paragraph:
"The people who work at Google, Facebook, etc can’t imagine how everything they make is not, like, totally awesome. If it’s not awesome for you it’s because you just don’t understand it yet and you’ll come around. They can’t imagine scenarios outside their reality and that is how they inadvertently unleash things like the algorithmic cruelty of Facebook’s yearly review (which showed me a picture I had posted after a doctor told me my husband had 6-8 weeks to live)."
Algorithmic cruelty is such a great turn of phrase.
Next step is the ContentID equivalent robot that runs as a service and just sends DMCA takedown notices to Google forcing them to remove the videos and get no ad revenue on them and piss off their users.
Yeah, but the problem is that those users are often her fans, and they'll be pissed at her too. And the fact is that she has more to lose than Google, no matter what she does.
What if the robot sent the video's poster a message saying "Hey, you're using my music without my permission. If you put on an annotation crediting it to me and linking it to my Bandcamp page, i'll give you my permission. But if you don't, i'll DMCA you."?
Essentially, you'd be implementing the earlier, non-evil, version of the Content ID program yourself.
Good idea, but it could be phrased a lot more amicably. Maybe, "Hi, I'm really happy you like [song name]. Just writing to let you know that you're entirely welcome to use the song in this video, free of charge, as long as you add an annotation crediting me (Zoe Keating) and linking back to my Bandcamp page (URL). Here's an article describing how to do that: [link]. Thanks!"
"FOOL! You dare to use my music on your worthless trinket of a video? Demonstrate your complete submission to my will by adding credits and a link, as directed [link], and I may spare your pitiful life. KNEEL BEFORE ZOË!"
Depending on the musician / band that actually might be the proper tone for the message. Probably not for this artist, but I can think of a few that the fan would get a kick out of that response.
I think she describes it pretty well in the blog post, she uses the existing ContentID system which effectively DMCA's the video user internally and then gives them the option of adding Google advertising or taking it down.
From the user's perspective, the change would be "Go here ... and request a sync license to this music content." rather than a checkbox to just turn on Google advertising. If they didn't want to do that then they would need to take down the video.
She is already sending auto-takedowns, Google simply wants to double dip on the value, both getting advertising revenue from her work when fans use it in their videos and using it to attract more customers to their music service by giving her songs away for free when it pleases them.
From that very article: ... if labels can't agree to make their videos available to both the free and premium tiers of the subscription service.
You need only look at the Amazon Prime Music service as an exemplar, take an artist, make a couple of recognizable hits available for 'free', and the rest behind the service paywall. That is a pretty classic and well used content service feature for attracting new customers, only the content service decides what to give away for free, and what to charge for, not the artist. And if you read closely the original article Zoe said she had to put it on Google's service at the exact same time she did anywhere else. This is a huge loss in marketing leverage for a small artist because she loses the ability to have a special "fan release" that she can get out early to fans to subscribe to her own version of an affinity service.
So lets say she produces an awesome track, and her fans are all abuzz because they hear it first. It pulls people on the edge into the fan subscription service.
But with this arrangement all of that marketing leverage is ceded to Google. They might decide to put her best paying track on the 'free' side to highlight great indie artist tunes on the 'pay' side. She loses her best source of revenue and Google gets to push some people over the edge into paying for their streaming service.
Artistic content, whether it is games, movies, music, or books, has a strong 'freshness' peak in value when it first comes out and then tapers off rapidly. Collecting that value is fundamental to the economics of information, that is why there are "exclusive" stories and "sneak previews".
Google is requesting that artists cede that value over to them in order to participate on Youtube. In my opinion, that is an exceptionally high price to pay.
> Next step is the ContentID equivalent robot that runs as a service and just sends DMCA takedown notices to Google forcing them to remove the videos and get no ad revenue on them and piss off their users
ContentID stores some kind of hash to identify music; isn't this "hash" just another version of the same work and therefore subject to copyright?
My point is it's likely that ContentID needs some kind of permission from the artist to even work, because in order to identify someone's music it needs to store that music (or some representation thereof), and if it does that without the artist's permission, it's infringement.
So one option could be to get out of ContentID entirely and then forbid Google to go after her fans.
It seems fairly clear to me from the article that this is entirely her choice already. She has three options: sign the new agreement and continue receiving cash for videos including her content, drop out of the agreement and stop receiving cash but leave the videos up, or drop out of the agreement and take all the videos down. She has full control over this.
Nope. A SHA-256 cryptographic hash isn't a "version" of a file in any sense of the word. You couldn't (for example) run a binary hash of an executable, nor can you convert it into an executable file by compiling it or reversing the hash algorithm.
I think it should be noted that she has the same thing going on. She's idealistic in a way that just happens to be very convenient for her and her finances. What's convenient for others isn't a concern.
What's interesting is that she poses her doing this as morally superior to someone else doing this.
Zoe Keating is one of my favorite musicians. If you haven't listened, Imagine if someone was playing the Game of Thrones theme on a Cello, solo. She incorporates tech into her act in wildly impressive ways.
This is a refreshingly level-headed blog post. There are pros and cons, but it's all presented as realistic tension between two creative organizations, each of which provides value (One having more leverage, of course).
It's just such a nice break from the over-the-top demonization of the tech/corporate partner and ignoring the value they provide.
I went to see her live last week. I had only been vaguely aware of her before then, but I came away really really enjoying her work.
She also mentioned during the performance that before she started playing full time she used to be a programmer, which was very cool. And totally not surprising given her very creative use of technology in her music. Also apparent in her writing as her understanding and insight of Youtube Music's technology and business model is on point.
Interesting look at clash of interests. One interesting point (out of several in the post):
> I will be required to release new music on Youtube at the same time I release it anywhere else. So no more releasing to my core fans first on Bandcamp and then on iTunes.
I wonder if the difference is in thinking of iTunes as a proper music distribution service and youtube as a place that has incidentally distributed a bunch of her music (as much of the blog post seems to put it) that is now demanding to be something different.
> [...] at least in time for ITUNES to begin selling eMasters the earlier of a general release date, provided by COMPANY, or when any other distributor is permitted to begin selling, or making commercially available, COMPANY Content in any format.
It appears that her Bandcamp is hosted at her own domain, at http://music.zoekeating.com. Does that count as her distributing it herself, or as someone else distributing it? Except for the tiny footer saying "Bandcamp", it looks like self-distribution. In my relatively uninformed opinion, that seems like it means section 3a doesn't apply.
I guess it depends who she signed with iTunes through? If it was herself then it seems like it would be covered by the "provided by COMPANY" clause, if not, then it seems like it would be readily covered by the "any other distributor" clause.
It says "a general release date, provided by COMPANY". I don't know what the definition of "general release date" is, but I would assume that's when it's released to the general public. I don't know if releasing to her Bandcamp fans counts or not.
Edit: Another alternative is, does she offer it for sale when releasing just on Bandcamp? If that's available for free only, and doesn't have a "Buy now" option added until it's released on iTunes, then it seems like that would satisfy the "any other distributor is permitted to begin selling, or making commercially available, COMPANY Content in any format" bit (in this case assuming that her site counts as "any other distributor").
Ultimately, speculation about legal contracts by laypeople like us (well, me, but I assume you're not a lawyer either) is probably a pointless exercise.
that's one of the things that I'm shocked has managed to escape the media all this long. YouTube is by and large a music video site, but that tag has never been applied because of a few other clips here and there
I'm really glad Zoe decided to share this. It was interesting to read and I hope it helps raise awareness about the total hostility of the terms of that artist agreement. I'm having trouble imagining there are any independent artists at all that would be comfortable agreeing to those terms.
What you can do about YouTube is to use it like any ordinary person who uploads videos of their dog doing something cute, or whatever.
They are not being threatened with having their channels blocked unless they sign some agreement.
Release and market your music in any way you want, and use
YouTube to host some vids, so you can embed them into your web pages without having to use your own bandwidth.
Here is a little quote:
> "[...] no matter how I explained my hands-on fan-supported anti-corporate niche thing, I was an alien to them. I don’t think they understood me at all. "
See, if you want to be in a fan-supported anti-corporate niche thing, then don't feed your music to some Content ID "Borg" machine, intended to harass people who share.
Of course those people didn't understand. They were probably thinking, "why do you want our help in content-ID-ing your material and clamping down on duplication, forcing copies to be removed or monetized by you, if you are anti-corporate and fan-supported? We are, like, corporate and revenue-supported."
First, write a song and shoot a quick video about the desire to treat your fans with respect, and upload it ASAP to YouTube.
Once the "MUST DO" deadline comes up, kick that serfdom YouTube contract to the curb and don't look back.
Set up shop on VIMEO or DailyMotion, monetize as able.
Lastly, talk to deadmau5 about the Pros/Cons of setting up a self-directed distribtuion platform.
[1] Proud to be independent, distributed and listened to worldwide, and even if that only means I've made $14 in income from my music in the past two years, the music reaching people is my goal. DistroKid is my friend. YouTube is just another RIAA platform these days to me, and while I'm on there, the moment I apparently get big enough for them to care and try to shoot the hostages, I'll pick up shop and leave. YMMV.
This seems kind of predatory from YouTube's perspective. This is the web: why can't Zoe publish her music on her own terms?
The real reason people use YouTube is discovery. I can easily find new stuff to watch, and just hit play; artists can easily be discovered and grow an audience (or at least, that's the idea). Seems like it's time for a more open alternative.
They shouldn't. But right now, YouTube is a huge part of being discoverable as an artist online. There should be more of an ecosystem; more competition would result in more favorable terms. And seeing as this is the web, an ecosystem should still be browseable as a coherent whole.
My wider point is: why isn't it as easy to discover an artist's work on the wider web as it is on YouTube? Isn't this an opportunity for someone?
You would think that! It turns out that when every artist, label, publisher, and retailer under the sun has the same idea... discovery isn't actually any easier. All you get is noise.
There was a huge and diverse ecosystem. It's mostly gone now. This for the most part works better for users, which is why that old ecosystem is mostly gone. As a rule, users don't want to bounce between five or ten or twenty sites to find what they want - users prefer one or two.
More specifically, there's a huge number of startups hellbent on being that someone. I've personally had contact with several. That you didn't know this is an excellent comment on how big the perceived opportunity actually is.
Does anyone know why Google ("organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible" ¹) don't allow people to disclose their YouTube earnings ("It’s a violation of my agreement to say how much a comparable number of Youtube plays pays" ²). Or have I misunderstood her quote; since last year she did reveal such figures ("more than 1.9m views of videos on YouTube – mostly those uploaded by other people featuring her music – earned her $1,248" ³)
If a company wants first pick of everything that someone produces and wants the right to monetize it and modify it regardless of the creator's wishes (for example, by inserting ads), then they should at least pay a salary in addition to a cut of the ad revenue. If they're not paying for those rights with a salary or recurring retainer, then the terms as described are plain exploitation designed to intentionally screw the artist.
Also, 5 years is far too long for a contract like that. That gives someone else control of half a decade of your career. If you're just starting out and have a 40 year career ahead, that's 1/8th. If you're older, that could be 1/4 or more.
So, if she does not accept their 'generous offer', she won't be able to publish her music on YouTube, right? But if other people happen to publish it, and Content ID doesn't snag it down, she'll have to go through their long and painful DMCA takedown process to get her music off of it?
No, that's not right. She can still publish her music on youtube either way. This is about signing up to the "monetisation" option where she can take some of the money from any third party video that ContentID says includes her content. She's currently using that service, and continuing to use it apparently requires signing up to the new agreement.
I'm not completely clear on this part, but I think she can still get ad revenue from videos that she uploads herself. The article is definitely talking about third party video uploads.
No. Google will only use ContentId to handle monetization. And only on their lopsided terms, which the artist isn't very keen on. She'd have to file DMCA requests for every single video it showed up in herself.
Antitrust law kicks in when consumers have no choice, usually due to large barriers to switching. For example, in 1998, if you wanted to run WIN32 apps, you had no choice but to buy from Microsoft.
Note that the definition above does not mention market share. For example, Google dominates websearch market share, but competition is just a click away; if Bing or Yahoo or DDG built a better mousetrap, you could switch in an instant.
Since you, as a consumer, can easily switch to a different music provider, it's hard for me to see how you can argue that YouTube is wielding monopoly power over you. And similarly, Zoe can (and does) easily distribute her music on non-YouTube platforms.
Also, antitrust law is primarily about protecting consumers from harm (usually, higher prices). It's not about protecting other companies. So the core of Microsoft's antitrust defense was, "Yes, driving the price of the browser to $0 was terribly harmful to Netscape, but it was actually beneficial to consumers."
>Antitrust law kicks in when consumers have no choice, usually due to large barriers to switching.
Depends on the jurisdiction. "Abusing a dominant market position" is enough for the European Commission to get involved - and Google do dominate this space.
Zoe can't decide that other people don't put her works on YT. And ContentID, which is a way to deal with that situations, seems to come with some interesting additional terms now.
I am sorry that she is having these problems. I had never heard of Zoe Keeting before, but after listening to some tracks on her web site, I just bought her Into The Trees album - nice stuff. Instrumental music to code to :-)
I'm curious if they are really going to block her channel completely, or if block just means she can't be part of ContentID anymore. Blocking it sounds pretty unreasonable, but "we won't help you monetize your videos if you're going to favour some other music service" seems like fairly reasonable terms to me.
No, it isn't reasonable. Every time they display an uploaded video that contains content which is protected by copyright, they are attempting to make money from someone else's work product.
They've built their entire business on this practice, while leaving the burden of DMCA notices to the artist.
The contentID system was an olive branch, a win-win. Now they are using it as a cudgel to force artists to participate in their platform on their terms.
Clearly, the sane answer is to shut down YouTube until it can be remade in an artist-pleasing way. That this will mean creativity is stifled and everything has a "BUY" button on it is incidental and not at all important. Who wants user-uploaded content when you have artists?
/s
Realistically, the position of artists tends to be that any and all money involved should go to them. This tends not to sit well with tech companies that do things like handle the money and pay bandwidth bills.
How is a "BUY" button more offensive than the cascade of ads I am subjected to everywhere I go on the internet?
And "creativity is stifled"? "The position of artists"? Give me a break. You are trolling. Artists have always struggled to be paid anything even remotely reasonable, and it is disgusting when people try to shame them for doing so.
AFAIK no other profession has this problem to anywhere near this magnitude ... where nearly everyone makes use of the work, but the majority are not only unwilling to pay, but actually hostile to paying.
Creativity is stifled any time copyright interests get involved. The whole point of copyright is to leverage control into profit. Control over other people, generally. The derivative works doctrine in particular is exerting control over the creativity of others in an effort to turn a profit. That's the stifling of creativity right there. Sample-based creation in particular has suffered from this.
It's not the buy button that offends. It's taking a democritizing platfom and turning it into an elitist one where only the blessed can publish that offends. I have no wish to be reduced to a person whose only permitted role in my own culture is to open my wallet. And for my presumption to create without asking permission and paying lots of money first, I have years in jail hanging over my head.
That's here. That's now. That's reality. With that in mind, I cannot accept the idea that if it pays artists it must be good.
This may come as a shock to you, but I don't object to artists being paid. I do object to some of the things artists call for in the interests of being paid. DRM, for instance, is not acceptable to me. Nor are licenses for tiny, tiny samples where one person gets to control the creativity of another.
People aren't hostile to paying artists. People just aren't always willing to pay artists what artists think they deserve while engaging on terms the artist has selected. That's just like any other business where you have to go where the customers are and offer them what they want if you want to make sales. You can try and hawk expensive dehumidifiers in the Empty Quarter, but you don't get to blame the world for your inability to sell any.
I'm not trolling. I just have this little thing where I dislike the would-be tin-pot dictators of the copyright industry.
I would love to see the actual language used in the contract. The terms as described in the post sound quite harsh, but unless it's a lawyer who has transcribed these terms, or she was discussing this with a lawyer at Google, my hunch is some of the interpretation may be off.
One thing that I think nobody thinks about: there are two sides to this thing, other than Google. One is the artists, who have already spoken. The other one is the users, who probably want to be promised "all the music from X participating artists", rather than "some of the music from 10X participating artists"... I'm not 100% sure that Google standing by the second side is right, but surely it needs some consideration.
If Zoe says no, she will not be part of the deal, simple as that. I think that an offer saying "all the music from ten thousand artists" sounds better than "some of the music from a hundred thousand artists".
Corporations are not good or evil. They're amoral.
Google only appears to be acting in bad faith because they follow the (IMO dangerous) ideology that because humans don't scale everything needs to be automated. They are essentially doing the epitome of "one size fits all", especially in how they deal with customers / business partners.
Yes, it's tone deaf, but it has nothing to do with being evil. The only reason this is at all a problem is that they're successful enough that it works.
> I don’t think they are evil. I think they, like other tech companies, are just idealistic in a way that works best for them. I think this because I used to be one of them (*4). The people who work at Google, Facebook, etc can’t imagine how everything they make is not, like, totally awesome. If it’s not awesome for you it’s because you just don’t understand it yet and you’ll come around. They can’t imagine scenarios outside their reality and that is how they inadvertently unleash things like the algorithmic cruelty of Facebook’s yearly review (which showed me a picture I had posted after a doctor told me my husband had 6-8 weeks to live).
I found this very naive. Yes, engineers might be this way, designers, the "low-level" people (for a lack of better term), but the directors, the board, the money bunch - they know exactly what they're doing and how it will be bad for many, but they're going this way because it's 1. better for their product, 2. easier for them and finally 3. because "why care about some minnows?".
At the same time, the yearly review is meant to highlight the important moments of your year, not necessarily the positive ones. Obviously that post had a lot of engagement, and it was properly flagged as important. The user then has the option of whether or not they want to publish that or not.
Yearly Review was also totally broken if the language of your Facebook activities wasn't en_US. I don't know how well it worked for Americans, but across the pond it tended to pick up nonsense. Hell, the only photos that were in any way relevant or interesting on my Yearly Review were screenshots from Kerbal Space Program...
Thought-provoking article, and it contains this gem:
"I don’t think they are evil. I think they, like other tech companies, are just idealistic in a way that works best for them."
This is such a wonderful turn of phrase, and has caused me to spend a major part of last evening in self-contemplation. I think it applies not only to tech companies but to many bright young people who adapt their mental model of the world to their own strengths and passions.
I submit it's worse than that. Up to this point, she appears to have successfully avoided having a "master". Youtube was merely one of a rich variety of services she used to distribute. Now, quite suddenly, YouTube wants to hold hostage her usage of the service up to that point to install themselves as a quite powerful master, or else they'll take everything she's given them and break it.
When looked at that way, I'd say the answer is quite easy in the long run: Tell them to go stuff themselves. But the short term is pretty cruel on YouTube's part.
So in the PR sense I think it ought to be made clear that this is YouTube's move. If she's OK with a video using her music today, and OK with it tomorrow, and today YouTube permits the video and they block it tomorrow, any consequences of that action should be 100% on YouTube.
In the interests of fairness, as Zoë points out, it's possible they aren't quite clear on just how grabby they're being. But that excuse dissipates with every passing minute that they stick to their guns.
There is an inherent asymmetry between content creator and content host. If the host is okay with the content today and blocks it tomorrow, it is the creator that suffers along with the host; it's never been the case that the consequences fall 100% on the host.
That's why markets have been valuing hosts of all sorts above their revenue for quite some time; gatekeeper is a valuable position to hold.
At least with labels, if you were sufficiently successful and your current label started tightening the screws on you, you could go to the others and try to negotiate a new deal with them.
If Google decides to tighten the screws on YouTube performers, where else do they go? Where else can they go?
Only if you have a good contract. It's pretty common for an artist to sign an overly restrictive contract early in their career which lasts for a certain number of releases, and they're stuck with it for a long, long time.
An example would be the band Streetlight Manifesto, who have had a lengthy and rough relationship with their label, Victory Records. For years they've told fans to not pay for their music because of fights with their label, and instead buy merchandise from the band and pirate the music. Despite this, they've still been chained to Victory (and still are, I believe) and have to release music entirely through them.
Most recently, with their newest album[0], Victory refused to send physical copies of the album to fans who pre-ordered through the band's website, leaving the band to deal with refunding their fans. And when the singer tried to independently release a solo album of acoustic covers of that same album (which he has successfully done in the past), Victory had it removed from Youtube, Amazon, etc.
There's a reason many independent artists seems so scared of labels. While YouTube is definitely taking things too far, it doesn't compare to what some labels have been doing.
I think that's looking too narrowly at the problem. For example, for years Spotify used P2P tech to reduce demand on their servers - nothing stops a Youtube alternative from doing the same.
That wouldn't stop anyone with deep pockets(Microsoft, Apple) from taking a shot. Netflix or Twitch may be in a good position to adopt departing YouTubers, as well.
If the content creators leave YouTube, their audiences will follow them. It's definitely an opportunity for someone, the question is just "who?"
Well there's Vimeo, and a thousand dodgy sites where you can share copyrighted videos. But of course they don't have the audience of YouTube.
In the past 10-15 years I've grown increasingly uncomfortable with the de facto centralization of the web. It's especially blatant and ironic with a site like GitHub.
I'm not sure what the solution is. Maybe something like RSS, now that non-geeks are getting used to the idea of podcasts.
Put it there. Monetize it. Then, build the core fan community, yourself elsewhere to the extent that the core community continues to support you knowing why they support you there and don't primarily support you via your "brand-building" channels.
Cheap/free distribution for indies via various corporate entities is something that didn't exist as it does 10 or 20 years ago. This is the unstoppable future. Get ahead of it vs twisting, with angst, in its wake.
Previously, artists bowed down to record labels. The new "labels" were bound to fill the digital void. She, and other artists, can carve a better direct-to-fan relationship in other mediums by using broad spectrum as a funnel into the core fan community.
Then there will be niche services that grow to help cultivate that fan+ model and someone in there will dominate or be swallowed by the behemoths. Rinse and repeat.
Art that can be digitized will become freely pervasive and licensing models barely keep up. We are all running our own personal kickstarters if we aren't willing take a W2 from a corporate entity. Viva la 1099!
My guess: Google/YouTube just had a really bad
day and tried to shoot themselves in the foot.
As they continue with such nonsense, they will get
a lot of push back. Then, or eventually, they will
see their mistakes, wise up, and quit being nasty.
In the meanwhile, Zoe has little option but to
f'get about YouTube and let them hurt themselves
and, then, consider YouTube again after YouTube
wises up.
But it should be not too difficult for Zoe to
bring up her own Web site that permits downloading
and/or streaming her music/videos. E.g., consider
the Web site of violinist Caroline Goulding which
at times has had some streaming of some of her
music and links to some relevant video of hers.
And then there is also for her
If such a site for Zoe becomes popular, then Zoe
could run some ads to get revenue to pay for the
site.
A site that is small or even larger than small
should be fairly inexpensive, especially if just
hosted at Amazon or some such. Or, a computer
plugged together from parts for less than
$2000 and with, say, 35 Mbps upload speed to the
Internet for, say, $90 a month, should be able
to be a significant start. Get usage enough
to max out the capacity of that site, and should
be able to get some revenue way beyond what is
needed to run the site.
There is something fundamental here: The basic
technology in infrastructure software,
Moore's law, whatever the similar law is for
disk space, optical fiber data rates, and
the prices of these that permit YouTube to
send so much content free to users and for
many months with few or no ads permits
many others, including even a single artist,
to put their content on the Internet also.
The people who work at Google, Facebook, etc can’t imagine how everything they make is not, like, totally awesome. If it’s not awesome for you it’s because you just don’t understand it yet and you’ll come around. They can’t imagine scenarios outside their reality and that is how they inadvertently unleash things like the algorithmic cruelty of Facebook’s yearly review (which showed me a picture I had posted after a doctor told me my husband had 6-8 weeks to live).
Dave Eggers' The Circle, all over again (or should it be 'avant la lettre'?)
Well, the problem is that YouTube, similarly to Google and Facebook, is becoming a monopoly (a natural monopoly I'd say), which seems to be a general way of how Internet works, and we should, rather sooner or later, start to think about some regulations (YT is also the future TV and TV is regulated) to deal with cases like this one.
There's an update from Jan 24 (today), at the bottom. Very relevant items.
Only got around to reading this over a day late, but I'm glad I did. Very clear and well written, the insider's low-down on the new-media realities that are replacing the old ones.
I'll bet they do, since I don't actually know anyone who doesn't re-encode their videos. Youtube certainly does, Vimeo does (at least some versions, since they offer different qualities) though uploaders have the option of offering the original for download.
Re-encoding is generally always done, since users upload so many different formats, and few of them are suitable for streaming.
My first though is she should just sign up. This is how the industry is. Do it and be part of it or delete your stuff off the internet and start distributing on vinyl
> Is such control too much for an artist to ask for in 2015?
Yes. The world isn't designed around you playing mix-and-match with a bunch of different services.
What Zoe has missed is not that the tech world doesn't understand things "outside their reality". It's that we in tech know we have to choose between what's best for the vast, vast majority of people and what's convenient for a tiny handful.
Technology still changes the world for the better, Zoe. The only difference is now you're on the side of the old guard.
>The only difference is now you're on the side of the old guard.
The old guard of self-published independent music creators who distribute their work on multiple digital platforms in order to fully engage with their audience? The likes of which were only made possible by YouTube in the first place?
So that means Google is part of the new guard of controlling and demanding music distributors who lock the artist into a long term contract on their own terms, or the artist can't use their distribution channels in an effort to lock out the distributor's competitors at the expense of the artist.
And just like the really old RIAA system, you can take it or leave it unless you're big enough to bother negotiating with.
In practical terms, YouTube is going to have a hard time launching a music service if everything's already there for free. That would make them little different from Spotify, but with even less profit. We all know how much the music industry hates Spotify.
Wrong! Look at your computer. It's a mix-and-match of a bunch of different components designed to serve you.
Every bit of technology in communications is about sharing, and music is one of the most fundamental forms of communication known to our species. The only way technology changes the world for better is in its application. I honestly, genuinely believe YouTube/Google is not acting in a beneficial method for anybody but themselves/stakeholders.
This would be a direct case of taking a net benefit for convenience for a handful of people (content creators) and the vast, vast world of humans (audience members) and going back to the Patronage system without any of the benefits whatsoever.
But you're being blatantly ignorant on the mechanics of the world simply to suit your biased perspective. The machine won't work without many of the parts inside, that was my point. Go ahead and pull out the battery, because as you state, mix-and-match is not a viable system.
I'm not going to bother with your postulation regarding the patronage system, because you're arguing from a false premise in a specific circumstance where this particular artist has successfully produced art and made income through a "fans-as-patrons" model that you claim is unworthy of further developing.
I didn't say that alternate models aren't worth developing. I said we haven't moved away from a patronage model. Please don't mistake me.
The items on offer aren't offered as mix-and-match for Zoe. That's unfortunate for her. It's also true of ever other market in which people wish to consume whole goods or services without crafting it in detail themselves.
If Zoe wants a service that gives her the terms she wants, she can go build one. If I want a sandwich exactly the way I like it, I can go build one. I don't have the right to expect McD's to sell me a reuben and Zoe doesn't have the right to demand YouTube meet her on her terms.
If she wants to try and build a mix-and-match system, I wish her good luck. I suspect she'll discover that there's a good reason such things are not common.
I hope that was sarcasm, because that's the most Big Brother thing I've ever read on Hacker News.
Don't question authority. Trust Google. Trust Facebook. We'll make the decisions about your personal property in a way that benefits the "vast majority of people" who own stock in our company.
> They have set the terms under which she can have them publish her data. She doesn't like them. She has the choice to walk away.
That is not an accurate description of the situation. Her music will still be published on YouTube if she doesn't accept their terms and walks away. She will have to take action (endless DMCA requests) if she wants to try to have her data not published on YouTube.
The terms they are offering are not the terms to have her data published on YouTube. They are the terms to get a cut of the money Google makes from her data on YouTube.
What you are describing is how Apple or Amazon work--if an artist walks away from their deals, their content is not on that service.
I don't think that's precisely right either. If I've understood the article correctly, she has three options here: sign up to the new agreement and continue receiving revenue from third party uploads that ContentID matches to her content, stop receiving third-party revenue and leave all third party videos up, or stop receiving the revenue and take all third party videos down.
I'm not sure this would even stop her from getting ad revenue from videos that she uploads herself (the article doesn't discuss this). ContentID accounts are about getting revenue from things other people upload that include your content.
Is Google is going to stop putting ads on her content or remove her content from Youtube? I don't think that's what they're saying. Aren't they just saying they're going to stop paying her. Actually the hell of it is that she doesn't really have the choice to get her content off Youtube at all. Is she going to take her $324/mo payment stream from Spotify and use it to pay for the barrage of DMCA takedown's she's going to need to send to keep her content off Youtube?
I don't think the author here is particularly making the claim of a severe injustice. She also made no allegations of illegal behavior on Google's behalf.
I think the point she's articulating here is that she isn't a "typical" musician making profit from her music. She has hacked out a way to make money from her music that satisfies her fans and doesn't grate upon her own concious. Google has been a big part of that and now they are changing, perhaps for the better for most. But the change is unilateral and creates a personal problem for her.
Afterall, in the end she asks if anyone is starting a new streaming service, therefor leaving the implication that she is open to switch despite monetary detriment any such switch might cause.
Writing a synopsis from her perspective, I would sum up the article as, "Hey Google, I came here in the first place to circumvent the rigid and singular nature of doing business in the music industry "proper" and now you guys are injecting the same kind of problems into your own system. I have a hard time abiding that and I don't know what to do."
I am. It's imaginary - er, intellectual - property. As a result, it makes absolutely no sense to use physical property analogies.
If you don't want to use the services offered on the terms offered, that's your choice. If you don't want other people to use those services with bits that have "your" color on them, then you're up shit creek, because you shouldn't have let other people have them.
> It's that we in tech know we have to choose between what's best for the vast, vast majority of people and what's convenient for a tiny handful.
Except you almost always opt for the convenience of the handful. Early in the life of a company run by savant programmer types, that tiny handful is the engineering team.
As the corporation evolves, the privilege shifts to the lawyers.
It really seems like it is time to scuttle youtube. I'm serious, they keep trying the whole "it's not us, it's your isp" bs to explain why their service is all janky and glitchy even though other services work perfectly fine, and they keep pulling all kinds of bullshit moves, while also not really being all that great of a service and UI if we are honest with ourselves. Google has been mucking around with YouTube and its UI for basically a decade now without any real significant improvements. Things are even more fractured and disparate than before, the suggestions are just plain shit, and the content is akin to finding a needle in a pile of expended hypodermic needles.
I am really kind of bored with youtube for many reasons. I think it's time for the artist community, and others, for that matter, to find new outlets.
My first response is to (politely stated) tell Google to go fly a kite.
It's such an easy and important medium to use, though, that it may be impossible. It resonates with consumers brilliantly.
It's sad that they have to resort to such strong-arm tactics instead of coming out with a better system that stands out from the crowd on it's own merits. It sounds like they are completely blind to the idea that someone might not be totally comfortable with their solution.
While "Don't be evil" may still be in play, apparently "Don't be a @$#%@#^@&%#$%$ jackass" hasn't even crossed their minds. At this point, I hope their new system goes the way of Google Wave.
I think it's this: you should tell Youtube/Google to give you the amount of money they think is right given how many times your music has been plaid on their service (they know), given the actual dues according to copyright law thrown to the wind.
How much is deserved, from how much was earned, according to the law? Nobody knows; it would take an army of lawyers and musicians to figure that out. How do you price art? How do you price the emotions felt when someone heard a song? You can't. No one can. I felt an emotion once, listening to a song, and the person that made that song is dead. What was the dollar amount attributable to that emotion, and what does that dead person need with that money? There's no answer; you can't put a price on emotion. And when you get down to it, that's what music is--emotion. Emotions don't have a price, music doesn't have a price--there are some people that would like to tell you otherwise, and they're wrong.
Someone should get paid, yes. The persons who profited from that performance should ask the person that heard that song: how much should we charge you for feeling love? If those parties can come an agreement regarding what that cost, then yes, that's what it cost. Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.
Would this work?