Tag: YouTube

Koda.dk Press Release: Google removes all Danish music from YouTube

While the negotiations on a new joint Nordic agreement are in full swing, Google have chosen to leverage their total dominance in the market in the strongest way possible. On the evening of Thursday 30 July, Google announced that they will soon remove all Danish music content on YouTube.

Under the auspices of the Nordic alliance of collecting societies, Polaris, negotiations on a joint Nordic agreement on the use of music on YouTube are currently in full swing. The agreement will replace the local agreements of the Norwegian, Finnish and Danish composers and songwriters’ societies, combining them in a single, joint agreement with Google. In the case of Koda, the national agreement for Denmark expired in April, after which it was temporarily extended – as is standard practice in the industry while negotiating a new agreement.

Now, however, Google have issued a new demand: if the agreement is to be temporarily extended, Koda must agree to reduce the payment provided to composers and songwriters for YouTube’s use of music by almost 70% – despite the fact that YouTube’s use of music has increased significantly since Koda entered into its last agreement with Google.

Of course, Koda cannot accept these terms, and Google have now unilaterally decided that Koda’s members cannot have their content shown on YouTube and that their fans and users on YouTube will be unable to listen to Koda members’ music until a new agreement is in place.

Although the parties involved in the negotiations on the new joint agreement are by no means in concord yet, progress has been made in recent weeks, and Koda is puzzled by the extremely aggressive approach taken by Google in the negotiations this time.

Koda’s media director, Kaare Struve, says:

‘Google have always taken an “our way or the highway” approach, but even for Google, this is a low point. Of course, Google know that they can create enormous frustration among our members by denying them access to YouTube – and among the many Danes who use YouTube every day. We can only suppose that by doing so, YouTube hope to be able to push through an agreement, one where they alone dictate all terms’.

Ever since the first agreement was signed in 2013, the level of payments received from YouTube has been significantly lower than the level of payment agreed to by subscription-based services.

Koda’s CEO, Gorm Arildsen, says:

‘It is no secret that our members have been very dissatisfied with the level of payment received for the use of their music on YouTube for many years now. And it’s no secret that we at Koda have actively advocated putting an end to the tech giants’ free-ride approach and underpayment for artistic content in connection with the EU’s new Copyright Directive. The fact that Google now demands that the payments due from them should be reduced by almost 70% in connection with a temporary contract extension seems quite bizarre’.

Media contact
Head of Communications Eva Hein / eh@koda.dk / (+45) 61893233

@realrobcopeland: WSJ Reports Google Reveals YouTube Revenues of $15 billion of Value Gap, CEO Wants More–Where’s Ours?

Very insightful reporting from Rob Copeland at WSJ on Google’s revenue that culls out YouTube’s share of Google’s revenue–and boy are we getting hosed.

Alphabet said YouTube exceeded $15 billion in annual revenue in 2019. That would be on the lower end of projections for the video business, which has been the subject of educated guesses for years, and suggests that YouTube pulls in less than $8 a year from each of its 2 billion users. On a call with analysts, Mr. Pichai said he believes there is “significantly more room” to make money off YouTube’s users.

Read the post on the Wall Street Journal.

Given that YouTube is heavily dependent on music videos, it’s hard to explain how YouTube is dead last in royalty rates:

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And remember, according to BrandWatch, “[a]s of Jan 2020, the 93% of the most-watched videos [on YouTube] were music videos” and according to IFPI’s Music Consumer Insight Report, 47% of time spent by fans listening to on-demand music is on YouTube.  So it’s hard to explain why YouTube royalties are so low–and I would actually say that YouTube royalties are actually negative when you take into account the total cost of dealing with YouTube on DMCA, Content Management System and Content ID.

If you can afford it–remember the A2IM and Future of Music Coalition study that showed the main reason that independent’s don’t pursue their rights is because they can’t afford to.  Not a big leap that they definitely can’t afford to challenge Google.

A2IM FOMC Study Slide

It’s all a little hard to understand.  Even at 1% of YouTube revenue for publishing, comparable to the low public performance royalty at radio (distorted by the radio oligopoly), the songwriters alone should divide up $150,000,000–in a comparable deal.  Artists should be grossing well over that in line with historical ratios.  Given the outsized impact of music on YouTube’s revenue, shouldn’t the total industry-wide royalty payment be vastly more than $150,000,000?  Why do we get hosed so badly on YouTube revenues?  My bet is that it’s not at the negotiator level.  Those are some of the most talented negotiators in the world.

But they’re on a leash and Google knows it.  It’s always seemed to be a situation where eventually someone upstairs calls and says, thanks for the great work on YouTube negotiation–we’ll take it from here.  And you see the result.  Hard to explain any other way.

But it may help to explain why this person is laughing at us.

161102113717-susan-wojcicki-youtube-ceo-1280x720-1

[We’re thrilled to have a chance to publish an important Twitter thread by composer Kerry Muzzey that crystalizes a number of phenomena: How Kerry caught YouTube using Content ID as a tool to extend the period of time that they can profit from infringement (or the “piracy profit window”)…

via Must Read Guest Post by @kerrymuzzey: YouTube’s Latest Deceptive Tactic — Music Technology Policy

Meet the New Boss, Worse Than the Old Boss: YouTube says “All Your Video Are Belong to Us”

Exposure Bucks

Hypebot reports that:

YouTube has yet again raised the threshold that a creators and musicians must meet to make any money on the videos they post. YouTube says that the changes are designed to “prevent bad actors from harming the inspiring and original creators around the world who make their living on YouTube.” [Yes, just looking out for your best interests.] But the result is that it will take musicians and creators a lot longer to make a dime on the video service.

Starting today, YouTube is changing its eligibility requirement for monetization to 4,000 hours of watch time within the past 12 months and 1,000 subscribers per channel.

As YouTube’s public policy flack told the U.S. Senate today:

At YouTube, we believe the world is a better place when we listen, share, and build community through our stories. Our mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world. With this comes many benefits to society — unparalleled access to art and culture, news and entertainment, and educational materials.

Yes, that’s right.  That’s what she said.  She left out the data scraping part.

So if you’re a new artist, enjoy those exposure bucks.  Might cover the cost of DMCA notices.

 

YouTube/Amazon Fight: Tone Deaf Google acts like it’s their videos

Your margin is my opportunity.  Now bend over.

Inspired by Jeff Bezos

If a record company pulled your music from a retailer because of a commercial dispute that had nothing to do with you or the label itself, how would that make you feel?  If you ran to your contract to see if you could stop them, do you think anyone would have ever thought to negotiate protection against anything so philistine? This little life parable shows you why you should never underestimate the highly innovative monopolists forcing their way into our lives.

According to Bloomberg:

Alphabet Inc.’s Google pulled support for its YouTube video service from Amazon.com Inc.’s streaming-media devices, citing the internet retailer’s failure to make Amazon Prime Video available through Google’s gadgets and the recent halt of the sale of some Nest products on its website.

What’s interesting about YouTube’s behavior is that you would think that YouTube actually owned the videos on YouTube.  Which in probably 99% of the cases, they do not.  (It’s unclear if the Amazon boycott includes Vevo, the premium content provider co-owned by Google, but I would assume it does.)  I’m no fan of Amazon, God knows, so I’m not suggesting that YouTube’s move here is hard on Little Jeffie, the destroyer of worlds.

I’m suggesting that it is hard on artists and is not something that any other distributor would think they could get away with.  And the fact that YouTube exists to screw artists and songwriters doesn’t excuse YouTube’s tone deaf wielding of other people’s property to gain a commercial advantage against Amazon accruing almost entirely to Google.  So what did Google do, exactly?  Bloomberg tells us:

Google blocked YouTube access via the Echo Show, Amazon’s smart speaker with a touchscreen, on Tuesday and will stop supporting YouTube on Amazon’s Fire TV set-top box on Jan. 1. In a statement, a Google representative said it’s taking the action because the YouTube apps on Amazon products aren’t made by Google, like the YouTube app on the iPhone is, and the retail giant doesn’t sell some Google products, such as Chromecast and Google Home.

“We’ve been trying to reach agreement with Amazon to give consumers access to each other’s products and services,” Google said in a statement. In its own statement, Seattle-based Amazon said its gadgets now send users to the YouTube website, and the company hopes to resolve the dispute as soon as possible.

In other words, Amazon stopped carrying totally unrelated Google products and Google responded by blocking your videos from Amazon devices.  Did anyone ask you if that was OK?  According to the Verge:

Three months ago, YouTube pulled its programming from Amazon’s Echo Show device — the first skirmish in what is apparently an ongoing war. Shortly after, Amazon stopped selling the Nest E Thermostat, Nest’s Camera IQ, and the Nest Secure alarm system. Two weeks ago, Amazon got YouTube back on the Echo Show by simply directing users to the web version, a workaround that left a lot to be desired. But even that version won’t be available after today.

In other words, this boycott of the billionaires has nothing to do with any YouTube artist or Vevo artist, but all are being harmed by it for reasons they have no control over.  You might, however, be able to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against Google and possibly both Google and Amazon by clicking here.