YouTube To Block Music Videos In the UK 161
ChunKing writes "YouTube is to block all premium music videos to UK users after failing to reach a new licensing agreement with the Performing Rights Society. For many of us in the UK this is great news. The two main music licensing agencies in the UK — Phonographic Performance Limited and PRS — have a stranglehold on music use in this country and are stifling creativity."
"Great news?" (Score:3, Insightful)
youtube...hulu... (Score:3, Insightful)
Anarchy in the UK? (Score:1, Insightful)
Big hand for the PRS! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well done for now forcing people onto sharing sites to pick up ripped DVDs!
Well done for forcing people to go to dodgy malware ridden proxy sites to get around Google's stupid IP range blocking!
Well done for screwing the lesser known and poorer artists who really do get benefit from appearing on YouTube vids, getting some recognition and maybe a handful of those really important sales to keep going.
Big round of applause!
Re:Huh wot ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Huh wot ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell them they can't watch there favourite music videos due to "money issues", they'll cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.
Re:Their own fault (Score:1, Insightful)
(made $7bn last year by NOT caving in to people like you)
That's a nice way of saying "gets away with murder because it's the new Microsoft." When Google bought YouTube, everybody wondered why they were taking on that huge liability. People made the mistake of thinking that Google would be held to the same standards as other web sites. You should try hosting millions of videos without first clearing the copyrights. Google negotiates after the fact and the only punishment is that it has to change its ways if the deal doesn't happen. You try that.
The Pirate Bay is on trial for making money by furthering copyright infringement, yet here you are, touting a $7 billion profit as if that were something Google earned as a defender of fair business?
Re:Their own fault (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, such an ignorant post.
Google barely scratches a profit from youtube currently. That $7 billion profit your crying about is from other aspects of the company, not form advertising on youtube.
Google negotiates after the fact because they are big enough that other companies can't exploit them. It's not murder, it's user generated content. It's not Google throwing up those videos. Google if anything, is inadvertently acting as a wall currently, between users and corporations trying to squash the information paradigm shift.
Sure they're making billions in return, that's what companies do. If they weren't making it, someone else would be.
Re:New 404 message: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Huh wot ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonetheless I still think he'd be miffed that they're taking his works as instruction manuals rather than warnings.
Long-standing idiocy (Score:4, Insightful)
The PRS is guilty of long-standing idiocy. In one celebrated incident [express.co.uk] a few months back, they attempted to fine a garage owner £2,000 unless his customers turned off their car radios before driving onto his premises.
This thing is absolutely fine with me. I've never watched music videos on Youtube, but I don't for a moment imagine that the kids who did will be queuing up to stuff fistfuls of fivers in the PRS's pockets in some other way. Instead they'll turn to piracy or give up on music and play with Facebook.
In due course, big media will realise that their so-called guardians are actually their enemies and they'll fire them. But, by then, there might not be a music industry that's worthy of the name. It'll be a well-deserved outcome.
Oblig (Score:3, Insightful)
PRS Show Inneptitude (Score:4, Insightful)
I know it's not 'the done thing', but I RTFA. Lord knows, the BBC aren't famed for their excellent technology journalism, but even they managed to show how incredibly stupid and "woe is me" the PRS are.
In the article, the PRS say that they've been pleading with Google to re-instate the videos in the UK. Google of course basically say the PRS made it too expensive for them. The PRS carry on acting like they're the ones who've been kicked in the teeth, and say that Google doesn't want to pay more, "despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing". Of course, as we know, video-views only cost Google money - and only ad-clicks actually make them anything.
So just because a video gets viewed lots of times means nothing - it's how many ad-clicks you get that counts.
However, where a music video is concerned, those views may, in a small number of cases, lead to the viewer deciding to buy that music or video. Of course, Google make nothing out of that sale, but the PRS does.
So the PRS is saying they want Google to pay them for advertising their product, regardless of how much money Google makes or loses from doing so.
So in this story, Google is the closest thing to a representative of the music buying public that we have. The PRS really serves itself, and to a lesser extent the music producers. As a consumer, I'm quite happy with Google's choice - if people don't want to sell me music, then I won't buy it. If someone else on the Internet wants to show me those videos instead, then maybe I'll go there, maybe I won't.
However, if I was a producer, I'd probably be rather upset by the PRS's actions (although given the spin the PRS is putting on this, the producers are probably blaming Google).
Re:Their own fault (Score:3, Insightful)
No... my point is that $7bn means that they can ENTIRELY abandon music videos (and, thus, enforce a policy to remove music videos from YouTube) and not even care. In fact, they would probably make MORE money through less hassles. None of that $7bn came from people paying Google to look at music videos, except a TINY, TINY proportion of Google's ad earnings which are probably FAR outweighed by the licensing required for them. But I bet some of those ads fund the record industry indirectly (e.g. a CD-Wow advert on a particular Youtube music video for the CD etc.)
The fact that Google *aren't* being sued shows that the record industry are the hypocrites, because they KNOW they won't make anywhere near as much money if they started annoying the big users of their content - much better to target the end-user and ask them to pay £1000 for a single MP3. If the record industry could AFFORD to lose music videos being available on Google, it would have sued for compliance, etc. and caused lots of hassle by now. They know, though, that would be a stupid move that would alienate them and ultimately cost them a lot of "airtime", so they try to triple (or more) their earnings overnight because Google is bringing them a lot of royalties - however they get *too* greedy and Google do EXACTLY what they should do - refuse to have Music Videos for the countries that are giving them legal/licensing hassle. I'm sure it won't be long before the two "settle their differences" and once again the money flows to the record companies because, to be honest, they need it at the moment and they can't afford to not be present on one of the world's largest websites.
My point is that shouting and bawling in the press about Google not wanting to pay the new, enhanced, shinier (fabricated) royalites isn't going to make Google pay... in fact, the opposite and the UK will be the only country listed on Youtube as "Unavailable for music" because of such stupidity. Does that make Google look stupid? No, they are complying with the law, exactly as the record companies have wanted all this time. Does it make the UK record industry look stupid? Yes, because they are the only ones NOT on Youtube. Greed has become the downfall because Google can *easily* afford to not care, but legally comply, and thus just block music videos for UK Youtube. The *only* people I have heard complain about this have been complaining about the record industry, not Google/Youtube which would seem the obvious choice for the layman to complain about.
I don't particularly care for Google, or Microsoft, or any of the others, but Google don't seem to have done anything wrong - they were paying the previous license (teething problems from the takeover aside, I don't know the details), they wanted to pay the new license but it was too expensive, so they pull videos in the smallest region that is affected by the licensing. Seems to me they did everything they could, to the full extent of the law. Additionally, they are still bound by all the laws they've *previously* been bound by, including being a carrier of other people's creative content - there's nothing stopping the UK or other record industry from obtaining cease-and-desists on anything they find infringing, but Google are *not* necessarily required to police the entire website without notification.
The Pirate Bay, by the way, are on trial for (allegedly) "facilitating" the potential for copyright infringement to occur - nothing to do with the money they made, unless you only read press clippings from a particular party in the case. There's a big difference there, under a different law system, in a case in which there is no decision yet (but it's not looking good for the record industry). I have quite expected Pirate Bay to have legal problems for a very long time now (because they are walking a legal knife-edge in a litigious gray area) and this is the first time anything's happened.
I don't care what the Pirate Bay do... I expect them to get arrested, or sued. It's not my concern a
Re:Anarchy in the UK? (Score:2, Insightful)
What's going on is:
And voila, we have finally solved the underpant gnomes' quandry and sold our individual nation states down the toilet for a backhander. Well done the politicians.
*Disclaimer: not ALWAYS US moneyed interests - quite often also EU moneyed interests too, but much of this seems to originate in the US, such as the RIAA/MPAA getting local arms of the same gang (MPC, MPA, PRS) involved. Once we have been successfully subjugated, expect to see versions coming your way too, once they work out how to break through the legal wall of the constitution.
Re:Huh wot ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Amusingly enough, the propensity to unthinkingly invoke Orwell is akin to his concept of duckspeak. Reading multiple +5 Insightful "1984 wasn't an instruction manual maaaan" posts in a single Brit-related topic makes me wonder about the duckmods though. Perhaps it's hard to peck out the -1 Overrated with a bill?
Re:"Great news?" (Score:4, Insightful)
Public awareness might well be a good thing.
It's quite common to see PRS stickers on the instrument cases of amateur musicians. Presumably the logic is "I'm a performer. I support the society that protects my right to perform.". The "Performing Rights Society", right? PRS encourages that misunderstanding with the slogan "keep music live".
So it's good to spread the word that that is not what this organisation is about. This is the organisation that lobbies for more grasping application of copyright law. They're the ones that want you to buy a license just to have a radio in your workplace. They're the ones want it to be illegal to perform Happy Birthday in a public place without the premises having a license.
They campaign to restrict the rights of performers, not protect them.
Re:If not in youtube then in some other site... (Score:4, Insightful)
YouTube: OK, we won't have the videos then
PRS: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Yup. Then again its all about posturing. Google is making the point, a bit like Apple did with iTunes, that they don't have to provide their content, getting the other party to realise how little negotiating clout they really have.
Re:RTFA. (Score:3, Insightful)
4. Google take down music videos from YouTube
5. PRS start whining that having the videos removed from YouTube is a bad thing for the artists.
It sounds to me like PRS want (a) Google to advertise their product for them, and (b) Google to pay them for the privilege.
Re:UK music fans lose again... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, that's what I don't get. Services like Pandora are free advertising and generate sales for the music industry. So do music videos on YouTube.
Why in the HELL do they always seem to want to hinder or shut down these services? Don't they see that it is just free marketing for them?
Re:the what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Congratulations, you are the one millionth slashdotter to have cracked this joke.
Still, isn't it nice to know that in an ever changing technological landscape, one thing can always be depended on to surface in a slashdot thread regarding music licencing.
I hope the PRS die soon. (Score:1, Insightful)
The PRS just plain suck.
I've been on four CDs released over the last two years (composing, playing, producing) two of which are sold world wide. In the past decades my work haas featured on numerous albums, singles (CD, 12" and 7") etc. etc.
And once again I'll be getting my usual zero pence in "Royalties" for all this work.
How come ? because the PRS expect artists to pay £ 150 up front fee for the pleasure of being a member so they can receive a pittance from the millions collected by the PRS. Oh and they also take a cut from the money they collect on "your behalf" thereby having a nice double dip into the artists pocket.
The likelihood is that unless you're on a major label who are paying payola to have your tracks played on the radio etc. you're going to take several years to get that £ 150 back no matter how many albums you sell or how many times you're played on the radio etc.
Meanwhile Elton f'ing John, Bonio and their ilk will be getting their usual fat cheque.
The PRS is yet another con job perpetrated at the expense of the musician/artist/performer/composer.
Re:Their own fault (Score:3, Insightful)
I have an idea...
How about Google stops indexing their web pages and removes them from their database. Oh yeah and deprecate their advertisement down a few tiers so they get even less hits. I'm sure the RIAA and its international clones would consider this evil but the rest of us would relish an internet without their bullshit. Oh or make searching the RIAA direct to http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com] instead as the top hit.