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YouTube to block indie labels who don't sign up to new music service

theguardian.com

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Re: YouTube to block indie labels who don't sign up to new music service

#91

Post by fpgeek »

magicalist wrote: post #78
fpgeek wrote: post #57

Upon reflection , I think this article (and others like it) are starting from the wrong place and end up confusing the issue more than illuminating it. I think the right place to start is that Google wants to offer a premium, ad-free YouTube service. Given that, what happens to videos that are ad-supported today: 1. They participate and are ad-supported for free users and subscription-supported for premium users. Coo…

One interesting thing is that this is a service that Google is letting you pay for instead of viewing ads. Have they done that before? I guess gmail/google apps, but that's a little different, as you have to get a new account, you can't add a subscription to your existing account. I wish they would do this for all of youtube, not just music. The phrasing (and its effect on how people react to the story) is very inter…

> Have they done that before?

As you note, not really, but YouTube is an excellent place to start. YouTube ads suck on pretty much every dimension compared to search/Gmail ads: They're irrelevant, repetitive, interrupt what you're doing, burn bandwidth, etc. And, so far as I can tell, there's no obvious way to make them less sucky for users without destroying the value proposition for advertisers.

> I wish they would do this for all of youtube, not just music.

Given how often otherwise non-commercial videos end up monetized because of the music they contain, getting rid of music ads may affect more of YouTube than you might expect.

Re: YouTube to block indie labels who don't sign up to new music service

#92

Post by frandroid »

danielweber wrote: post #47
hullo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a seemingly more evenly sourced article on gizmodo: "Some labels are refusing to sign up because they say they're getting a raw deal from Google. They say that while the major labels have negotiated lucrative contracts, Google is offering indies comparatively bad terms. It's their right to say they don't want to sign up if they don't like the deal Google is offering them. In response, Google is drawing a line in…

"you can't host videos on YouTube at all" is the phrase that has big flashing neon lights around it for me. Has YouTube somehow become pre-emptively aware of the copyright of every work uploaded to it?

They have a pretty good audio fingerprinting service and database that lets them identify the music and video from tons of copyrighted works that have agreed to be licenced with them (and/or have stronger indicated that they will sue youtube if they don't take down their works).

Re: YouTube to block indie labels who don't sign up to new music service

#93

Post by zanny »

magicalist wrote: post #79
zanny wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wanted to try a media content site (obviously based on open standards) where to avoid the whole DMCA mess you'd require all content to be relicensed under a CC license (of your choice). That means if you don't own licensing rights, which is very obvious if you even include third party material, you can't upload it. That means personal video is entirely safe, and anything you personally record is always sa…

It would be great for videos to default to a permissive license, but I don't see how that would change anything fundamentally with regard to copyright problems. You'd still have to deal with people uploading whatever they want, and so you'd still have to deal with DMCA takedowns, and you'd still have to deal with the vast gray area of fair use (remixes, snippets of songs playing in the background, parody and comedy,…

The point is it is not ambiguous. I think the hardest part with video content is trying to figure out the boundary line. But like I said, whether or not you have copyright assignment rights is really straightforward.

Re: YouTube to block indie labels who don't sign up to new music service

#94

Post by vacri »

Nickoladze wrote: post #27
tibbon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vimeo's there, but its even more curated/niche. I've always liked it more, but it hasn't had the same massive growth/traction (and to a degree I think they want it to stay that way). Year ago many people tried to make other sites (Viddler, Blip, etc) but most/all of those folded for various reasons. I do wonder if someone today could do better...

Isn't Vimeo intended for just original content? All the video game "Let's Play"s and such can't be moved over.

Vimeo, for me, is for saying "Vimeo can't play on your setup" because it doesn't recognise the user agent or somesuch, so doesn't even try.

I once heard the two characterised as "youtube will always start to play, but the quality can stutter, whereas Vimeo is smooth as butter... if you can actually get it started in the first place". Even on machines for which Vimeo doesn't exhibit my problem, it doesn't always start for some reason...

Re: YouTube to block indie labels who don't sign up to new music service

#96

Post by IanCal »

fpgeek wrote: post #62
dublinben wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube's new service will be an audio streaming service, not a video streaming service though. I'm not sure why they think they can just make a slight modification to their licensing agreements and roll their video catalog into a music catalog. The record labels are completely right to be demanding better terms here, just like they would get from Apple, Spotify, Pandora, etc.

How does that make any sense? The only YouTube subscription worth paying for is one that gets you out of YouTube ads (and, ideally, unlocks videos that are currently desktop-only on mobile devices, TVs, etc.). Perhaps they'd throw in audio streaming as a sweetener, but if videos aren't deeply involved they might as well just give Google Play Music All Access the needed rebranding, not re-negotiate anything and call i…

I wonder if they'd combine play music and subscription youtube, music videos are one of the few real advantages they have over something like spotify.

Re: YouTube to block indie labels who don't sign up to new music service

#97

Post by IanCal »

ryanwhitney wrote: post #86
Shooti wrote: post #54

Plausible breakdown of Google/YT's side of the story: 1. Youtube wants to offer users a subscription service with no ads. 2. Youtube needs to update its licensing/terms with artists: If a video plays for a subscriber they see no ads, artist gets money from subscription pool. If a video plays for a non-subscriber they see ads, artist gets money from ads pool. 3. Artists need to explicitly agree to these terms because…

>> "It doesn't seem fair for a user to pay a subscription, expect to see no ads, and then see ads for some video's because that artist/distributor did not agree to new terms." Why not? Make it clear on signup that it's a premium service with guaranteed quality content, and x number of major labels are on board where you won't be seeing ads. If there's actual value to users (and artists--their brands won't be associat…

"Fewer adverts" doesn't quite have quite the same draw as "No adverts!".

Re: YouTube to block indie labels who don't sign up to new music service

#98

Post by IanCal »

falcolas wrote: post #6
jsonson wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are reading (and reacting to) here is part of the negotiation tactic of one party trying to force a better deal out of the other. Accounting to the cited FT article, the issue isn't about the yet to be announced music service, rather that these "indie labels" are trying extract higher rates for the free streaming that is already available.

Regardless of why this is becoming public, we would still only benefit from a YouTube competitor.

Would we? Competition is good but fragmentation is bad. If I want to stick on a playlist of 10 songs and half of them are on YouTube but the other half are on DomainNameAbu.se that's not good for me as a user.

Re: YouTube to block indie labels who don't sign up to new music service

#99

Post by walterbell »

zanny wrote: post #48
spingsprong wrote: post #2

Will somebody here please make a video hosting website to replace YouTube.

I've always wanted to try a media content site (obviously based on open standards) where to avoid the whole DMCA mess you'd require all content to be relicensed under a CC license (of your choice). That means if you don't own licensing rights, which is very obvious if you even include third party material, you can't upload it. That means personal video is entirely safe, and anything you personally record is always sa…

> I keep throwing it around and if I ever met a few folks interested in trying it I'd definitely be up for giving it a major go - I think its the inevitable "maximal" solution to intellectual content.

I've looked at business models for all-open content with strong attribution. One question is, how do you protect the business from free-riding competitors who are better capitalized and want to "enclose the public commons"? There have been a few promising efforts in crowdfunding of creative activity, where the resulting content was owned by the creators, e.g.

- (YC) Beacon for journalism

- Star Citizen game ($40M+ raised to date, for 1 game)

- Minecraft did well in selling alpha software

These models seem to work best when there is a strong community invested in using the creative work, and interested in funding roadmaps. Payment infrastructure for DIY crowdfunding continues to improve: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2013/09/your-guide-to-diy-crow... . PayPal's API can split a payment between several parties, e.g. 5% to patronage platform.

When DRM gets implemented in the browser (starting with video, but will inevitably be extended to ePub3 ebooks and thus any web page), public awareness will skyrocket with "no-can-do" messages that users will experience several times a day. Google can pull the rug out from Firefox whenever they want, making Chrome (and app store policies) as much a point of influence as Google Panda.

The low-cost way to get started is not to host content, but to create a decentralized directory based on crowd-sourced metadata (itself public domain) for public domain content. Start off by collecting the Top 500 most-viewed public domain items from: Youtube, Soundcloud, Universities, Internet Archive, Libraries/Museums. If that gets traction as a proof of concept, it can be scaled up.

In the short term, Qt (have you seen QtBitcoinTrader?) and luajit could form the base of a modern version of Groove/Chandler that runs on Mac/Linux/Windows. Medium term could incorporate concepts from secushare (p2p), camlistore (CCNx), askemos (trust) and tinc vpn.

In the long term, this needs to become a new operating system, borrowing concepts from Rebol, Plan9, Ethos OS, Genode, Qubes OS, etc. Then it can run on dedicated in-home hardware with virtualization and always-on connectvity to trusted peers and mobile devices. But that pipe dream requires success from earlier, simpler to deploy products :) Ping me if you want to brainstorm.

Re: YouTube to block indie labels who don't sign up to new music service

#100

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

walterbell wrote: post #99
zanny wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wanted to try a media content site (obviously based on open standards) where to avoid the whole DMCA mess you'd require all content to be relicensed under a CC license (of your choice). That means if you don't own licensing rights, which is very obvious if you even include third party material, you can't upload it. That means personal video is entirely safe, and anything you personally record is always sa…

> I keep throwing it around and if I ever met a few folks interested in trying it I'd definitely be up for giving it a major go - I think its the inevitable "maximal" solution to intellectual content. I've looked at business models for all-open content with strong attribution. One question is, how do you protect the business from free-riding competitors who are better capitalized and want to "enclose the public commo…

Just as an aside, I don't think ePub3 is going anywhere. Last time I looked it was an unholy mess and likely to remain so.

As less of an aside, I think CC sharing and direct crowdfunding is the way things will go for creators.

The only thing labels and distributors bring to the table for artists is public access, sponsorship, and promotion. A public creative network would bypass the first, support direct funding for the second, and promotion would become by fans for fans.

I see no bad here - and if it means an end-run around the monopsonies and the death of the ad networks, even better.

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