YouTube, said it will block all music videos to British users – sort of about now – after it was unable to reach a rights deal with the main songwriters’ collection society.
The world’s largest video sharing site said PRS for Music, a British collection society that collects royalties on behalf of nearly 50,000 composers, was asking it to pay “many, many times” more than the previous licensing agreement that has expired.
“The costs are simply prohibitive for us — under PRS’s proposed terms, we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback,” the company said in a blog on Monday.
The move is the latest sign of the tension between YouTube and the music industry and also indicates the video site’s resolve to keep operating costs under control as it strives to generate meaningful profits for Google…
But PRS disputed YouTube’s version of events and said: “We were shocked and disappointed…blah, blah…”
I don’t know if this will ever get interesting – other than suits vs. suits. Meanwhile, YouTube/music fans in the UK get screwed.
YouTube could easily evolve into something like the iTunes Music Store, the industry wants to keep it on it’s knees.
Another case of the music industry shooting itself up.
“we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback”
What a load of bullshit! Do these idiots actually think that any music video viewed will really cost them a sale??
Actually, they probably do. Stupid misguided ferkers!
And they think this will endear them selves to potential music buyers? Not a damn chance!
#3 I believe the “we” in this sentence is YouTube.
#4 Petrov.
Not necesarily, Most of youtube’s premium competitors only cater to the USA.
#3
They know it is not true and that’s not the point.
The point is YouTube is RICH. FILTHY RICH.
So they should PAY UP, of course!
They thought youtube would agree on little bit less than they were asking (typical pre-negotiations calculations) thats why they are so surprised they got nothing 😀
“But PRS … said: “We were shocked and disappointed…blah, blah…””
Of course they were shocked and disappointed.
They thought they get free advertising of their products on free servers paid by youtube AND an extra checks from youtube for advertisng their products – and now they are left with NADA 😀 No free advertising, and no extra cash!
Shock!
And disappointment (I bet some of them already planned to buy this and that…)
Good move, youtube!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Royalty_Board#License_fee_rates
Surprise?
You know what will happen next, You Tube will cut America off from British music, which would be terribly tragic because for the past few years AMERICAN MUSIC SUCKS!! while BRITISH MUSIC ROCKS!!
American teens today are so unfortunate to think Britany, or Miley, or Aion, or Lady GaGa, etc. bleh!
You should be listening to the Ting Tings, or The Wombats, or The Rumble Strips, or The Futureheads, or White Lies, or The Fratellis, or Blood Red Shoes, or The Kaiser Chiefs, or We Are Scientists, or The Script, or Iglu & Hartley, or Ladytron, or Jem, or Lily Allen, or Ladyhawke, or The Enemy…
or this! http://youtube.com/watch?v=yoN6XfyQsr4
What I think is that people who were getting checks are going to be asking their guys why no money? You promised us more money.
#5 & #6
I was making a comment about the sentence. YouTube is a business… if they don’t want to pay then they don’t have too. Just like you don’t have to pay for CDs at the store unless you actually want to buy them.
PRS for Music are actually thinking:
“Great! We have Saved or Created millions of Pounds”
I think all Youtube content should be blocked to the UK since UK material is so often blocked to us (my country, at least). They say the material is made by BBC and funded by UK tax payers so it should be blocked to other countries, but how much exactly do those UK taxpayers contribute to have access to the immense material from all corners of the world that is freely available on Youtube?