It may be a rough and tumble negotiation game, but at least much of the argument is happening out on the street where we can all hear it (not like some industry disputes which are conducted in the back rooms where we can't). Google/YouTube is keeping the gloves off as it negotiates a new settlement (or series of deals) with the music industry, based on what it claims are realistic returns for online music video exposure.
Yesterday YouTube announced that it was going to take down all the premium music content currently available to UK YouTube users because it had failed to hammer out a new licensing deal with the UK's Performing Rights Society (PRS) for Music, a notoriously hard-line royalty collector.
YouTube said the PRS wanted more royalty payment for each video view than YouTube could ever make from the ads situated next to each.
The PRS played the innocent outrage game and expressed itself 'shocked' that YouTube could play politics with its UK viewers, depriving them of content and so on.
PRS says YouTube wanted to pay less than before, YouTube says PRS wanted it to pay more; YouTube said PRS wouldn't agree to identify which songs were to be subject to the premium content licence and which weren't. PRS said, anyway, Google made billions and could afford to pay.
In fact the latter point seems to be the crux of the PRS argument, although on that basis, the small and often barely profitable businesses the PRS hounds for playing the radio in the workplace should presumably not be required to pay anything.
If the music industry, as currently constituted, is finding it difficult to mesh with the connected world, there are nascent business models waiting in the wings and just itching to replace it. 'Tribe of noise' for instance, styles itself as a music community connecting artists fans and professionals.
This one is very much an 'open source' approach.
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