Copyright “safe harbour” rules, drawn up a quarter of a century ago to help nurture early online commerce, are today distorting the digital market, profiting tech giants and leading to significant underpayment of copyright owners, a new U.S. economic study by Professor Stan Liebowitz of the University of Texas at Dallas says.
MusicAlly covers the new CISAC-commissioned study on the value gap and its detailed economic examination of how copyright owners have been damaged by so-called “safe harbour” rules in copyright law.
More than 20 international organizations called on the new EU leader to close the ‘value gap’ in a compelling open letter.
Billboard’s coverage of artist advocacy group Content Creators Coalition’s (c3’s) digital ad campaign calling on YouTube to give more control — and money — to artists whose music makes YouTube the most popular streaming service.
YouTube pulled the plug on a “YouTube Can Do Better” video by the Content Creators Coalition (c3) that takes aim at its lack of fair payments to artists whose music makes the streaming giant so popular among fans.
Streaming continues to grow, but YouTube’s “value gap” remains the biggest thorn in the music industry’s side, said the IFPI in its latest Music Consumer Insight Report.
RIAA’s Storify piece that lists the various music industry responses to YouTube exec Lyor Cohen’s blog calling music’s value gap a “distraction.”
The Post examines the legal loophole that gives YouTube an advantage of its competitors and explores many musicians’ complaints about YouTube, with one artist stating “YouTube revenue is so negligible that I stopped paying attention to it.”
MBW guest writer Andy Edwards looks at both sides of the value gap issue and poses the question: “Supposing that legislators rule in the music industry’s favor, the question remains: then what? How, in practical terms, is the value gap closed?”
Jonathan Taplin, Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California and the author of Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy, questions whether the ever-expanding market dominance of Google, Facebook, Amazon and other tech behemoths should be allowed to continue unregulated and unchecked.
The NY Post’s coverage of the U.S. music industry’s response to a flawed Google-commissioned report by RBB Economics in Europe that touts YouTube’s supposed value to the music industry.
Author Jonathan Taplin’s piece in the New York Times opines on whether Google and other big tech companies should be regulated in the same way natural monopolies are often regulated, and offers suggestions on how to do that, including by scrapping the DMCA’s safe harbors which “allow companies like Facebook and Google’s YouTube to free ride on the content produced by others.”
Music industry observer Bobby Owsinski’s op-ed piece in Hypebot explains why the user-generated nature of YouTube gives the behemoth tech company the upper hand in negotiations with music creators, and why the industry’s fragile recovery is happening with little help from YouTube, which pays artists at a lower rate than practically every other streaming service.
This new study by music groups A2IM and Future of Music documents indie labels’ experiences with the ineffective notice and takedown provisions of the DMCA, including that 65% of labels surveyed reported finding instances of music re-appearing on the same site even after that music had been taken down.
RIAA CEO Cary Sherman offers his thoughts on the American music industry’s 11.4% year-over-year growth in 2016, cautioning that while growth is exciting, the recovery is “fragile and fraught with risk” due in large part to below-market rates paid to music creators by platforms such as YouTube on account of an antiquated DMCA.
Economic think tank The Phoenix Center’s new report finds that laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) cause music creators to lose anywhere between “$650 million to over one billion dollars a year” due to “distortions in licensing negotiations.”
RIAA blog post on Medium highlighting the many music voices who have called on Congress to update the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Music Ally piece on the 15 music industry bodies including the Recording Academy, NMPA, and SoundExchange who have come together to file comments to the U.S. Copyright Office decrying the DMCA as “broken and antiquated.”
Nashville music outlet Music Row on various leaders in the U.S. music community from artists to songwriters to labels to musicians and managers who have spoken up and filed comments with the U.S. Copyright Office on the failures of the notice and takedown provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Billboard’s take on the coalition filing of 15 music organizations — representing virtually the entire music community – to the U.S. government in response to its inquiry on the effectiveness of a U.S. copyright law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), calling the DMCA’s notice and takedown process an “endless game of whack-a-mole” for music creators.
RIAA Chairman & CEO Cary Sherman outlines the critical dilemmas presented by the current government-set music licensing regime, as well as the hopelessly antiquated “notice and takedown” copyright system.
Music attorney and artist advocate Chris Castle argues that Google has unjustly reaped financial rewards by tilting the balance intended by the DMCA’s authors.
Rolling Stone covers a letter signed by Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, Beck, Kings of Leon and others, calling for reform of the DMCA, and pointing out that Google is capable of doing more.
The RIAA’s Cary Sherman explains the importance of updating the DMCA in order to fairly compensate the creators driving the industry.
The Wall Street Journal muses on why the music industry is locked in an epic battle with YouTube, and the laborious task of efficiently detecting copyrighted material from the 300+ hours-worth of video uploaded to the site every minute.
A USA Today piece on a letter to Congress signed by over 180 artists calling for reform of the DMCA to protect the future of music for the next generation of artists.
Vanity Fair covers Taylor Swift’s advocacy for fair treatment of music creators by YouTube, and legendary artist manager Irving Azoff’s case that YouTube is a rigged system.
Recode covers a letter to Congress by a “who’s who” of music creators, including legendary artist manager Irving Azoff, calling for reforms of DMCA to artists can have control over their work, and warning that the music economy for the next generation of artists is at stake.
Entertainment Weekly covers an outpouring of artist criticism of YouTube and calls for DMCA reform, following Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor’s recent critique.
Legendary artist manager Irving Azoff’s open letter to YouTube criticizing the video platform for its position on the DMCA’s notice and takedown provisions and lambasting the lack of artist control over their work on the platform.
Billboard covers an unprecedented number of music creators calling for Congressional reform of DMCA to thwart YouTube’s meager payouts.
A New York Times piece on the unanimous call from artists and creators to revise the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and why YouTube’s current anti-piracy system may not be enough.
Following the release of the music industry’s 2015 revenues, RIAA CEO Cary Sherman reflects on the industry’s transition to streaming number and outlines present challenges such as the hopelessly outdated ‘notice and takedown’ provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Legendary musicians Neil Young blasts the tech giant of “building their wealth on music’s back and paying nothing to the artists” in an essay.
Billboard’s coverage of artist advocacy group Content Creators Coalition’s (c3’s) digital ad campaign calling on YouTube to give more control — and money — to artists whose music makes YouTube the most popular streaming service.
Canada’s The Globe & Mail’s coverage of artist activist Miranda Mullholland’s powerful speech at the Economic Club of Canada, sponsored by Music Canada, in which she lambasts YouTube for creating and perpetuating a landscape where struggling artists live “in poverty” and implores the company to practice one important word: “accountability.”
Artist activist Miranda Mulholland’s full speech at the Economic Club of Canada where she takes on YouTube for paying artists so little.
BNA‘s take on music icon T Bone Burnett’s video submission to the U.S. Copyright Office in which he makes a powerful appeal to policymakers to fix the DMCA’s broken notice and takedown system.
In a Tennessean Op-Ed, legendary producer and musician T Bone Burnett dismisses Google’s charm offensive in Nashville in light of the effects on Nashville musicians of its abuse of the DMCA.
Famed songwriter Maria Schneider explains how YouTube’s claim that it uses ContentID to stop piracy is backwards because it facilitates piracy.
In a Rolling Stone Op-Ed, Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter pens a point by point rebuttal to YouTube’s defense of its abusive conduct.
Producer and Director Ellen Seidler talks to Vox Indie in an depth examination of the flaws in YouTube’s ContentID system.
Jonathan Taplin, Director of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California, makes the case that Google/YouTube hides behind DMCA Safe Harbors to shortchange artists, before calling for DMCA reforms, in this New York Times Op-Ed.
Artist manager Jordan Berliant highlights the unusual unanimity of music creators in calling for DMCA reform and the responsibility of services like YouTube to use the best available technological tools to protect music creators’ work in this RIAA Blog post.
Grammy award winning singer/songwriter Nelly Furtado makes a four point case that YouTube needs to do better for music creators.
Variety covers music legend John Mellencamp’s acceptance of the ASCAP Founders Award and his call for legal reforms of laws covering online services like Google and YouTube to better protect music creators.
Music legend Debbie Harry points out, in a Guardian Op-Ed, how the broken DMCA allows Google to take money from musicians and the need for reform.
The Guardian covers Motley Crue co-founder Nikki Sixx’s call for more artists to speak out and put pressure on YouTube to match the royalty payouts of music streaming rivals.
Music Ally covers Metallica manager Peter Mensch’s sharp critique of YouTube’s treatment of music creators.
musicFIRST compiles filings demonstrating the unprecedented, unified music industry calls for reform of the DMCA, in this post on Medium.
The diverse and widespread outpouring of music industry voices calling for reform and RIAA Chairman and CEO Cary Sherman’s hope that policymakers heed those calls, highlighted in this RIAA blog post.
Legendary producer and musician T Bone Burnett highlights the disparity between the widespread affection for music in our society and outdated laws that devalue it, in this Op-Ed published in the Washington Post.
Copyright “safe harbour” rules, drawn up a quarter of a century ago to help nurture early online commerce, are today distorting the digital market, profiting tech giants and leading to significant underpayment of copyright owners, a new U.S. economic study by Professor Stan Liebowitz of the University of Texas at Dallas says.
MusicAlly covers the new CISAC-commissioned study on the value gap and its detailed economic examination of how copyright owners have been damaged by so-called “safe harbour” rules in copyright law.
More than 20 international organizations called on the new EU leader to close the ‘value gap’ in a compelling open letter.
Streaming continues to grow, but YouTube’s “value gap” remains the biggest thorn in the music industry’s side, said the IFPI in its latest Music Consumer Insight Report.
Global music trade body IFPI’s report based on research conducted by IPSOS that examines the ways in which fans are engaging with music across 13 of the world’s leading markets.
RIAA’s Storify piece that lists the various music industry responses to YouTube exec Lyor Cohen’s blog calling music’s value gap a “distraction.”
Prof. Dr. Rolf Budde, chairman of the German Music Publisher Association, tells Billboard in an interview that the copyright law reform currently being discussed at the EU will enhance transparency and place the authors and music publishers on the same footing as the platform operators.
French composer society CISAC sites YouTube’s underpayment to authors as the “biggest challenge we face today” in its annual revenue report.
Beggars Group Chairman Martin Mills delivers an update on his three-year-old speech he gave at Canadian Music Week, stating that in three years there has frustratingly been “zero improvement” on the value gap.
At a panel during the MIDEM music conference, executives from various global music trade bodies outline the issues around the value gap and why they expect services like YouTube to do better.
Complete Music Update’s take on an event hosted in Brussels by creators group GESAC where several music advocates urged European lawmakers to do more to close the value gap, while a coalition of tech firms and libraries urged the lawmakers to scrap any plans to enact further requirements on service providers in the proposed copyright reforms.
The Irish Times’ coverage of a recent meeting between representatives from Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) and Irish MEPs in Brussels to discuss the importance to the music industry of the European Commission’s proposed copyright reforms.
Vick Bain, CEO of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA), offers her take on the value gap in this op-ed in Music Business Worldwide, hitting directly at YouTube for paying songwriters and composers so little that they have become an “endangered species, and yet the future of the entire British music industry rests on their talents.”
Music Week report on BPI and IFPI’s rebuttals to a recent YouTube-commissioned report that says YouTube isn’t bad for the industry and has a positive impact on the business by bringing in those who would normally get music illegally to the platform.
A RIAA blog highlights a report by the BPI contrasting the increase in streaming by UK music fans with stagnant payouts to music creators by streaming services.
Irish Times’ informative take on how the global music industry’s celebration of its recent increase in revenue is tempered by YouTube and the value gap, and why the industry should keep fighting.
IFPI’s new report on the 2016 global music market highlights how the value gap “remains the biggest challenge to sustainable growth” for the worldwide music industry, with a specific section on the status of a legislative fix in Europe, along with new supporting graphics and facts on the inequality between what YouTube pays music creators vs what other similar services pay.
The Guardian’s take on latest music industry figures from UK record label trade body BPI that shows the UK market up 5.6% but hamstrung by safe harbor laws that allow services like YouTube to pay below market rates, further compounded by BPI’s revelation that music creators made more money from vinyl album sales than from video streaming platforms like YouTube in 2016.
Billboard’s take on the video filing to the U.S. government signed by more than 40 artists joining together to form the simple message: “YouTube Can Do Better.”
Variety piece with compelling charts that show how YouTube’s payouts to music creators pale in comparison to its competitors, thereby putting into context its claim that it has paid out more than $1 billion in the past year.
IFPI releases new consumer research from Ipsos that shows sharp growth in music streaming but also meager payouts for music creators from streaming services.
As the EU prepares its copyright reform directive to help address the value gap in Europe, Andrus Ansip, the EU’s digital chief, calls on the Google-owned video site to share more revenue with artists.
The Wall Street Journal muses on why the music industry is locked in an epic battle with YouTube, and the laborious task of efficiently detecting copyrighted material from the 300+ hours-worth of video uploaded to the site every minute.
Vanity Fair covers Taylor Swift’s advocacy for fair treatment of music creators by YouTube, and legendary artist manager Irving Azoff’s case that YouTube is a rigged system.
Entertainment Weekly covers an outpouring of artist criticism of YouTube and calls for DMCA reform, following Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor’s recent critique.
Recode covers a letter to Congress by a “who’s who” of music creators, including legendary artist manager Irving Azoff, calling for reforms of DMCA to artists can have control over their work, and warning that the music economy for the next generation of artists is at stake.
On a Midem panel, IFPI CEO calls for music creators to take a united stand for fair compensation from digital services at this critical moment.
A roundup by Music Business Worldwide covers a flurry of music creator activity calling for DMCA reforms.
In a Canadian Music Week speech, IFPI CEO Frances Moore covers industry trends and describes the growing disparity between the increasing value music provides to digital services and the compensation music creators receive from them.
Billboard covers an unprecedented number of music creators calling for Congressional reform of DMCA to thwart YouTube’s meager payouts.
Motley Crue co-founder Nikki Sixx’s call for more artists to speak out and put pressure on YouTube to match the royalty payouts of music streaming rivals in this BBC report.
A New York Times piece on the unanimous call from artists and creators to revise the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and why YouTube’s current anti-piracy system may not be enough.