Music Industry Wants Its Share of YouTube Revenues

[George Tyndall]

NEW YORK (Reuters) — Warner Music Group ordered YouTube on Saturday to remove all music videos by its artists from the popular online video-sharing site after contract negotiations broke down.

The order could affect hundreds of thousands of videos clips, as it covers Warner Music's recorded artists as well as the rights for songs published by its Warner/Chappell unit, which includes many artists not signed to Warner Music record labels.

The talks fell apart early on Saturday because Warner wants a bigger share of the huge revenue potential of YouTube's massive visitor traffic. There were no reports on what Warner was seeking.

"We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide," Warner said in a statement.

YouTube is hugely popular, with more than 100 million viewers in the United States alone in October, according to comScore, a Web audience measurement firm.

I've read elsewhere that the music industry is also going after even those folks who use a copyrighted song in their home videos,including, say, their wedding video--even if they do not publish it on YouTube. Can anyone confirm this?

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

.......I've read elsewhere that the music industry is also going after even those folks who use a copyrighted song in their home videos,including, say, their wedding video--even if they do not publish it on YouTube. Can anyone confirm this?

George, haven't heard any of this over here in Europe (which isn't to say by any means that it isn't correct).

All I will say is that if the music industry really does try to clamp down on private, small scale use of music on family stuff then it just demonstrates to me what a dinosaur it (the music industry) has become. Times, media, technology have all changed and they really do need to adopt a more pragmatic approach for home video folk such as us.

Having said that, I fully support any moves to address the issue of large scale piracy for commercial gain.

[RJ Johnston]

I was listening to the radio today and heard that the music industry is dropping going after the individual and going after the ISPs.

[Steve Grisetti]

That make sense, Robert.

I think we'll see these issues pop up every once in a while -- just as you'll often hear about efforts to somehow tax e-mails -- but I don't think they're of real concern. YouTube is just too big to fight!

Besides, as when people use clips from movies on YouTube, it's almost free publicity!

[sidd finch]

from CNET: via the Wall Street Journal

The music industry's highly controversial strategy of suing customers for file sharing has mostly ended.

The Recording Industry Association of America said Friday that it no longer plans to wage a legal assault against people who it suspects of pirating digital music files. What the RIAA should have said, though, is that it won't go after most people who illegally file share. My music industry sources say that the RIAA will continue to file lawsuits against the most egregious offenders--the person who "downloads 5,000 or 6,000 songs a month is still going to get sued,"

The way the new enforcement system will work is that the RIAA will alert an ISP that a customer appears to be file sharing. The ISP will then notify the person that he or she appears to be file sharing. If the behavior by the customer doesn't change, then more e-mails will be sent. If the customer ignores these e-mails, then the ISP may choose to suspend the person's service. If all else fails, they can choose to discontinue service.

Under the plan, which was brokered by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the music industry will not know the customer's identity. What this means is that ISPs have now gone into the enforcement business, and this has always been one of the greatest fears of those who have wanted ISPs to remain neutral.

Sidd