YOUTUBE faces EU music video rights hike

UPDATED UPDATE!!

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/whos-telling-the-truth-youtube-or-the-music-industry-756663/



Spoiler alert ... the tech giants won this battle:YouTube and Facebook escape billions in copyright payouts after EU vote

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/05/youtube-could-escape-billions-in-copyright-payouts-after-eu-vote?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

'YouTube faces paying billions to music stars after copyright vote'

Great article + big news, as this impacts YouTube's distribution of music videos - it could lead to a mass deletion of music videos from the site, pending clear + specific agreements being signed with labels/rights holders.

NB: there is no change in law YET; this initial requires a further vote in the European Parliament in July before it takes on legal status, and it seems likely several states will object to it.

The quotes below contain some killer stats, the type I've often cited before:

• YouTube pays out about 67¢ per its 1.3bn music video-watching users ($856m/£650m annual)
• that's less than half the total royalties payout for 25 BILLION streams than is generated by just 4.1m vinyl record sales!!!
• Spotify pays out about $20 per user (272m users, annual total $5.6bn royalties)

For years the music industry has argued that YouTube exploits the lack of legal protection around music videos being viewed on its service to pay minimal amounts to artists and labels when they are viewed. The music industry has lobbied that this “value gap” between the true worth of the music videos and what YouTube decides to pay needs to be addressed with legislation.

On Wednesday, a crucial vote by the European parliament’s legal affairs committee went the way of the music industry with an agreement to adopt copyright laws that will force platforms such as YouTube to seek licences for music videos.

YouTube has an estimated 1.3 billion users who regularly watch music videos and it paid $856m (£650m) in royalties to music companies last year – an estimated 67 cents per user annually. In the UK, record labels and artists earn more than double the royalties from the sale of 4.1m vinyl records than they did from the 25bn music videos watched on YouTube last year.

By contrast, income from the 272 million music fans who paid for ad-supported services such as Spotify, generated $5.6bn in royalties, or about $20 per user annually.

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