YouTube Created Music Channels?

[BradKlein]

Perhaps this is a new development in the fast changing world of music streaming services - or perhaps I didn't notice it before. It seems that YT is creating channels of audio that contain all the tracks on many CDs by a particular artist. For example, in the discussion of Tut Taylor, the John Hartford channel came up.

#JohnHartford brings up literally HUNDREDS of audio tracks by JH. I stopped loading them before I got to the end, so I don't know how many. And earlier today, I noticed that the channel #JimLauderdale has over 200 tracks. These are not 'videos', just audio ripped from CDs. #davidgrisman has over 350 tracks available. Most, with only a few 'listens', so it must be a new thing, right?

I don't see any indication of how these things are created. Clearly by Google and NOT by the artist. Am I naive to think the artists have 'opted in' to this arrangement in return for a cut of the ad revenue? I know that CD rips have always been present on YT, but uploaded by artists, or simply pirates who've profited if the copyright holder didn't object. But it's new, having Google do it directly, no?

[Ivan Kelsall]

I've noticed exactly the same thing myself. The latest CD by ''The Steeldrivers'' is on there 'complete' & very easily downloaded.
What puzzles me is this - If a buyer of any CD uploads the CD in it's entirety onto YouTube,is it now classed as being in the public domain & therefor free to all people ?.I somehow doubt it, as any download would (should) be classed as 'piracy'. There are so many YouTube clips that since i haven't heard of any legal action being taken to remove any of them, or to prosecute 'whoever'
uploaded them,that maybe YT is above adequate policing ?. I really don't know what YT's policy is re.uploading complete CD's,but there are 100's of them. Maybe some clarification is required to protect downloaders against any potential criminal activity such as occurred requiring certain music download websites to be shut down - a very grey (gray) area IMHO,
Ivan

[almeriastrings]

No, it is certainly not in "the public domain". Copyright remains with the legal owner. Good grief... even Norman Blake's latest CD, only released a couple of weeks back (!) is up on there, and as Ivan says, very easy to 'rip' the audio, even though this is not what the license 'allows'. It is effectively making the artist's music available 'for free'. This probably stems from the deal Youtube cut a couple of years ago:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/6/306...nsing-deal-bmg

The problem... apart from the fact that the actual artist who created the music is unlikely to see much, if any, income from this, is that the capability to 'rip' and download the tracks (albeit unlawfully) could kill legal downloads and CD sales, both of which many artists (and labels) rely on for a living. I find this quite troubling from the ethical angle.

No doubt Youtube, Google and all the other mega-conglomerates and 'super stars' will do nicely out of it, but what about the little guys? What about the creators of original and 'low volume' but high quality content? I suspect they'll be lucky to see a bean...

[Bertram Henze]

Copyright is alive and kicking here. I tried an example:



This is the German version of "we haven't come to terms with this copyright-enforcing authority yet".
I guess I'll watch my own videos then...

[almeriastrings]

Well, here's some real life examples of the royalties people have received.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...outube-pandora

"Ellen Shipley, the co-writer (with a 50% share) of Belinda Carlisle's Heaven Is a Place On Earth reported receiving $38.49 for the 2,118,200 streams the track had accumulated on YouTube in the last quarter. For the over 330,000 hits her 'N Sync track I Drive Myself Crazy had on the video site, she received $4.31. "I can't even buy a pizza for that," she pointed out:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2...does-it-add-up

""Holiday in Cambodia" by the punk band Dead Kennedys has been streamed on YouTube over 2.5 million times. Guitarist Raymond Pepperell — also known as East Bay Ray — says, overall, Dead Kennedys videos have been watched about 14 million times. But the band has only seen a few hundred dollars"

Makes me think that going by the few thousand plays traditional and acoustic bands tend to clock up they'll be lucky to be able to buy a cup of coffee with the annual proceeds! I feel almost wealthy by comparison - my own 'Public Lending Right' (the fee author's get for having books loaned out in public libraries) for 2014 was at least enough to buy myself and my wife lunch, even if it was two veggie pattie sandwiches at Subway and even though we did have to raid our own pockets for the extra toppings. Sounds almost generous by Youtube standards

[BradKlein]

The pages that I'm talking about seem to be examples of something new, and as I mentioned, seem created in-house by google/yt. A quick look online didn't turn up any information, but perhaps a more thorough search will. Here's what Grisman's looks like. See what I mean?

[Fred Keller]

I wonder if YouTube would take these pages down if they were alerted. I assume--though I have no knowledge--that most of these "videos" are being privately ripped and posted. YouTube alleges that they do not allow posting of things to which the poster does not own rights. But the volume of this activity must overwhelm. In addition, it's in YT's best interest (for traffic) to take the tack of "I'm shocked! Shocked, to find gambling at Rick's"

Sad but true that digital streaming of any sort--once touted as the savior of musicians--kills by the death-of-a-million-hits

[Ivan Kelsall]

Rather than download anything,these days i simply keep a 'link' to any YT clip by using the URL to make a 'shortcut' to it on my PC.
That way,nothing's downloaded & because YT store them for me,my PC's hard drive stays un-cluttered & 'legal'. I haven't seen anything similar to what Brad's posted,just the general YT clips,although many of them do offer the full CD as per The Steeldrivers CD that i mentioned - but would you believe it,it was up-loaded to YT by Rounder Records ??? - https://youtu.be/19OnCX4F4Yk
Do Rounder Records believe that the CD is safe from being downloaded for free ?. If they do they must have been living underground for a while. As part of the up-load blurb,it is stated where the CD can be bought - there must be some trusting souls at Rounder that's all i can say - very odd indeed !,
Ivan

[JH Murray]

Rounder has been doing this for some time. The Steve Martin/Edie Brickell album released last year is still up in its entirety on YT, posted there by Rounder. 147,000 listens.

[almeriastrings]

Yes... that's what they're doing... all official. Quite how it makes economic sense, though, is completely beyond me. The payments per 'play' are absolutely miniscule. I suppose if you are Beyonce or Taylor Swift it adds up to a bit (and even they have been complaining about low rates of return from streaming services). This is even less... far less... and why people will pay iTunes for a legitimate download or buy a CD when they can download (and save) the entire thing for nothing is difficult to get your head around. Sure, you get better technical quality from a CD, but these days quality seems very low on the lost of most listener's priorities. People just don't seem to care as much about that as they did. They listen to highly compressed stuff on computer speakers or ear-buds routinely. It is kind of like having a supermarket with no checkouts and no security. Just a box on the way out where you can pay "if you really want to"... otherwise... just help yourself.

[BradKlein]

I know that it's futile trying to keep a thread on a single track but I just want to point out that these are CREATED BY YT/GOOGLE! Record companies have their own reasons and calculus for putting material online, and potentially the rights to. Individuals get away with what they can get away with. This seems fundamentally different. Just type in a musicians name after the hashtag and you get a 'channel' "generated by youtube" of that artist's work.

I believe that the answer is related to the streaming service, 'Google Music', which I didn't know existed until today. The key search terms seem to be 'Google Play Music' and 'Music Key', but I can't really figure out what's going on yet. Essentially, some sort of two tiered pay/free music streaming business that integrates YT content with Google's efforts in this area. I suppose it will become clearer in time - but I don't expect it to 'fix' anything as far as music producers are concerned - either giant corporate musicians or human-scale ones. Just trying to understand.

[almeriastrings]

It is related to what I mentioned in post number 3.

There is a deal that Google/YT have struck with BMI and others. The 'pay' comes from a 'cut' (15% of net revenues) of adverts - and shortly, YT is going to be moving to a very different type of service. Free - you get bombarded with ads. Pay a subscription - this is ad free and the copyright owner will get a pay per play rather like Spotify. The problem remains (for artists) that the 'pay' is not pennies... it is tiny fractions of pennies, and you'll need tens of millions of 'plays' to make any decent money. Oh, and if you don't like it? Too bad. Not only will they not pay you, they'll block all your content. You have no say in it.

The full story and the contract....

They get to upload your entire catalog from day one.....

Video producers are in their sights too.....

http://recode.net/2015/04/10/youtube...omewhere-else/

Not nice. Not nice at all.

[Astro]

Google has become to all powerful.

I think that aside from the mega stars, most music artists must now rely on touring for their primary income. I suppose these artists allow there music to be given away like this in hopes of increasing the popularity of their music so they will become more recognizable and book bigger shows and hopefully one day become a mega star.

Mega stars, on the other hand, do not have this incentive to give their stuff away and we've seen Taylor Swift refuse Spotify. But maybe mega stars are so rich that giving away the music is seen as less of a big deal and it keeps them in the public eye for future commercials, movie deals, mega concerts, fashion sales ect.

I'm just speculating of course...

[barney 59]

Where is the "allowing" that your talking about? My friend, the rock star, is all bent out of shape about how this is going. Very little payoff for recorded music means that they have to tour constantly to make a living. He has a family and he's been at it for 20 years or more and would like to continue to make a living (I kind of suspect that it's all he knows how to do) but would like to be home a bit. A dozen or so albums and a couple of hits and he's not getting paid anything that represents the value of what he and other artists are providing to these companies. The companies claim that they can't afford to pay more. Pandora paid out $150,000,000 in executive salaries last year! The CEO of Pandora is attempting to build a house here,(as in ,not far from me) that has the whole community up in arms and holding public meetings to try and derail it. He plans to build a complex that dwarfs the monastery that originally occupied the site!
He brought up another aspect of the problem that I never thought of. "I passed up hundreds of thousands of dollars from endorsements and not permitting my music to be used for commercial advertising that I didn't approve of in an attempt to protect the integrity of my music!" He stated " Now my music pops up with an ad for BMW or something,--- without my consent? That's rape!" He has been active in trying to organize musicians in an attempt to find a way to fight back but has not been very successful in enlisting the bigger stars, which he needs. Taylor Swift getting into the fray(a Swift kick in the #ss?) might indicate a shift and bring in some of the the other big named acts. Organized,something very foreign to most artists, they might be able to change this around. If this was oil rights or software this kind of rip off would not be happening!

[Peewee]

Auto generated YouTube channels have been around for awhile and they're not just for music. But they do seem to be growing recently. YouTube basically collects related content and puts it all on one channel. Theoretically, everything on them is licensed, but I'm sure plenty has slipped through the cracks.

YouTube Music Key is YouTube's new streaming service, which hasn't officially launched yet. It's closely related to Google/YouTube's current streaming service Google Music Play. It's a paid subscription service.

I definitely sympathize with the musicians, especially independent musicians, who are making peanuts. But at the same time, this is quite different from Napster or illegal torrents. The streaming services aren't "stealing" anybody's music. They have deals with record labels and distributors. If artists have a problem with it they should be complaining to their labels. Streaming music doesn't even seem to be a profitable business. Pandora loses money every year and the others aren't doing any better.

[barney 59]

Auto generated YouTube channels have been around for awhile and they're not just for music. But they do seem to be growing recently. YouTube basically collects related content and puts it all on one channel. Theoretically, everything on them is licensed, but I'm sure plenty has slipped through the cracks.

YouTube Music Key is YouTube's new streaming service, which hasn't officially launched yet. It's closely related to Google/YouTube's current streaming service Google Music Play. It's a paid subscription service.

I definitely sympathize with the musicians, especially independent musicians, who are making peanuts. But at the same time, this is quite different from Napster or illegal torrents. The streaming services aren't "stealing" anybody's music. They have deals with record labels and distributors. If artists have a problem with it they should be complaining to their labels. Streaming music doesn't even seem to be a profitable business. Pandora loses money every year and the others aren't doing any better.

I guess there isn't much profit left after they pay themselves $100's of millions of dollars-- Go to You tube and click on almost anyone and you'll find some scratchy video of almost any band or artist filmed on someones iphone. These certainly have no agreement and yet there they are. The state of computers these days ---there shouldn't be any "cracks", if they wanted to weed stuff out it would be out or actually never got in! If you ask my techie son about it he'd tell you that that would be easy!
Taylor Swift is a little different than most musicians and may become a model for other musicians to follow. She is self made and self controlled. Her management is herself or rather those who do her management for her are her own employees, they're salaried. She walked away from Mercury at 16 because she didn't like her handling and a new small record company picked her up or maybe it was that she picked them up but she is certainly in the drivers seat!. If she tells Spotify "No" that is a "No!" There isn't anyone else left to ask or pay off. She should write a how to book! She put this together as a teenager!
This isn't much different than the torrents -at least as far as the artists are concerned,they don't get paid either way. This is just fountain pen robbery as opposed to just plain robbery --getting ripped off is always the same result for the person getting hosed -legal or otherwise! If it's so unprofitable why are these other companies, who understand what a profit is, getting into the market? Music industry "book cooking' is very well documented and I would bet that it's the same for these internet companies. Wasn't there something in a court battle that allowed these companies to pay almost nothing for content? I need to look that up-----
Once upon a time recorded music paid---everyone got paid,well, except maybe for "Blondie". The result of that was many well made,hand crafted and now sometimes classic albums were produced. When there was money a band might put aside months or a year even to be shipped to and housed at the expense of a record label to a state of the art recording studio,best producers, best engineers,best musicians and spare no expense you might end up with an album like "Rumors" "or Dark Side of the Moon" or "Sargent Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" if your lucky! The record companies obviously thought that they got lucky enough enough of the time to take risks with bands and spend money on their albums. When they hit "bingo" they got an album that might be in the top sellers for a decade or more! I don't think there are very many albums being produced with that kind of craftsmanship these days. If your not going to make any money what would be the motivation to spend months or more creating such an album from an artists point of view? The money is being on the road right? Who is going to spend the very substantial money it costs to produce the album if it's not possible to turn a healthy profit? I heard Joe Walsh( the Eagles one) talking about this subject and complaining that albums just don't have the care put into them now because there is no money in it. The end result is no money for the artists and a bunch of lackluster music for us to listen to!

[Ivan Kelsall]

I'm as puzzled about this as Brad Klein & as bemused re.the economics of it as Almeria. I have to make the assumption that any record co. such as Rounder,who up-loaded The Steeldrivers CD,is doing it fully aware of the ease of downloading the music for free ?. Also that it's been done with full knowledge of it by the band(s) in question ?. So,if both my premises are correct,then the record cos. are placing this music firmly in the ''public domain'' & it's a free for all ?,
Ivan

[almeriastrings]

Legally it is not a "free for all", because you are not actually supposed to download and save 'streaming' content... but I bet just about every 10-year-old kid knows exactly how to do it, so it may as well be in a practical sense....

Quite how they expect to still sell physical CD's for what? $12-16? When the entire content can be grabbed and stored for absolutely nothing, I have no clue. Anyone?

[Astro]

Quite how they expect to still sell physical CD's for what? $12-16? When the entire content can be grabbed and stored for absolutely nothing, I have no clue. Anyone?

That is the multi-million dollar question. ? I don't understand it either. I guess the mega corporation that owns the music expects to make more money from the intro adds and side bar ads? Do they ?

But I don't get that either. Who ever looks at that ? It seems like real ineffective advertising to me despite the fact that I know my ads are targeted at me based on my last 1000whatever google search topics. Are the advertisers really paying that much for these ads? I am so sick of Geico.

I quit listening to pandora because of the ads. When I hit a utube selection and the mandatory 15 second add comes on, I click off of it and find one that lets me skip the ad after 5 seconds or one with no add. If utube ever makes all the views go through the 15 sec add, I will quit using utube as will all the millineals and I think someone else will create the next start up version of utube.

[OldSausage]

When you look in the info for these tracks, at the bottom it says "Auto-created by YouTube". So yes, Google is doing it deliberately as a way to create advertising revenue for themselves. As noted above, they have deals with music publishers. So everyone's lawyer has agreed to this.

[Peewee]

Go to You tube and click on almost anyone and you'll find some scratchy video of almost any band or artist filmed on someones iphone. These certainly have no agreement and yet there they are. The state of computers these days ---there shouldn't be any "cracks", if they wanted to weed stuff out it would be out or actually never got in! If you ask my techie son about it he'd tell you that that would be easy!

YouTube is probably better than most when it comes to protecting copyright. All videos uploaded to YouTube are automatically compared to a database to see if it's copyrighted material. Owner's of copyrighted material have the option to have it taken down or receive any money earned from ads on the videos. I have no idea how effective it is, but they do more than they legally have to.

This isn't much different than the torrents -at least as far as the artists are concerned,they don't get paid either way. This is just fountain pen robbery as opposed to just plain robbery --getting ripped off is always the same result for the person getting hosed -legal or otherwise!

They are getting paid (though in most cases not very much). Streaming services are typically paying over 50% of their revenue for content. The labels probably take the biggest chunk of that. But that's more a problem with the industry than with streaming. CD sales and digital downloads are just as bad. Artists typically are making a dollar or less off of each CD sold or album downloaded.

If it's so unprofitable why are these other companies, who understand what a profit is, getting into the market?

I assume because they think they can make money (now or in the future). Subscription based service are probably a more profitable model than advertiser supported streaming. By most reports even YouTube is only breaking even.

Once upon a time recorded music paid---everyone got paid,well, except maybe for "Blondie".

I'm not sure this is true. Seems like artists have been complaining about record labels forever. Being a musician is a terrible way to make a living, except for a select few. The labels have always been the ones making the money, and the artists typically get screwed. Part of the problem with streaming is that the artists typically don't have a lot of control over their music, because they've signed over their rights to the record label.

I don't really disagree with you much. I think the artists are getting the short end of the stick. I just think the record labels are a much bigger part of the problem than YouTube, Pandora, etc.

I have to make the assumption that any record co. such as Rounder,who up-loaded The Steeldrivers CD,is doing it fully aware of the ease of downloading the music for free ?. Also that it's been done with full knowledge of it by the band(s) in question ?. So,if both my premises are correct,then the record cos. are placing this music firmly in the ''public domain'' & it's a free for all ?

"Public Domain" has a specific legal meaning. Posting a video doesn't make it public domain. Just like a song being played on the radio (for free) doesn't make it public domain. It's still copyrighted material, even though it's out in the world or freely available.

I assume artists and labels are putting out free music on YouTube because they have more control over it. It's good publicity and they can make (a little) money off of advertising. Anyone who wants to download it from YouTube probably could have downloaded it somewhere else anyway.

[Tavy]

This has to be an extremely worrying development for all artists. The music is available from a well know source, no messing about with the webs darker places, extermely easy to download - all it takes is a quick Google to find out how, decent quality (ACC128 by the looks of it), and while not all releases are up there, there sure is a pretty good selection. Looks like the only way artists will make a living (if they do at all) is by constant touring - sort of the Milk Carton Kids model - give your stuff away for free to drum up interest in the gigs.

Like Ivan, I tend to bookmark youtube stuff (or add to my favorites), and then play back online - usually for stuff that I'm learning and want a "play-along-backing-track" for. Otherwise I must be one of the few who still buys those round plastic things (CD's not vinyl that is!). Whether that will last if I can just look up a few tacks on 'tube and listen to them there remains to be seem... biggest issue may be that folks will no longer find new stuff - or be forced to listen to new stuff by their radio station until they like it - rather folks will just stick with what they know. So that's the end of the slow burner then

Looks like the end for those classic albums that tooks years to produce too...

And finally... I though I would post Gillian Welch's "Everything Is Free" here as an ironic comment.... but that appears to be one that the 'tube haven't gotten their hands on yet... a double irony?

[almeriastrings]

The implications of this are far-reaching, and none of it good for artists or studio operators. Google are intent on 'monetizing' their service - but artists, who are the creative souls who make what people what to watch/listen to are right at the very bottom of any 'monetizing' and will be lucky to pick up more than peanuts. It was bad with CD's, worse with downloads, almost laughable with normal streaming, and this is even worse. Much worse. If there is no money in making CD's, and your stuff is all out there for 'free', then this will also impact producers, studios (because artists and small labels will not spend on recording when they have no chance of ever getting it back) and everyone else in the chain - negatively. I am sure Google/Apple/Amazon etc, will somehow manage to make it work for them, though.... they always do.

This is the link to the new Youtube 'Music Key' service.

It has always been tough to make a living in music, I think it has just got very much harder still.

[Ivan Kelsall]

The term 'Public Domain' needs some clarification :- From Wikipedia - "Works in the public domain are those whose intellectual property rights have expired,[1] have been forfeited,[2] or are inapplicable/". I wouldn't have thought that the music produced by any living artiste who's work is freely available for downloading from any 'streaming' site, would be in the 'Public Domain' as outlined above. If that is so,then anybody who does download the music is in breach of the laws as they stand. I'm pretty sure that as the music is there on YouTube & easy to download,anybody seeing that, in the case of 'The Steeldrivers', that Rounder Records themselves had placed the entire CD on there,would think that it's a freebie to download. I know that it's often said that ''ignorance of the law is no defence'',but many folk are truly ignorant of copyright laws,& those folk are not being helped,in fact they're being lead down a dangerous path,with regards to breaking the law over downloading what seems to be 'free' music.
Personally,i think that any music uploaded onto YouTube should have a warning attached to it stating exactly whether the music
is free to download without fear of possible prosecution or not, & the same should apply to other sites such as Vimeo etc. Such 'download' sites shouldn't make the assumption that all folk are aware of copyright law & should spell it out in unambiguous terms - ''This music is free to download'' - ''This music is covered by copyright law & is not free to download'' . It couldn't be any more simple (IMHO).
OK - Having said all that,let's look at an on-line movie website that i use - ''Putlocker'' . On that site i can view 'streaming' movies,& i indeed do. Not only that,but i'm given the direct option of actually 'downloading' those movies,some of which are still being shown in cinemas all over the world. If that doesn't seem to be direct permission to download i don't know what is,& there's no disclaimer re.copyright etc. on there either. Dangerous territory if the copyright owners decided to take up arms against these sites & the folk who do download movies,
Ivan

[almeriastrings]

The copyright owners have - directly or indirectly through music licensing agencies - licensed and authorized the use of the music via streaming. Downloading or saving the files on your device, however, is different. This is not permitted (though many do it, regardless). From the user terms and conditions:



"You agree not to access Content for any reason other than your personal, non-commercial use solely as intended through and permitted by the normal functionality of the Service, and solely for Streaming. "Streaming" means a contemporaneous digital transmission of the material by YouTube via the Internet to a user operated Internet enabled device in such a manner that the data is intended for real-time viewing and not intended to be downloaded (either permanently or temporarily), copied, stored, or redistributed by the user.