YouTube Plans to Block Content From Artists Who Don’t Pay
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- June 19, 2014
By James DeRuvo (doddleNEWS)
One of the great things about YouTube is that it can turn just about anyone into a star. Whether you make videos that go viral, or want to showcase your music in video form, or if you just want to post cat videos, YouTube has been the one place where people can go to to post and to watch entertainment 2 minutes at a time. And some artists can make a pretty good living at it. And that’s translated to over $5 Billion in Revenues annually. But apparently, that isn’t enough for Google, as they are making plans to block any music artist who doesn’t have a paid subscription to their new paid music service. Is this the beginning of pay-or-play aimed square at the little guy?
“Our goal is to continue making YouTube an amazing music experience, both as a global platform for fans and artists to connect, and as a revenue source for the music industry. We're adding subscription-based features for music on YouTube with this in mind to bring our music partners new revenue streams in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars YouTube already generates for them each year. We are excited that hundreds of major and independent labels are already partnering with us.” – YouTube spokesman to The Verge
The reason for the deal stems from the fact that in trying to get their music service off the ground, YouTube has signed deals with many of the major labels to showcase their videos. And in an effort to make the service profitable quickly, it’s leveraging their independent artists and forcing them to pay for the streaming service or be blocked from all YouTube services. They claim it’s in an effort to “to ensure that all content on the platform is governed by its new contractual terms.”
The thing is, if YouTube has a pay music service, it will in essence be competing with itself as many artists have their music videos via VEVO and YouTube with ad-supported revenue. Psy, for instance, just passed 2 billion views with last year’s crazy hit “Gangham Style,” and if he doesn’t sign up to be on the service, YouTubee will block all his videos from both free and paid services and strip Psy of some serious ad revenue. Then there’s Jason Darulo, Adele, and thousands of others who post their music videos in order to get the most exposure in front of over 1 Billion YouTube subscribers every month (and to make a few bucks off Google AdSense). But they want people to believe that they are trying to bring them “new revenue streams.” Yeah, uh huh.
But what worries me is that this could be an opening salvo against all content Creators. And it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that the streaming service has bitten the hand that feeds it. It’s constantly tweaking the site and creators have been frustrated with inaccurate page views and subscriptions which directly impact their ad share revenue, and have reworked the videos to watch feature causing many popular channels to fall off the radar. What’s to stop YouTube from telling Jenna Marbles, Ray William Johnson, Smosh, PewDiePie, or Freddie Wong they have to pay to play? And if the most popular YouTubers are shaken down for tribute, what’s to stop YouTube from preventing the littler guys from having to pony up as well?
So at the end of the day I have to wonder ... is the gravy train over at YouTube? And if so, you can bet that both Vimeo and Amazon will certainly welcome Creators with open arms. Well, Vimeo, at least. Amazon has their own bully issues.
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