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04 September
PRS for Music and YouTube Sign New Licensing Deal
Is Anybody Paying For Music?
by
SoftwareGuru
You don't have to be a
Sibelius student software fan to appreciate the complicated
relationship between music and how it is currently distributed
in any digital format.
Once upon a time it was said that "home taping is killing
the music industry". It wasn't but the modern day
equivalent of
torrents and file sharing is said to be doing the same job.
Before we discuss the PRS / YouTube situation, let's take a
minute to look at YouTube's owners Google.
Their business model has always been about indexing other
people's content, thereby avoiding the need to pay for it. When
online newspapers complain, Google argues that the newspapers can delist
themselves from indexing.
Critics of other software monopolies would do well at this point to take a
reality check because the most anti-competitive behaviour in the
world right now is allegedly coming from Google.
They remind me of a rock band who used to be the cool
underground group that people loved but have now crossed over
into daytime radio territory and have become entangled with
corporate shenanigans.
Even Amazon has joined forces with Yahoo! and Microsoft
to stop Google becoming the sole online library for digital
books.
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Digital Music Royalties
Google/YouTube's war with the PRS came as a surprise to many.
It's hard enough to teach people about the value of intellectual
property and the concept that musicians should be paid for their
work while one of the world's biggest companies refuses to pay
the going rate for music video streams.
Knowing the music industry was already in a much
weakened position, the hard ball tactics from YouTube appear to
be cynical in the extreme.
The message today from PRS to its members is as follows:
"PRS for Music and YouTube have announced a new licensing
agreement that covers music contained in videos streamed via the
online video platform.
As a result, premium music videos will be reinstated to YouTube
in the United Kingdom.
The deal will be backdated to January 2009, when YouTube’s
previous licence expired.
As a result of the agreement the songwriters, composers and
music publisher members that PRS for Music represents will be
rewarded when their music is used."
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Moving The Goalposts?
The
Digital Britain Report is now in danger of
being severely undermined following Lord Mandelson's plans to
cut off the broadband connections of internet users who
illegally download music.
In the Republic of Ireland, national telecom provider Eircom has
already agreed to block access to torrent sites such as The
Pirate Bay where illegal downloading is possible.
Does the British public trust its politicians to make the right
choices when it comes to digital policy?
The battle between YouTube and PRS is just one example of the
growing pains of the digital era. The outcome will be decided
for us if people are not vocal about what they want.
According to The Guardian, a coalition of bodies
representing a range of stars including Sir Paul McCartney, Sir
Elton John and Damon Albarn attacks the proposals as expensive,
illogical and "extraordinarily negative".
This type of legal action against file sharers has
completely failed in over 30,000 lawsuits in America so it's
unlikely to be any more successful in the U.K.
Evidently, there remains a huge amount of work to be done to
help people
understand the impact of filesharing.
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Posted by
admin
at
17:17
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