Most people have extremely weird ideas of what’s considered piracy and what isn’t. Downloading a video game rom is piracy, but if you pay money to some Chinese retailer for an SD card containing the roms, that’s somehow not piracy. Exploiting the free trial on a streaming site by using prepaid visa cards is somehow not piracy either. Torrenting an album is piracy, but listening to a bootleg on YouTube isn’t.
YouTube noticed this at some point and is now happy to let everyone know how much pirated music is available on their site. One of their main points for shilling YouTube premium is how their music catalogue is way better than Spotify. Of course the piracy site has more. That’s always how it works. Spotify actually has to license the music on their platform and is subject to copyright law. They can’t just get the Neil Young discography from soulseek one day and wait until his estate notices, facing no repercussions whatsoever aside from agreeing to a takedown request. Imagine if Pirate Bay or Napster were considered completely above-board businesses just because they took down torrents if explicitly requested by the copyright holders.
Not that I’m complaining especially when a lot of the music on youtube isn’t publicly accessible anywhere else. It’s just been extremely strange to see this go from an “open secret” to something they’re shouting from the rooftops and face no repercussions for. In the future I want everything to be like that and I’d rather keep youtube how it is than see them get the punishment that by all rights they should be getting. It’s just so strange that this is the position things have ended up in.
Note: The following text is intentional abuse of the tagginator bot. Fuck you.
When you upload a song, you indicate whether it has copyright and who owns it, Then, whenever its played they pay the copyright owner based on an audience size basis, similar to Spotify.
If you don’t, the copyright owner informs Google, and they close that link.
Even if you have music playing in the background of an instructional video, the copyright holders will go after you.
No. YouTube’s “official” music uploads (these that are a square with a blurred background behind the square) are acquired by paying DistroKid or record labels. Unofficial uploaders usually aren’t monetized, either bc they didn’t enable it、are niche、or got ContentID’d by YouTube. Those few that are monetized(e.g. Si𝚕vaGunner and Gi𝚕vaSunner (i.e. not Si𝙸vaGunner or Gi𝙸vaSunner)) usually get DMCA’d eventually.
I can tell you that there are more than a handful songs on there preformed live by my band and then someone uploaded it who was there and we are not getting paid anything. I will not go after them obviously because I don’t have the time nor money to do so.
Yeah it’s kind of the entire point I was making. If I could only listen to the music on YouTube that’s been properly licensed and identified, then I wouldn’t use YouTube for music. In that situation it would just be another Spotify.
Here’s an example of something that’s absolutely not supposed to be on youtube, which the IP owner goes to great lengths to enforce. But people keep reuploading every time it’s taken down. It’s literally a bootleg.
The rest is the “safe harbor” provision of the DMCA. Effectively, sites aren’t liable for user generated content if they respond to official DMCA takedown requests in a timely manner. YouTube also goes beyond that to directly work with copyright holders to preemptively remove infringing content with content ID, which scans everything for violations, and their own tools to report infringement. They don’t need to do that for the DMCA protection, but it’s probably cheaper at their obscenely large scale.
What with all the stories about the companies taking pretty hefty cuts for things, I’m gonna bet that the “supposedly” is doing some heavy lifting there, heh.
Historically, even the “lottery winning” successful artists got such bad deals. The Beatles (famously, I thought, but I’m having trouble finding a source today…) received one penny for every dollar earned, but a fraction of that penny was held back for marketing, and another, and another…
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I was under the assumption that Youtube had to pay artists for their music being on there? Is that not what is happening?
And if not, how has Youtube not been cease and desisted/sued into absolute oblivion?
Because YouTube is owned by a trillion dollar conglomerate.
No, it’s because they are a trillion dollar conglomerate that PAYS.
YouTube pays the uploader, who double promises that they totally have the the right to the song.
When you upload a song, you indicate whether it has copyright and who owns it, Then, whenever its played they pay the copyright owner based on an audience size basis, similar to Spotify.
If you don’t, the copyright owner informs Google, and they close that link.
Even if you have music playing in the background of an instructional video, the copyright holders will go after you.
Until it gets copyright claimed then it goes to some Indian company who triple promises they have complete custody of all Ozzy Osbourne IP.
No. YouTube’s “official” music uploads (these that are a square with a blurred background behind the square) are acquired by paying DistroKid or record labels. Unofficial uploaders usually aren’t monetized, either bc they didn’t enable it、are niche、or got ContentID’d by YouTube. Those few that are monetized(e.g. Si𝚕vaGunner and Gi𝚕vaSunner (i.e. not Si𝙸vaGunner or Gi𝙸vaSunner)) usually get DMCA’d eventually.
I can tell you that there are more than a handful songs on there preformed live by my band and then someone uploaded it who was there and we are not getting paid anything. I will not go after them obviously because I don’t have the time nor money to do so.
Live music isn’t what I’m referring to though, it’s the ripped and uploaded albums
Big labels have a direct line to YouTube via ContentID. Indie artists have to do it the hard way.
So does that mean albums ripped and uploaded to Youtube do result in royalties being paid to the artists?
What about in the case where there are no ads?
Isn’t that one of the points that OP is making?
Yeah it’s kind of the entire point I was making. If I could only listen to the music on YouTube that’s been properly licensed and identified, then I wouldn’t use YouTube for music. In that situation it would just be another Spotify.
Here’s an example of something that’s absolutely not supposed to be on youtube, which the IP owner goes to great lengths to enforce. But people keep reuploading every time it’s taken down. It’s literally a bootleg.
https://youtu.be/xtukRSw6k1w?si=IpVSw7ErcaGSc32_
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/xtukRSw6k1w?si=IpVSw7ErcaGSc32
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
They have to pay for anything official.
The rest is the “safe harbor” provision of the DMCA. Effectively, sites aren’t liable for user generated content if they respond to official DMCA takedown requests in a timely manner. YouTube also goes beyond that to directly work with copyright holders to preemptively remove infringing content with content ID, which scans everything for violations, and their own tools to report infringement. They don’t need to do that for the DMCA protection, but it’s probably cheaper at their obscenely large scale.
As the founder of the Pirate Bay said , Google is considered good guys because they are business guys.
See my comment. TL;DR yes they pay DistroKid or the labels.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/19/16796058/youtube-universal-music-group-sony-agreement-royalties
They pay rights holders, who supposedly pay artists.
What with all the stories about the companies taking pretty hefty cuts for things, I’m gonna bet that the “supposedly” is doing some heavy lifting there, heh.
Safe bet.
Historically, even the “lottery winning” successful artists got such bad deals. The Beatles (famously, I thought, but I’m having trouble finding a source today…) received one penny for every dollar earned, but a fraction of that penny was held back for marketing, and another, and another…