YouTube reveals that it paid over $1 billion worth of ad revenue to the music industry in 2016

[midian182]

The music industry has spent years complaining about YouTube, but artists and record companies have been especially critical of the video streaming site throughout 2016, claiming it doesn’t pay them a fair amount for the use of their music. Now, YouTube has responded by saying it handed the music business over $1 billion in the last 12 months.

YouTube’s chief business officer, Robert Kyncl, revealed the figure in a blog post yesterday. He wrote that the $1 billion came from advertising alone, “demonstrating that multiple experiences and models are succeeding alongside each other,” a reference to services that license music directly, such as Spotify and Apple Music.

Back in June, Nine Inch Nails frontman and chief creative officer at Apple music, Trent Reznor, said YouTube is built on the back of stolen content. The remarks were partly because of YouTube's attempts to rework copyright legislation to grant the service safe harbor status for content uploaded without the copyright holder’s permission.

Just one week after Reznor’s comments, music labels and artists such as Taylor Swift, U2, and Paul McCartney sent an open letter to congress calling for a reform of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).

The music industry's main objection to ad-supported sites such as YouTube is that while the money it receives from them has been increasing, it hasn’t matched the rate that viewer numbers are growing.

In a Medium post from March, RIAA boss Cary Sherman talked about “the alarming disparity between the growth in the number of ad-supported streams compared to the growth in revenues generated from those streams.” He added that this “value grab” allowed YouTube to pay far less for songs compared to services such as Spotify, which paid out $1.8 billion in 2015.

YouTube argues that the site is a fundamentally different type of service than the likes of Spotify. It also notes that its ContentID system allows rights owners to make money from videos that use their material.

“In the future, the music business has an opportunity to look a lot like television, where subscriptions and advertising contribute roughly equal amounts of revenue, bolstered by digital and physical sales,” wrote Kyncl.

Image credit: Tinseltown / Shutterstock

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https://www.techspot.com/news/67315-youtube-reveals-paid-over-1-billion-worth-ad.html

 

[Bigtruckseries]

No one is buying CDs and albums anymore. They are stealing their music.

Youtube is one of the few sites that allows people to watch music for free, but uses ad-revenue to pay the difference.

"$1 Billion" is nothing. They are losing out on a large percentage of the potential earnings and the artists themselves are seeing not even a worthwhile fraction of that.

As a Youtubber, I see a little over $2000 every month. My question is, how much am I "not" seeing which I could have been seeing?

 

[Uncle Al]

Actually, the numbers show that the majority of people are buying their music in various formats; even the old pressed records are making a strong comeback because of the high quality of the one's that have been remastered and re-pressed. There are also a lot of artists that have set up their own sites for distribution as well ...

 

[wiyosaya]

YouTub could have said that they had paid them $1 Quadrillion dollars and it would still not be enough for the industry.

I can understand why artists under contract to the big media machine complain since those artists see very little of the revenue that the artist generates for the machine. Perhaps if the big media machines were not so top heavy and they paid their artists more, then the artists would be more satisfied. Oh wait, I forgot that some of them need expensive jewerly, expensive cars, 15 gold plated iPhones for each of their cats, dogs, and parakeets, private airplanes, and golden toilets - not to mention someone to wipe their rears for them.

Personally, I'm not buying anything these days unless I have heard it, and one of those places where I can hear things is on YouTub. I will then take my purchase elsewhere such as bandcamp or the artist's web site where the artist actually gets a large portion of my hard-earned dollars.

Lastly, there was a study done several years ago by the BBC that said that people who pirate music are more likely to then buy that music and such pirates even buy more music in general than people who don't pirate music. If there is an artist producing music that no one is buying, then perhaps that artist should find another career instead of bitching that pirates are robbing them blind.

Things might be vastly different if artists found a way to permanently divorce themselves from the big machine.

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

Without a point of reference it's impossible to know if $1 billion is fair or reasonable. The artists are saying that they are getting far less per hit on youtube than they are getting per hit on Spotify etc.

Considering this number of $1 billion came from YouTube's chief business officer, my guess is that he's being vague on purpose in the hopes that the public will hear the amount '$1 BILLION Dollars!' and automatically think the artists are being greedy.

 

[mcborge]

No one is buying CDs and albums anymore. They are stealing their music.

Youtube is one of the few sites that allows people to watch music for free, but uses ad-revenue to pay the difference.

"$1 Billion" is nothing. They are losing out on a large percentage of the potential earnings and the artists themselves are seeing not even a worthwhile fraction of that.

As a Youtubber, I see a little over $2000 every month. My question is, how much am I "not" seeing which I could have been seeing?

I still buy cd's and in the uk at least, vinyl is enjoying a bit of a renaissance as uncle AI mentioned... not all music lovers are thieves you know... You can't go around accusing everyone just because you feel you deserve more money.

 

[Footlong]

Without a point of reference it's impossible to know if $1 billion is fair or reasonable. The artists are saying that they are getting far less per hit on youtube than they are getting per hit on Spotify etc.

Considering this number of $1 billion came from YouTube's chief business officer, my guess is that he's being vague on purpose in the hopes that the public will hear the amount '$1 BILLION Dollars!' and automatically think the artists are being greedy.

But youtube is free. They help to educate and spread the word of their work while paying them some. Back in the day those artists would have to pay famous DJ to have their solo some premium spot on the radio. To me, at least they should thank Youtube for spreading their work.

 

[Johnnyblaze1957]

Oh these poor poor diddums making not enough money to buy there next 100 million dollar mansion and always crying poor. Try seeing how music people gave to their fans in the 70s and 80s by not asking for such exorbitant prices that we see today just to go to a concert. Then they go from the stage today oh yes I love you all while you are paying for it. Get real sick and tired of all the whinging of how poor they are next thing they will want me a cut of the revenue made from all music players.

 

[Makson]

Oh these poor poor diddums making not enough money to buy there next 100 million dollar mansion and always crying poor. Try seeing how music people gave to their fans in the 70s and 80s by not asking for such exorbitant prices that we see today just to go to a concert. Then they go from the stage today oh yes I love you all while you are paying for it. Get real sick and tired of all the whinging of how poor they are next thing they will want me a cut of the revenue made from all music players.

I agree 100% .... music is entertaining, sure but it's not a life-saver as is food....farmers can't just grow and sell one crop, sit on their backsides and reap mega-dollars for it.
Add more people like police, firemen, paramedics, nurses etc; they can't sit back and reap megadollars either, so what great benefit to mankind are musicians, life would go on without them so a nominal payment is what they should get......not as they pretend, superiority above those who 'make the world go round'.
The same goes for pro sports people, actors and actresses.........all paid obnoxious amounts of money for short-periods of effort, unlike working class people who plod along, 5,6,7 days a week for an average pay over 50 or so years.

 

[Cycloid Torus]

Has anyone ever looked at how the RIAA and other organizations actually work? Could YouTube figure out how to pay artists more directly? Could a co-operative do it better?