Excellent discussion! In response to the video that I used 10 seconds of a Randy Rhoads solo from a live fan video of an Ozzy song. He was soloing so there was nothing recognizable from the song Mr Crowley. It’s simply that I said Ozzy Osbourne that they blocked the video. It would be one thing if it was demonetized which I have no problem with. But the video was 25 minutes long and had 50 other guitar players in it. I wasn’t making any money on the video because it had already been claimed my 3-4 other artists. The only thing that happened was that Ozzy Osbourne’s name and RR got cut out of the video. That doesn’t actually benefit anyone. By Ozzy blocking people who even mention his name he creates a situation where he eventually gets written out of history. Which may not be such a bad thing (minus Black Sabbath:) Blocking or video takedowns is a completely different thing from demonetization.
Rick - I commented on exactly this point on one of the guitar teaching channels here. I'm 50 so these old classics are stuff I know, but for a lot of young people, Ozzy, Megadeth, and other bands from my youth are only kept alive by these teachers using a Marty Friedman (etc) lick as a teaching example. They do not seem to recognize that people find out New Old Music in this way and it benefits those selling the music. As unpleasant as Napster (et. al) may have been, there were songs people sent to me "illegally" that led me to buy CDs, so Napster served as a marketing mechanism. It may not have been enough to offset the losses by all of the illegal trading, but it's possible that nothing would have - times changed. I am hoping that the copyright madness will lead to more teachers instructing people to create original material, rather than play covers and open up a renaissance in music...the world certainly needs it, and let the Music Titans die off.
Thanks Rick. I think the most sinister thing that is emerging is non-electic entities controlling and defining what is fair use, whats is educational content, what is hate speech, what does and doesn't constitute news. As Rick brilliantly called out, you can fall victim to people in the music business gaming this binary and arbitrary definition of ownership. What worries me is these ruling entities (Twitter, Google, TH-cam) have already been proven to have a very defined left leaning, and whilst I stand here as a liberal, I feel that the left tempers the right and vice versa, without a balance you enter into tyranny. We in the west are not aware that we're living much of our life in adherence to totalitarians. Until we see a massive part of our lives and our world as part played out in the dimension of cyberspace then we will not recognise that those who rule it, and they do rule it, the internet is not free, it is controlled by VERY few of the most successful capitalists of all time. These are our masters, and because they make us believe we are getting stuff for free, we put up with it. But I buy into this also, reason I don't put my videos on my own site but on TH-cam is because (as Rick kindly pointed out to me) if you get it right you can get Google with all its might, to find us customers. This conversation is absolutely fascinating and I look forward to seeing the direction the internet takes in the future.
i remember the time people use to ask the name of a song on videos until all the copyright fiasco started , i mean it only gave them publicity and bring traffic , money , seems like a lost of business to me but i must be dumb, the big guys must know what they are doing surely.
th-cam.com/video/L9Fodd6-YCE/w-d-xo.html here is one example i know it sucks lol but its of one of multiple copyright strikes from my old beats of mine that i give out for free on my channel yet they didn't change anything and made money with it tried maybe lol they suck..., one of my other free beats was also selling on itunes for 0.99 cents from artist Micklaay , i emailed the publisher to removed the selling yet i was told to contact the artist when its me lol i tried contacting the artist never got back to me .....but some low life scums decided they could live with the fact of saying they made something they never did.... i was never credited (all i would of liked) or made any money and whats sad is i found out about all of these by receiving take down copyright strikes on my own content but that never happened, i was just amazed to find out that way lol anyway for me music is not about making money of course if it comes sure but i mean its all about sharing what you made and see reactions or joy or DAMN this shit fire! Its all about life!! When i create i don't have money in mind but this is where people like Chris comes in and probably hates people who think like me lol hehe =) i love debates.
Can we give Dru a medal? Can we make him PM? Absolute hero and can't agree with him more. Level headed, clear, fair, progressive, informed. I'm doing a Hunger Games salute. ✌️
I don't know him but I guess he could accept the medal but refure the PM appointment.... especially during this Brexit days... years actually LOL ;) And I'm not even in the UK ;) Great food for thought.
Gosh, you are such an a$$-ki$$er Mr. Ball in the chin =) What a desperate attempt of getting noticed by going on every other successful channel and being a brown nose.
I will never say this enough times but I honestly think that if someone is making money, using my music, I am 100% right if I ask a percentage of it. Let's say a music channel. Okay, I'm receiving exposure when they upload my music. But think about the origins. That channel wouldn't even exist without my music or music in general. I, and my music, would still exist without the channel. This is enough, for me, to say I deserve something if they use my music.
So you’re OK with unlicensed use as long as 1) it’s not commercial and 2) they’re not monetizing it? What if you sell that music on Audiojungle for $10 a use & they got it from a torrent or Russian Download site so you didn’t get your cut of the $10? I’m not sure where one would draw the line, y’know? If they like it enough to use it and they can just google your name to ask you permission, shouldn’t they? Even for their kitten video?
Im actually agreeing with your original post but noting that it’s not possible for you to even find out if your music was used in that video to be able to tell the uploader to take it down or credit you, unless you have Content ID or AdRev or a detection service like that. 99% of composers don’t have that/don’t participate in it. Which is why the permission piece is so important: if you own the music then you should have a say in whether or not it gets used in a video - long before it gets used & you somehow find out about it and are in the position of having to ask for credit or having to take it down - and thats assuming that you can even find contact info for the uploader to be able To ask for that credit.
Christian, I know these videos are primarily aimed at composers (which I'm not, just a music hobbyist), but I can't tell you how many times your observations in many videos have resonated with me through extrapolation to my own field of interest. In this case, it was Drew's observation: "If the money dries up in one area, that's it, and I think you just have to accept that that's true for all businesses" - incredibly simple, and obvious really when said aloud, but I can't tell you how much this applies to me right now, and when you applied this to Paul and his experience in advertising, the light bulb was lit for me, and was really helpful to hear. Thanks Christian and thanks Drew.
Christian, thank you for making these thought provoking and educational videos. I really look forward to every video you post but I realized I’ve never said anything, so thank you!
Just look at what has happened in the photography industry. The “people will always want quality” argument (25:22) went out the window years ago. Royalty-free garbage music is here to stay and there are too many people willing to generate it. You can’t crush creativity but you can water it down so much that it has no value any more.....
The market adjust itself, and Royalty Free music is getting better with epidemic sound for example, but it is true that it is an acquired taste & gives an unwanted uniformity/color to a lot of content on TH-cam.
A great chat... Thank you Dru and Christian. I appreciate the idea of a database registry, but we aren't there with the technology just yet. I use a well known music tracking website and it rarely picks up works that I get royalties for... Let's hope tech can help us in the future.
Again, another fantastic video. The intellectual quality of your content is supurb and dare I say it, far beyond what's being delivered else where (I know we're all different and there is goodness to be found in all, but still!!) Resonantes massively with me about how we need to value the music we create. It's a tough subject, I'm aware that content providers such as Spotify don't appear to pay a good percentage to a lot of artists. I'm concerned with how we improve this, especially in the vain of working with companies and new technologies as opposed to against them. In the case of some distribution, such as Spotify, surely they need to work with us more? How do we align with them further, beyond allowing them use of our music ? To help increase percentages?
Really excellent and pertinent discussion, thanks to you both. I learned a few things that I arguably should have known by now after 40 years in the music business. I suppose part of not knowing was the completely different structures that were around in the 80s, another part being that I was happy to be an "artist" and "writer" and no-one (except for my Mum, bless her) encouraged me to think of myself as needing to educate myself as I went along into all the business aspects. As a writer, especially now during this pandemic, royalty income has never been more important, so will be watching with interest how those negotiations progress.
Great discussion. The argument about performance and mechanicals is more complex than covered from around 26:58 - in the US, AM/FM radio stations pay performance royalties to songwriters, but not to the recording artists. But for streaming, Spotify pays around 10% of its revenue to songwriters (split between mechanical and performance royalties) and about 60% to the artists (performers). But you also need to take into account, that when the artist is signed to a major label, the record label is going to take most of that 60%.
Insanely valuable conversation. The amount of work it can take to truly write music and then be told my song is worth $1 is a bit depressing to me. Artists in my opinion shouldn’t be constantly in the struggle.
Gravitate towards quality: THAT is where folks like Rick B come in with educational content: What IS quality? This vid is of a kind; What is quality when it comes to the monetization of content for creators? Royalties or you're on your own? Beato is, quite clearly, adding enormous value to creators, past present and future, through broad based music education (never mind how much is over my head, he's a great communicator!) while making a buck for himself through building audience. This is a fantastic discussion and has enormous implications for creators. The best part is you Brits are arguing for ROYAL-ties while the Yank is arguing more for the rugged individualist model! Better yet, Dru is then arguing for personal responsibility, creators more owning the issue, a unified system of registry to clarify the thing, better work with providers and Rick is rather identifying them as the invaders who would quarter their troops in our own homes without consent! To arms! To arms! The lawyers are coming! The lawyers are coming!!! 1 if by MP3, 2 if by WAV??? THANK YOU all for this information!!!
The 'exposure' argument has been used since the beginning of time as an argument for getting work for free. I always used to ask people who liked to fly that kite whether they used the same argument with the telephone company or their landlord. Anyway - the answer is clear and undoubtedly technological - meta-tagging on a massive scale for all creative products, not just music. Support the licensing organisations and help them achieve some serious political clout. Going forward this is going to become one of the most important areas of the 'virtual economy' if we don't want to hand complete control of the future over to a handful of mega-corporations.
In a sphere of pure reciprocity, where wisdom and knowledge is valued as the highest, it all ends when someone says "this is mine". What is yours? Who paid for your education, who have inspired you, who provided the means for you.. Really, it is yours?
I love Dru’s information in this video. Fantastic perspective & such great clarity. Christian, your PewDePie example at 12:39 - I still have a problem with your idea of a composer being OK with an unlicensed use of their underscore music in the hopes that 1) one of the top 1% of TH-camrs will be the one to steal it and use it and 2) that the person stealing it will actually credit it (they won’t, because then their unlicensed use would be revealed by a simple YT search of your name) 3) the exposure value would be greater than the monetary value. That’s a bit like making a lotto scratch card your business plan. But did you know that there’s already a built-in way for this type of thing to happen at TH-cam, for your music to turn up in anyone’s videos without them fearing claims or strikes? TH-cam has a pre-approved music database that anyone can contribute to: you submit your music to it, you agree to set all detections to “Monetize” and TH-camrs can use that music in any type of video they want in exchange for you taking a piece of the monetization. If this is your angle, this is a much better and more sustainable business plan than just hoping that TH-cam’s 1-percenters will somehow accidentally stumble across your music and then take the risk of putting it into their videos. If this is something that people are interested in, and if they agree with your premise, then they can take their entire music catalog and contribute it to TH-cam’s free music database and it will definitely get used. Of course, you have to be OK with it being used commercially without master and sync fees, but for some folks the monetization and exposure seem to be the goal, not a license fee. Knowing that this is the case, and that you like the idea of the exposure, would you take all of the music you own (you have to own pub & masters outright, no film scores/works for hire) and put it into the free music database, and forego any sync and master license fees, in exchange for a roll of the dice on monetization and exposure? This could actually be a great ongoing experiment to track over time for your viewers. Give it a think. Likewise, you could always email these TH-camrs and offer them your entire catalog of music for free, in exchange for a credit in the info field of their video. In short, I think it's a good thing that TH-camrs are afraid of music claims: it means that they won't use unlicensed music. It means that they'll find one of the hundreds of music library sites out there that will issue them a license for web streaming use for $.99 or $9.99 and some composer will make a couple bucks on that, and they won't get a copyright strike. Win-win, isn't it? I think if you opened up the world of Content ID/AdRev to every composer watching this video and let them peek into how many unlicensed uses of their music are actually on TH-cam, without their knowledge, there would be a turning of the tides - it’s an unknown quantity to 99.9% of composers right now. If you’ve ever had music available on iTunes, Soundcloud, or through a music library, then your music IS out there in commercial videos without your permission and someone is making money on that. I’m not anyone famous or important and I thought I might find 10 or 20 uses of my music in videos - I’m at 110,000 unlicensed uses right now. 110,000. Say that number out loud: one hundred and ten thousand. (For more details see my longwinded comments on your Rick Beato video!). And these aren’t just silly kitten videos: they’re major corporations, car companies, two of the largest companies **in the world**, the bottled water on your desk, the food makers on your pantry shelves, the political ads for candidates that you despise, the luxury hotels around the world that you only wish you could afford, the tourism commercials running on cable TV, the TV series around the world that underscored shows with your music, then released them on DVD and on-demand services all without ever having licensed it - if I told you the names of these companies you’d be floored. This is happening to every composer out there, and they just don’t realize it yet. About Rick Beato’s fair use issue, I get it - but there already *is* a remedy to that: if someone makes a music claim or even a copyright strike (takedown) on a legitimate fair use, he can dispute the claim or do a counter-notification against the claimant, and one of the options in the drop-down menu is the fair use exemption for analysis, criticism, etc. And those types of uses **are** legitimate fair uses. That remedy is so built-in to the TH-cam ecosystem that it’s an already-available option, pre-worded and with room for comments, in the drop-down menu for exactly that type of circumstance. I think you should also mention in your videos, though, that Fair Use (in the way it’s talked about in TH-cam-land) is something specific to the US and its copyright law: fair use in the UK is different, and actually doesn’t even exist as a concept in many many other countries. (Same with Dru's use of mechanicals: it's different in the US than the UK) I totally see how you’re on the fence because you’re now a TH-cam creator in addition to being a composer. But the exposure argument falls flat for me because I’ve seen it in action and it fails: it’s not actually a thing. Similarly, I could say that people pirating your Spitfire libraries is great exposure for Spitfire because they’ll say how good they are, which is great publicity for you, and people listening to their music will contact them to say “how did you make that sound so good?” And those people will then buy your products. I don't think that argument would fly at Spitfire HQ! Thanks for bringing Dru’s biz perspective into this convo: it was excellent perspective. Kerryx
I love(d) your in-depth and knowledgable take on this conversion, Kerry. But maaaaan... 110,000 illegal uses and counting? I find it equally impressive that you had the technical expertise and perseverance to actually start TRACKING all these illegal uses of your music and IMHO it clearly underlines your very accurate and spot on point and argument as to why "exposure" is a euphemism for basically saying "C'mon, man, someone ELSE MIGHT actually pay for it".... No, that's not going to happen, not in this way; so I concur with you on that point. Notice, how the neoliberalists never tire saying there was no free lunch, but creatives are supposed to buy the land, grow the crops, prepare the meal and then give it away for FREE in using that analogy? This is what I've seen happening ever since digital distribution of music - or other - content started gaining momentum on the web. It became one giant "treat yourselves to another serving, it's all free today and tomorrow" scenario. NOT! (or shouldn't....)
Fantastic and informative video. Dru always seems level headed and sensible in these matters. So glad he’s there representing us all at PRS. The value of music issue is key. Actually the value of art is key here. I’ve seen devaluation in many art forms. Many artist friends have been asked to give up their works for exposure so it’s not just us music creators. A business model based on exposure alone, I believe simply will not work. As Dru mentioned it’s quite simple, fair recompense for the use of our work. Dru for PM!
Dan Watts I agree. I suspect the concept of “I want my internet content for free” and “I want composers to be paid for that free internet content” will become an oxymoron. It kind of reminds me of the environment “I want to ride this big fuck off family tank around to go and get coffee” and “I wish the government did something about global warming”. Once our behaviours are set there’s very little the administrators can do. That’s why I equate it to the mp3. The music industry at stage one failed to embrace the potential of the platform.
I recall there was a sample library that explicitly stated you could not use the library to create music, only private/mock ups were allowed (stated on their Eula)
A great Interview. Surely the constantly improving algorithm and teams of people working for music publishers manually claiming content, will lead to composers being fairly compensated as we move forward. The question is how will music educators and musicians move forward when the music industry continues to claim copyright on music by long dead composers? This only benefits accountants and lawyers and is detrimental to our culture and the development of music.
Excellent discussion. Very happy that articulate people such as Dru are representing our interests. Glad that this caused a rethink of your Pewdipie comment. My take on it was where the cut off point was when allowing free use - a million subscribers? 500,000? - and how that translated to allowing terrestrial broadcasters the same latitude. Exposure on the BBC v Channel 5 for example. And is there a difference between the platforms? Thanks as always for exploring this and other subjects on your channel.
I am currently working on an educational program for the analysis of pop-music. It is an app for mobile phones that allows music students to split a song into parts, label them and work out the instrumentation/harmonic progressions. Those analyses can then be compared by the teacher. It should help to make the lessons more individual and allow for different performance requirements. Right now I am relying on TH-cam as the platform that is used to stream the music. I am unsure about the future of the project, now that more and more "free to stream" music is taken down. As a creator, I normally support the idea of being credited and paid in the form of royalties. I just don't see a working system for educational use right now, with the loss of free music streaming platforms like TH-cam.
21:48 That's some black magic right there: Pressing an invisible button to alter the sound. Really enlightening discussion. I wish that would have been the level of discussion when Article 13 was still up for debate. I love that so many young people got involved in the debate about a piece of legislature, but unfortunately this debate (as so often) was dominated by some very shrill and irreconcilable opinions that made a real earnest discussion very difficult.
@Sample Grit The bill went through multiple votes in the European Parliament, and also the Council and also the Commission (trilogue), it went through the Committee of Legal Affairs and again a final vote in the parliament. The whole process took forever and most everybody involved was an elected official. All the while there were public discussions, petitions and even protests in the street. Like the result or not, this has nothing to do with a dictatorship.
Great interview. I think if the artist has a huge following and brings a lot of value, then if he gets a bigger share then fair enough. If you are writing songs for smaller artists then maybe it should be more equal. They would have to setup different thresholds.
Sounds like Drew and PRS are on the right track, we have to do our best to keep some value in music without crippling other creatives; particularly the smaller and non profit TH-camrs.
Dru nailed it ... he offered a considered perspective that relates to all musicians across the spectrum and he's absolutely right to reject the "but it's free exposure to a million listeners" point because exposure is always just another way of devaluing music. If a visual content provider can get your music for free, why should he expect to pay for the next mucician's work ... so it doesn't just devalue you, it devalues us all and with the pittances spat out by the big streaming players we're already devalued enough.
I think the thing about copyright strikes is that Rick can’t even funnel the revenue to Ozzy, but is shut down completely. So I agree that part of the revenue should go to the artist, but the problem is the copyright owners are not allowing the creator to use it at all! Great video Christian and Dru!
SpaceInShadow true. There are a lot of issues w YT and their demonetization practices, but as an artist I wholeheartedly agree that we should get royalties if someone uses our music in one of there videos. But to ask the creator to remove the song entirely, especially for educational purposes is absurd.
SpaceInShadow what’s even worse is there are humans working for minimum wage deciding on what to demonetize. I watched a video on this where someone researched the company that was demonetizing. I’d feel better if it was just AI, then some dude willy nilly trying to make his strike quota for the month
Metadata tagging ISRC codes into the tracks is surely the best way to secure payment of royalties for PPL and PRS to chase regardless of the platform. How those royalties are split with each platform is another issue to sort out. I wonder if the music has ISRC codes imbedded, surely it is possible to chase for payments.
Fantastic - clear, balanced, informed, and open. Thank you for having this conversation and opening up the dialogue. A couple of thoughts, one about royalties and the other about how I think AI will eventually write "better" music than us, but why human composers will still be around and flourishing. Royalties are not only of the musical domain - they apply across many industries, and I don't think it's something we're moving away from entirely. It's simply a way of participating in the value that something you created has brought into the world. Yes, there are many problems with the current system and it sometimes is unfair, skewed, punishes people and can in some cases even cause problems for creators. But I truly believe the idea of royalties is not flawed in principle - the systems we currently employ to try and deal with an enormous amount of data and stakeholders is, however. Ultimately, all creators are asking for is fairness. We want our stuff to be enjoyed, incorporated, "exploited" (ugh, that term), and shared. With current and evolving technologies, it should absolutely be possible to track and remunerate based on a scaled system of percentages (depending on use etc). Educators like Beato can apply for exemption based on fair use. I have a feeling that in the near future, AI will be employed so effectively (see the current ability for AI to create new works in the styles of legacy artists that can fool art historians) that it will be able to parse enormous amounts of data and tell the difference between fair use and not, and deal with any number of other complexities in publishing. Then, you can employ automated systems that say "you make some, they make some" That way, we could get rid of copyright strikes altogether and simply say "go for it" in terms of use, and the only thing we'd be watching for is some neo-nazi group using our music to promote their agenda. You don't even think about it anymore - like robo-investing: Robo-publishing. Make your music, put it out, if it spreads and is used, you benefit. Or, you could opt out - tell the system "I just want my stuff used and spread, no exchange of money". Your choice. Regarding AI, Christian, you frequently use the idea of "poor quality" in reference to works created by AI. This is tricky, because of course quality is subjective. You listen to the (human made) music your kids enjoy and say it's poor, but our parents likely said the same of the music we enjoyed in our day (and so on going back generations). Perhaps the quality of AI music is truly passing at present, but with machine learning (which remember, is exponential: it teaches itself to get better, and that better version creates a better version etc) it will soon be impossible to tell the difference, I really believe AI will create works that we will call "great art". Why I think there will still be a need for humans to create and consume human art, is not because of quality, but because it's HUMAN. Even thought McDonald's is so proliferated, there is still a great demand for small batch, organic, hand crafted, passion-infused, interesting, flawed, and deeply human food (whether that be haute cuisine or home cooked). We tell each other stories because that is one of the most fundamental aspects of being human, and that will likely never change. We may enjoy some AI generated stories, but we will always look to another human for the story of their experience - because THAT is the one thing an AI can truly never do. #CertifiedHumanMade
When it comes to educational-use-in-a-lecture-hall argument... At least in the US, most colleges pay the blanket agreement to PROs which covers all the performances on campuses, recital halls, lecture halls, or otherwise. You do need to turnover proof of the performance to your PRO (a concert program, but a syllabus probably flies), but the colleges are paying. As far as high schools and grade schools, I doubt they do the same, but I don't know.
I'm wondering if the solution to the Royalty thing is for musicians and music creators to be educated to the fact that giving away their work only serves to reduce the amount of money made available to the entire music creation community.... in other words, it cheapens EVERYONE's value. What we're seeing in my opinion is the effects of supply and demand working against the music community. We have too many people who create music who are willing to give it away. So the people who consume/license music see this as an opportunity to save money. Those licensors (naturally) will gravitate to the cheaper option since they're trying to make a profit. But if the community wakes up and realizes that giving away their work hurts not only themselves, but the rest of the community, eventually, the purchasers of music will (once again) start paying for music. Until then, we will continue to head down the inevitable path to music being completely worthless and totally free. Which in the long run will only bring the quality of music down because the people who dedicate their lives to creating music will be forced to spend less time making it. And the only ones left making it will be those who create music in their spare time - resulting in only musical weekend warriors who (naturally) have less knowledge/experience in making it.
1.1 billion views of my music composed for a well known kids tv series on a managed TH-cam channel...it’s wall to wall music and apparently I am entitled to nothing. Because it is managed. 🤷♂️. Yet on tv it does very well...I don’t get why TH-cam is not treated the same as tv. You have talked about my case...but I’m still grumpy and still banging on about it. 😅💀😒
Here's an idea, TH-cam or Facebook,ect could calculate the useage of a particular piece of music and pay a certain percentage to the artist after revenue from advertising and before they pay the TH-cam high volume watched channels.
So many of the things in this video resonate, and transfer into other creative industries. With one swing of the hammer Apple managed to kill off Flash, which in turn flooded the frontend web arena with Actionscript developers who retooled into making JavaScript frameworks, which in turn made it harder for those of us who were trying to do things 'properly' to get by. And 20k views in one year on such an informative and well produced video is a cruel mistress. On the plus side, TH-cam did its job - I'm a hobbyist strongly eyeing up Spitfire products.
It seems like what we are missing is a simple way to request and grant permission, or pre-grant permission, set a usage price as an artist. You could even have, as an example, something built into Final Cut/Premiere, add a song file to a project, it analyses it (or grabs meta data on the file) checks against a database to find out if you need permission to use it, and if you do have a little button to request permission right in the software, a key or something could be written to your video file that TH-cam could check against that database, check your permission status for all tracks on the video. Or an app or whatever, search for a song, request permission to use it. You could pay a little fee at that point, micropayments are easy now. Technology like blockchain could really facilitate all this too, in terms of tracking usage, payment, right etc etc etc. These are probably all wrong or flawed, but seems like there are loads of solutions to this.
If music is used or playing a well known track/piece is shown on an intsrument, the original artist should get a royalty, or get paid, just as when using samples in a hip hop song. Where things get OTT is when a payment to the artist simply for referencing their name, is called for. A possible way round is to play your own example, then reference the track, so the two can't be mixed up. Ideally.
I feel like I'm in a similar conundrum to Christian's PewDiePie example: What if your music has millions of plays on music aggregation YT channels? I'm torn between accepting happily the exposure and bleed over to revenue sources that comes with that, and the feeling like I should really get a cut of the monetization of the video. It's a really difficult issue currently. Maybe a royalty share of ad revenue, as Dru mentions, really is the solution? I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on this.
As a composer, I have joined PRS and the cheques are trickling in, but should I also join PPLUK? TBH, I'm not sure of the difference. Also, should I be getting royalties if my music is used in an advert that air on radio and TV?
Fair use? How can you have thousands or millions of people watching you brand yourself, sell ad space, promote commercial products, promote your e book, ask for taxable donations and etc using other people’s works and dare call yourself JUST an educator. There are songs that have had millions of dollars poured into them so that people will pay attention at the mere mention. Stealing that attention by using that material for your money making purposes is stealing. Royalties will be back and stronger than ever soon. Good interview!
Part of this discussion reminds me of the old MTV question, which was were music videos to be seen as content for MTV (that they should pay for), or free promotion for the artists ? Also it's questionable if/why/how a platform like YT should be the one to burden the challenge of figuring out if content (that YT didn't load up) is violating copyright or not. It's not only questionable from a technical or causal point of view, but also from a legal standpoint as they're now supposed to take over a role that used to be in the domain of legal courts. In addition, YT's own content ID system is already being abused now, for instance by beatmakers that content ID samples from a sample pack that is not even theirs, and either make YT take down videos of others that use the same sample or even worse, blackmail the channel for money, threatening them have their videos taken down. When it comes to news articles, part of the idiotic expectations of authors and publishers (at least here in Germany) is to charge Google for the snippets of news (or other publications) in the search results. Instead of treating the snippets as free advertising from Google, they think they should be paid for it. This kind of 80s/90s thinking doesn't suffice nowadays anymore. Not saying i have the solutions ready, but the collecting societies point of view is a bit outdated.
I personally believe that if we don't accept all of the different formats (youtube etc.) being sources of revenue then we'll be shooting ourselves in the foot; however, with how low the royalty payouts are for dedicated streaming services (apple music, spotify etc.) that is also hurting the whole industry and affecting how we earn a living. I know this doesn't apply to anyone that doesn't have their music on those services but say the soundtrack album for a film is on a streaming service then it's another source of royalties for the composer (incredibly low but something).
Are those phase issues at 22:00? Please excuse me if its something going awry on my end. Brilliant video, really eye opening. Dru is uniquely qualified to mediate between both sides, and I greatly appreciate it.
He forgot to edit out the room mic when changing to the lav mic and there's a difference in time in the sync. It isn't phasing, more of a delay. But no it wasn't on your end.
@@ElmoSyr Thanks for confirming I'm not going mad. I just heard a split between two sources not being exactly connected, so assumed it was phase going. I didnt pay enough mind to hear a switch in mic sources.
I don't know how I feel about it. While I think of many music education channels, Adam Neely's and Rick Beato's are examples I think make sense at the moment, using these songs as a teaching tool, while also advocating us to go listen to the songs in their entirety because they're usually only going over short snippets and sections, I don't think it's really a big deal. What is a big deal though, is getting demonetized for playing a section of track... might as well play the whole damn thing then? I don't know. Now I'm just ranting. Sorry.
I think it is fair the person who wrote the music gets a percentage - but the current demonetization/blocking is really bad. Most of the time, if a youtube video highlights your music, it does give you publicity, and helps cement your name in the history books - so they also deserve to make some money for that. It shouldn't be all or nothing.
These are times when we are coming up against the ethical, moral, and practical limits of capitalism. The concept of royalties has abrogated centuries of common law regarding commerce. For example, when did the phrase "by opening this package, you hereby agree to..." which is a contract that you enter without signing, become legally enforceable? When did we get to vote to change the law on that? So for royalties, the best example is the old cassette recorder/radio, where one could record from the radio, for the price of the cassette. Were we, back in the aforementioned days of the "boom box", "pirating" music off the radio? Then someone had the idea that there should be a tax on cassettes, and later, CDs to cover any royalties due, which is ridiculous because, 1. Not all cassettes were used to record only music, some recorded non-music materials, such as lectures, etc., and some were used to record ones own music. 2. To date, no one knows what percentage of the tax was actually applied to paying royalties. 3. Artists who register their music with a publishing house are required to pay royalties even when performing their own music, from which admin fee is deducted, then the remainder is paid back to the artist, which is a grift, plain and simple. So we have a choice, we accept the current state of the intellectual property concept, which is structured so that everyone gets money except the artist/creator, who are paid fractions of a cent for their work, while middlemen and other entities enjoy an exponentially larger percent of the income. If we do accept it, then we can't complain about "copyright strikes", because we make money from using other peoples work, even if only a part of it. Or we copyright our own music directly (I register mine with the US library of Congress), promote, market, and sell directly to the consumer, which is something that, in the US, Black creators were forced to do until recently, as we were generally excluded from the mainstream market. I also found that, as some of my works were heavily "pirated" in China and Asia, I used that to my advantage, securing sponsorship for tours in those countries was made much easier precisely because so many people knew of my work. Now that Covid-19 is about to permanently change the way we gather to perform and enjoy live music, perhaps we should introduce new laws to force more equitable payments for recorded works, stiffer penalties for businesses who use content without permission, and reserved spaces for public access on the broadcast and digital streaming media for artists and creators to market their own work.
Royalties should exist for all types of mediums. Especially online platforms as these are consumed most of all these days. Not just TV and Film and Games. Royalties are royalties no matter what the medium is. Credit and Exposure can't pay for food and accommodaiton.
For sure I think TH-cam has been a godsend for us all as far as having a legal means for user to post copywritten material largely without moderation. That was just a first step, going from zero money to a small amount. He says just getting everything into a database.. We have seen some examples recently drawing parallels from the movie industry where those representing the artists have been able to push back and negotiate improved royalty percentages. But there is different models like netflix which just buy out rights which I think is fine too, nothing wrong with earning a fair wage IMO.
But I don't think TH-cam's advertising model has been particularly profitable for them and many other big tech names have retreated from projects that aimed to make various media profitable ventures. I wouldn't be surprised to see more big labels try and funnel their 'investments' (ie music) via blocking into the more profitable platforms. On the other hand, I think they also know that huge play counts also are a powerful new, free marketing tool which seems poorly utilized. Christian has a great attitude whereas he is not expecting to make money directly from his videos and instead I think just enjoys getting his voice out there and heard, and that indirectly helps his 'serious' music career.
On the point of AI music, maybe a decent analog is the club DJ. You could essentially put a CD on in Amnesia, Ibiza, and save paying the DJ 25k for their set. But it just hasn't happened because people value the human element when it comes to music. I guess within that example there is a brand element - people pay a lot to see a particular DJ - so I think building a strong brand as a creator is critical for not being replaced by AI one day. Thanks for yet another thought provoking video, Christian.
@@reverendoz I didn't see more than a clip of that, but it seemed abysmal... almost as though the promoters were taking the piss out of the audience. I'd like to think no reputable club would stoop that low.
Farzam Salami I’m using them without any problems and used them fine in the cylinders have you reached out to customer service who can help you. We have tens of thousands of customers using these quite happily.
Great episode Christian , and the mention of JBP just made my day I love to listen to him talk every morning on my commute to my studio, wonderfully inspirational and mentally challenging enough to spark the grey matter for a day writing music 😀😀
Christian, first of all great video and discussion but your point of Pewdiepie using your music for exposure being enough is extremely naive,and like Dru says, it eventually just drives the value of music down. I’ve tested this theory many years ago when a couple of TH-cam creators with well over 5million subscribers each asked to use my music for exposure. It basically resulted in about 250 extra subs and a couple of thousand extra plays on the tracks they used. It is a complete fallacy that exposure rather than buying a license works. Don’t get sucked into trying to grow your channel in the short term over the long term loss of composers being paid what they deserve for their music. (Sorry I wrote this before I got to the end) :)
NETFLIX pays PRO royalties!! I should know, I make them. Never sign a Netflix buyout deal with no royalties. All you have to do is negotiate and they WILL give it to you! Also don't fall for the argument that "no one else makes it so why should we?" Your music can exist outside of a movie or tv show on it's own merits. CEO's are already getting nervous that the word is out and are already backtracking so KEEP IT UP! Keep and fight for what is rightfully yours! In 5 or 10 years you will thank yourself when that ASCAP or BMI check comes in and saves your ass when your short on a bill :)
I'm quite shocked at Christians take on the You Tube royalties. What if I said to him, I won't pay for Spitfire software, I'll put my stuff on TH-cam, but don't worry "I'll credit Spitfire".
Excellent discussion! In response to the video that I used 10 seconds of a Randy Rhoads solo from a live fan video of an Ozzy song. He was soloing so there was nothing recognizable from the song Mr Crowley. It’s simply that I said Ozzy Osbourne that they blocked the video. It would be one thing if it was demonetized which I have no problem with. But the video was 25 minutes long and had 50 other guitar players in it. I wasn’t making any money on the video because it had already been claimed my 3-4 other artists. The only thing that happened was that Ozzy Osbourne’s name and RR got cut out of the video. That doesn’t actually benefit anyone. By Ozzy blocking people who even mention his name he creates a situation where he eventually gets written out of history. Which may not be such a bad thing (minus Black Sabbath:) Blocking or video takedowns is a completely different thing from demonetization.
Rick - I commented on exactly this point on one of the guitar teaching channels here. I'm 50 so these old classics are stuff I know, but for a lot of young people, Ozzy, Megadeth, and other bands from my youth are only kept alive by these teachers using a Marty Friedman (etc) lick as a teaching example. They do not seem to recognize that people find out New Old Music in this way and it benefits those selling the music. As unpleasant as Napster (et. al) may have been, there were songs people sent to me "illegally" that led me to buy CDs, so Napster served as a marketing mechanism. It may not have been enough to offset the losses by all of the illegal trading, but it's possible that nothing would have - times changed. I am hoping that the copyright madness will lead to more teachers instructing people to create original material, rather than play covers and open up a renaissance in music...the world certainly needs it, and let the Music Titans die off.
Thanks Rick. I think the most sinister thing that is emerging is non-electic entities controlling and defining what is fair use, whats is educational content, what is hate speech, what does and doesn't constitute news. As Rick brilliantly called out, you can fall victim to people in the music business gaming this binary and arbitrary definition of ownership. What worries me is these ruling entities (Twitter, Google, TH-cam) have already been proven to have a very defined left leaning, and whilst I stand here as a liberal, I feel that the left tempers the right and vice versa, without a balance you enter into tyranny. We in the west are not aware that we're living much of our life in adherence to totalitarians. Until we see a massive part of our lives and our world as part played out in the dimension of cyberspace then we will not recognise that those who rule it, and they do rule it, the internet is not free, it is controlled by VERY few of the most successful capitalists of all time. These are our masters, and because they make us believe we are getting stuff for free, we put up with it. But I buy into this also, reason I don't put my videos on my own site but on TH-cam is because (as Rick kindly pointed out to me) if you get it right you can get Google with all its might, to find us customers. This conversation is absolutely fascinating and I look forward to seeing the direction the internet takes in the future.
i remember the time people use to ask the name of a song on videos until all the copyright fiasco started , i mean it only gave them publicity and bring traffic , money , seems like a lost of business to me but i must be dumb, the big guys must know what they are doing surely.
th-cam.com/video/L9Fodd6-YCE/w-d-xo.html here is one example i know it sucks lol but its of one of multiple copyright strikes from my old beats of mine that i give out for free on my channel yet they didn't change anything and made money with it tried maybe lol they suck..., one of my other free beats was also selling on itunes for 0.99 cents from artist Micklaay , i emailed the publisher to removed the selling yet i was told to contact the artist when its me lol i tried contacting the artist never got back to me .....but some low life scums decided they could live with the fact of saying they made something they never did.... i was never credited (all i would of liked) or made any money and whats sad is i found out about all of these by receiving take down copyright strikes on my own content but that never happened, i was just amazed to find out that way lol anyway for me music is not about making money of course if it comes sure but i mean its all about sharing what you made and see reactions or joy or DAMN this shit fire! Its all about life!! When i create i don't have money in mind but this is where people like Chris comes in and probably hates people who think like me lol hehe =) i love debates.
Can we give Dru a medal? Can we make him PM?
Absolute hero and can't agree with him more. Level headed, clear, fair, progressive, informed.
I'm doing a Hunger Games salute. ✌️
I don't know him but I guess he could accept the medal but refure the PM appointment.... especially during this Brexit days... years actually LOL ;) And I'm not even in the UK ;) Great food for thought.
@@DarkSideofSynth Dru did a job for me last year but the dreaded temp love won out.
Very pleasant and talented guy. Glad he's on board at PRS.
@@AlexBallMusic I am glad I have found out about another great artist. THIS is good exposure ;)
Gosh, you are such an a$$-ki$$er Mr. Ball in the chin =) What a desperate attempt of getting noticed by going on every other successful channel and being a brown nose.
@@Eally1979 Just giving credit where credit is due. Better than trying to get attention through juvenile insults. 👍
Man... Dru Masters ALWAYS makes me feel better about being on this planet. Well done, lads. Thanks for your shared exploration on this subject.
I will never say this enough times but I honestly think that if someone is making money, using my music, I am 100% right if I ask a percentage of it.
Let's say a music channel. Okay, I'm receiving exposure when they upload my music. But think about the origins. That channel wouldn't even exist without my music or music in general.
I, and my music, would still exist without the channel.
This is enough, for me, to say I deserve something if they use my music.
100% agree.
Let’s take that one step further though: they should ask you before actually using it. No?
So you’re OK with unlicensed use as long as 1) it’s not commercial and 2) they’re not monetizing it? What if you sell that music on Audiojungle for $10 a use & they got it from a torrent or Russian Download site so you didn’t get your cut of the $10? I’m not sure where one would draw the line, y’know? If they like it enough to use it and they can just google your name to ask you permission, shouldn’t they? Even for their kitten video?
Im actually agreeing with your original post but noting that it’s not possible for you to even find out if your music was used in that video to be able to tell the uploader to take it down or credit you, unless you have Content ID or AdRev or a detection service like that. 99% of composers don’t have that/don’t participate in it. Which is why the permission piece is so important: if you own the music then you should have a say in whether or not it gets used in a video - long before it gets used & you somehow find out about it and are in the position of having to ask for credit or having to take it down - and thats assuming that you can even find contact info for the uploader to be able To ask for that credit.
So ask Spotify?? To pay you or anyone who can make the claim ....such fairness versus massive exploitation. We know who wins
Christian, I know these videos are primarily aimed at composers (which I'm not, just a music hobbyist), but I can't tell you how many times your observations in many videos have resonated with me through extrapolation to my own field of interest. In this case, it was Drew's observation: "If the money dries up in one area, that's it, and I think you just have to accept that that's true for all businesses" - incredibly simple, and obvious really when said aloud, but I can't tell you how much this applies to me right now, and when you applied this to Paul and his experience in advertising, the light bulb was lit for me, and was really helpful to hear. Thanks Christian and thanks Drew.
Brilliant! Probably the most important conversation about music right now, thankyou!
Christian, thank you for making these thought provoking and educational videos. I really look forward to every video you post but I realized I’ve never said anything, so thank you!
Just look at what has happened in the photography industry. The “people will always want quality” argument (25:22) went out the window years ago. Royalty-free garbage music is here to stay and there are too many people willing to generate it. You can’t crush creativity but you can water it down so much that it has no value any more.....
The market adjust itself, and Royalty Free music is getting better with epidemic sound for example, but it is true that it is an acquired taste & gives an unwanted uniformity/color to a lot of content on TH-cam.
An awful lot of interesting ideas thrown up by this conversation.
Thank you for arranging it.
Incredibly insightful thank you for this video
Really interesting conversation! Thank you for uploading such content, I think that people need to hear and see the business side of things as well.
A great chat... Thank you Dru and Christian. I appreciate the idea of a database registry, but we aren't there with the technology just yet. I use a well known music tracking website and it rarely picks up works that I get royalties for... Let's hope tech can help us in the future.
Brilliant discussion. Thank you Dru and Christian!
absolute utter gold dust. very informative and helpful at this stage of my career. thank you to you both.
Again, another fantastic video. The intellectual quality of your content is supurb and dare I say it, far beyond what's being delivered else where (I know we're all different and there is goodness to be found in all, but still!!)
Resonantes massively with me about how we need to value the music we create.
It's a tough subject, I'm aware that content providers such as Spotify don't appear to pay a good percentage to a lot of artists. I'm concerned with how we improve this, especially in the vain of working with companies and new technologies as opposed to against them.
In the case of some distribution, such as Spotify, surely they need to work with us more? How do we align with them further, beyond allowing them use of our music ? To help increase percentages?
That was excellent. Thanks Christian and Dru
Excellent video Christian, great discussion, very informative. Thank you.
Fascinating video guys, thanks!
Thanks Dru-food for thought indeed!
Great video! Thanks for the info and insight
Really excellent and pertinent discussion, thanks to you both. I learned a few things that I arguably should have known by now after 40 years in the music business. I suppose part of not knowing was the completely different structures that were around in the 80s, another part being that I was happy to be an "artist" and "writer" and no-one (except for my Mum, bless her) encouraged me to think of myself as needing to educate myself as I went along into all the business aspects. As a writer, especially now during this pandemic, royalty income has never been more important, so will be watching with interest how those negotiations progress.
This is a fantastic video with great views and Logic!! Thank you
Wow such fantastic information. Thank you Chris!
Amazing. More conversations like this!
what a great conversation, we need more of this!
this was so good. Thanks to you guys!
Very informative...and the editing of the cits was great too
Great subject to cover.
Great discussion. The argument about performance and mechanicals is more complex than covered from around 26:58 - in the US, AM/FM radio stations pay performance royalties to songwriters, but not to the recording artists. But for streaming, Spotify pays around 10% of its revenue to songwriters (split between mechanical and performance royalties) and about 60% to the artists (performers). But you also need to take into account, that when the artist is signed to a major label, the record label is going to take most of that 60%.
Insanely valuable conversation. The amount of work it can take to truly write music and then be told my song is worth $1 is a bit depressing to me. Artists in my opinion shouldn’t be constantly in the struggle.
Excellent video, thanks.
Gravitate towards quality: THAT is where folks like Rick B come in with educational content: What IS quality? This vid is of a kind; What is quality when it comes to the monetization of content for creators? Royalties or you're on your own? Beato is, quite clearly, adding enormous value to creators, past present and future, through broad based music education (never mind how much is over my head, he's a great communicator!) while making a buck for himself through building audience. This is a fantastic discussion and has enormous implications for creators. The best part is you Brits are arguing for ROYAL-ties while the Yank is arguing more for the rugged individualist model! Better yet, Dru is then arguing for personal responsibility, creators more owning the issue, a unified system of registry to clarify the thing, better work with providers and Rick is rather identifying them as the invaders who would quarter their troops in our own homes without consent! To arms! To arms! The lawyers are coming! The lawyers are coming!!! 1 if by MP3, 2 if by WAV??? THANK YOU all for this information!!!
LOL, Larry, but good point(s) as well. Clap, clap.
Great video and super informative! Thanks!
excellent video/discussion
The 'exposure' argument has been used since the beginning of time as an argument for getting work for free. I always used to ask people who liked to fly that kite whether they used the same argument with the telephone company or their landlord. Anyway - the answer is clear and undoubtedly technological - meta-tagging on a massive scale for all creative products, not just music. Support the licensing organisations and help them achieve some serious political clout. Going forward this is going to become one of the most important areas of the 'virtual economy' if we don't want to hand complete control of the future over to a handful of mega-corporations.
Oh F.F.S I understand the concept... its just not what happens in real life.
I must watch this with great interest when I return home!
In a sphere of pure reciprocity, where wisdom and knowledge is valued as the highest, it all ends when someone says "this is mine". What is yours? Who paid for your education, who have inspired you, who provided the means for you.. Really, it is yours?
I love Dru’s information in this video. Fantastic perspective & such great clarity.
Christian, your PewDePie example at 12:39 - I still have a problem with your idea of a composer being OK with an unlicensed use of their underscore music in the hopes that 1) one of the top 1% of TH-camrs will be the one to steal it and use it and 2) that the person stealing it will actually credit it (they won’t, because then their unlicensed use would be revealed by a simple YT search of your name) 3) the exposure value would be greater than the monetary value. That’s a bit like making a lotto scratch card your business plan. But did you know that there’s already a built-in way for this type of thing to happen at TH-cam, for your music to turn up in anyone’s videos without them fearing claims or strikes? TH-cam has a pre-approved music database that anyone can contribute to: you submit your music to it, you agree to set all detections to “Monetize” and TH-camrs can use that music in any type of video they want in exchange for you taking a piece of the monetization. If this is your angle, this is a much better and more sustainable business plan than just hoping that TH-cam’s 1-percenters will somehow accidentally stumble across your music and then take the risk of putting it into their videos. If this is something that people are interested in, and if they agree with your premise, then they can take their entire music catalog and contribute it to TH-cam’s free music database and it will definitely get used. Of course, you have to be OK with it being used commercially without master and sync fees, but for some folks the monetization and exposure seem to be the goal, not a license fee. Knowing that this is the case, and that you like the idea of the exposure, would you take all of the music you own (you have to own pub & masters outright, no film scores/works for hire) and put it into the free music database, and forego any sync and master license fees, in exchange for a roll of the dice on monetization and exposure? This could actually be a great ongoing experiment to track over time for your viewers. Give it a think. Likewise, you could always email these TH-camrs and offer them your entire catalog of music for free, in exchange for a credit in the info field of their video. In short, I think it's a good thing that TH-camrs are afraid of music claims: it means that they won't use unlicensed music. It means that they'll find one of the hundreds of music library sites out there that will issue them a license for web streaming use for $.99 or $9.99 and some composer will make a couple bucks on that, and they won't get a copyright strike. Win-win, isn't it?
I think if you opened up the world of Content ID/AdRev to every composer watching this video and let them peek into how many unlicensed uses of their music are actually on TH-cam, without their knowledge, there would be a turning of the tides - it’s an unknown quantity to 99.9% of composers right now. If you’ve ever had music available on iTunes, Soundcloud, or through a music library, then your music IS out there in commercial videos without your permission and someone is making money on that. I’m not anyone famous or important and I thought I might find 10 or 20 uses of my music in videos - I’m at 110,000 unlicensed uses right now. 110,000. Say that number out loud: one hundred and ten thousand. (For more details see my longwinded comments on your Rick Beato video!). And these aren’t just silly kitten videos: they’re major corporations, car companies, two of the largest companies **in the world**, the bottled water on your desk, the food makers on your pantry shelves, the political ads for candidates that you despise, the luxury hotels around the world that you only wish you could afford, the tourism commercials running on cable TV, the TV series around the world that underscored shows with your music, then released them on DVD and on-demand services all without ever having licensed it - if I told you the names of these companies you’d be floored. This is happening to every composer out there, and they just don’t realize it yet.
About Rick Beato’s fair use issue, I get it - but there already *is* a remedy to that: if someone makes a music claim or even a copyright strike (takedown) on a legitimate fair use, he can dispute the claim or do a counter-notification against the claimant, and one of the options in the drop-down menu is the fair use exemption for analysis, criticism, etc. And those types of uses **are** legitimate fair uses. That remedy is so built-in to the TH-cam ecosystem that it’s an already-available option, pre-worded and with room for comments, in the drop-down menu for exactly that type of circumstance. I think you should also mention in your videos, though, that Fair Use (in the way it’s talked about in TH-cam-land) is something specific to the US and its copyright law: fair use in the UK is different, and actually doesn’t even exist as a concept in many many other countries. (Same with Dru's use of mechanicals: it's different in the US than the UK)
I totally see how you’re on the fence because you’re now a TH-cam creator in addition to being a composer. But the exposure argument falls flat for me because I’ve seen it in action and it fails: it’s not actually a thing. Similarly, I could say that people pirating your Spitfire libraries is great exposure for Spitfire because they’ll say how good they are, which is great publicity for you, and people listening to their music will contact them to say “how did you make that sound so good?” And those people will then buy your products. I don't think that argument would fly at Spitfire HQ!
Thanks for bringing Dru’s biz perspective into this convo: it was excellent perspective. Kerryx
I love(d) your in-depth and knowledgable take on this conversion, Kerry. But maaaaan... 110,000 illegal uses and counting? I find it equally impressive that you had the technical expertise and perseverance to actually start TRACKING all these illegal uses of your music and IMHO it clearly underlines your very accurate and spot on point and argument as to why "exposure" is a euphemism for basically saying "C'mon, man, someone ELSE MIGHT actually pay for it".... No, that's not going to happen, not in this way; so I concur with you on that point.
Notice, how the neoliberalists never tire saying there was no free lunch, but creatives are supposed to buy the land, grow the crops, prepare the meal and then give it away for FREE in using that analogy? This is what I've seen happening ever since digital distribution of music - or other - content started gaining momentum on the web. It became one giant "treat yourselves to another serving, it's all free today and tomorrow" scenario. NOT! (or shouldn't....)
Enlightening and hopeful !
Another great video Christian. Cheers
Congrats on breaking 30k subs Christian!
Fantastic and informative video. Dru always seems level headed and sensible in these matters. So glad he’s there representing us all at PRS.
The value of music issue is key. Actually the value of art is key here. I’ve seen devaluation in many art forms. Many artist friends have been asked to give up their works for exposure so it’s not just us music creators. A business model based on exposure alone, I believe simply will not work. As Dru mentioned it’s quite simple, fair recompense for the use of our work.
Dru for PM!
Dan Watts I agree. I suspect the concept of “I want my internet content for free” and “I want composers to be paid for that free internet content” will become an oxymoron. It kind of reminds me of the environment “I want to ride this big fuck off family tank around to go and get coffee” and “I wish the government did something about global warming”. Once our behaviours are set there’s very little the administrators can do. That’s why I equate it to the mp3. The music industry at stage one failed to embrace the potential of the platform.
Legends, both. Very helpful.
Eye opening. Thanks
Really good discussion guys!
I recall there was a sample library that explicitly stated you could not use the library to create music, only private/mock ups were allowed (stated on their Eula)
A great Interview. Surely the constantly improving algorithm and teams of people working for music publishers manually claiming content, will lead to composers being fairly compensated as we move forward. The question is how will music educators and musicians move forward when the music industry continues to claim copyright on music by long dead composers? This only benefits accountants and lawyers and is detrimental to our culture and the development of music.
Excellent discussion. Very happy that articulate people such as Dru are representing our interests. Glad that this caused a rethink of your Pewdipie comment. My take on it was where the cut off point was when allowing free use - a million subscribers? 500,000? - and how that translated to allowing terrestrial broadcasters the same latitude. Exposure on the BBC v Channel 5 for example. And is there a difference between the platforms? Thanks as always for exploring this and other subjects on your channel.
I am currently working on an educational program for the analysis of pop-music. It is an app for mobile phones that allows music students to split a song into parts, label them and work out the instrumentation/harmonic progressions. Those analyses can then be compared by the teacher. It should help to make the lessons more individual and allow for different performance requirements.
Right now I am relying on TH-cam as the platform that is used to stream the music.
I am unsure about the future of the project, now that more and more "free to stream" music is taken down.
As a creator, I normally support the idea of being credited and paid in the form of royalties. I just don't see a working system for educational use right now, with the loss of free music streaming platforms like TH-cam.
Thanks Christian!!!
Great video Christian!
21:48 That's some black magic right there: Pressing an invisible button to alter the sound.
Really enlightening discussion. I wish that would have been the level of discussion when Article 13 was still up for debate. I love that so many young people got involved in the debate about a piece of legislature, but unfortunately this debate (as so often) was dominated by some very shrill and irreconcilable opinions that made a real earnest discussion very difficult.
@Sample Grit The bill went through multiple votes in the European Parliament, and also the Council and also the Commission (trilogue), it went through the Committee of Legal Affairs and again a final vote in the parliament. The whole process took forever and most everybody involved was an elected official. All the while there were public discussions, petitions and even protests in the street. Like the result or not, this has nothing to do with a dictatorship.
Interesting chat, thanks for uploading! Also, is that desk a custom build? I need something basically identical to that..
some great points
Great interview. I think if the artist has a huge following and brings a lot of value, then if he gets a bigger share then fair enough. If you are writing songs for smaller artists then maybe it should be more equal. They would have to setup different thresholds.
Great Video and discussion, Although im late to the party!
Good ol' Dru... he's such a great guy and works hard for all composers.
I totally agree
Sounds like Drew and PRS are on the right track, we have to do our best to keep some value in music without crippling other creatives; particularly the smaller and non profit TH-camrs.
Dru nailed it ... he offered a considered perspective that relates to all musicians across the spectrum and he's absolutely right to reject the "but it's free exposure to a million listeners" point because exposure is always just another way of devaluing music. If a visual content provider can get your music for free, why should he expect to pay for the next mucician's work ... so it doesn't just devalue you, it devalues us all and with the pittances spat out by the big streaming players we're already devalued enough.
I think the thing about copyright strikes is that Rick can’t even funnel the revenue to Ozzy, but is shut down completely. So I agree that part of the revenue should go to the artist, but the problem is the copyright owners are not allowing the creator to use it at all! Great video Christian and Dru!
SpaceInShadow that’s what I meant, I edited my comment. Thanks for pointing that out.
SpaceInShadow but the demonetize thing is all YT. I know because I also have a music channel.
SpaceInShadow true. There are a lot of issues w YT and their demonetization practices, but as an artist I wholeheartedly agree that we should get royalties if someone uses our music in one of there videos. But to ask the creator to remove the song entirely, especially for educational purposes is absurd.
SpaceInShadow what’s even worse is there are humans working for minimum wage deciding on what to demonetize. I watched a video on this where someone researched the company that was demonetizing. I’d feel better if it was just AI, then some dude willy nilly trying to make his strike quota for the month
Metadata tagging ISRC codes into the tracks is surely the best way to secure payment of royalties for PPL and PRS to chase regardless of the platform. How those royalties are split with each platform is another issue to sort out. I wonder if the music has ISRC codes imbedded, surely it is possible to chase for payments.
The proposed .bc music format could also help.
th-cam.com/video/PRASUr1fns0/w-d-xo.html
Fantastic - clear, balanced, informed, and open. Thank you for having this conversation and opening up the dialogue.
A couple of thoughts, one about royalties and the other about how I think AI will eventually write "better" music than us, but why human composers will still be around and flourishing.
Royalties are not only of the musical domain - they apply across many industries, and I don't think it's something we're moving away from entirely. It's simply a way of participating in the value that something you created has brought into the world. Yes, there are many problems with the current system and it sometimes is unfair, skewed, punishes people and can in some cases even cause problems for creators. But I truly believe the idea of royalties is not flawed in principle - the systems we currently employ to try and deal with an enormous amount of data and stakeholders is, however.
Ultimately, all creators are asking for is fairness. We want our stuff to be enjoyed, incorporated, "exploited" (ugh, that term), and shared. With current and evolving technologies, it should absolutely be possible to track and remunerate based on a scaled system of percentages (depending on use etc). Educators like Beato can apply for exemption based on fair use. I have a feeling that in the near future, AI will be employed so effectively (see the current ability for AI to create new works in the styles of legacy artists that can fool art historians) that it will be able to parse enormous amounts of data and tell the difference between fair use and not, and deal with any number of other complexities in publishing. Then, you can employ automated systems that say "you make some, they make some" That way, we could get rid of copyright strikes altogether and simply say "go for it" in terms of use, and the only thing we'd be watching for is some neo-nazi group using our music to promote their agenda. You don't even think about it anymore - like robo-investing: Robo-publishing. Make your music, put it out, if it spreads and is used, you benefit. Or, you could opt out - tell the system "I just want my stuff used and spread, no exchange of money". Your choice.
Regarding AI, Christian, you frequently use the idea of "poor quality" in reference to works created by AI. This is tricky, because of course quality is subjective. You listen to the (human made) music your kids enjoy and say it's poor, but our parents likely said the same of the music we enjoyed in our day (and so on going back generations). Perhaps the quality of AI music is truly passing at present, but with machine learning (which remember, is exponential: it teaches itself to get better, and that better version creates a better version etc) it will soon be impossible to tell the difference, I really believe AI will create works that we will call "great art".
Why I think there will still be a need for humans to create and consume human art, is not because of quality, but because it's HUMAN. Even thought McDonald's is so proliferated, there is still a great demand for small batch, organic, hand crafted, passion-infused, interesting, flawed, and deeply human food (whether that be haute cuisine or home cooked). We tell each other stories because that is one of the most fundamental aspects of being human, and that will likely never change. We may enjoy some AI generated stories, but we will always look to another human for the story of their experience - because THAT is the one thing an AI can truly never do.
#CertifiedHumanMade
When it comes to educational-use-in-a-lecture-hall argument... At least in the US, most colleges pay the blanket agreement to PROs which covers all the performances on campuses, recital halls, lecture halls, or otherwise. You do need to turnover proof of the performance to your PRO (a concert program, but a syllabus probably flies), but the colleges are paying. As far as high schools and grade schools, I doubt they do the same, but I don't know.
I'm wondering if the solution to the Royalty thing is for musicians and music creators to be educated to the fact that giving away their work only serves to reduce the amount of money made available to the entire music creation community.... in other words, it cheapens EVERYONE's value. What we're seeing in my opinion is the effects of supply and demand working against the music community. We have too many people who create music who are willing to give it away. So the people who consume/license music see this as an opportunity to save money. Those licensors (naturally) will gravitate to the cheaper option since they're trying to make a profit. But if the community wakes up and realizes that giving away their work hurts not only themselves, but the rest of the community, eventually, the purchasers of music will (once again) start paying for music. Until then, we will continue to head down the inevitable path to music being completely worthless and totally free. Which in the long run will only bring the quality of music down because the people who dedicate their lives to creating music will be forced to spend less time making it. And the only ones left making it will be those who create music in their spare time - resulting in only musical weekend warriors who (naturally) have less knowledge/experience in making it.
1.1 billion views of my music composed for a well known kids tv series on a managed TH-cam channel...it’s wall to wall music and apparently I am entitled to nothing. Because it is managed. 🤷♂️. Yet on tv it does very well...I don’t get why TH-cam is not treated the same as tv. You have talked about my case...but I’m still grumpy and still banging on about it. 😅💀😒
Really Interesting video Christian, Thanks Again! One question - What happens to the audio between 21:50 and 22:29?
Adam K Gibson mistake sorry, both mics, I really struggle with these!
The simple, fair and accessible way that PRS managed licences for churches responding to Covid made life a lot simpler than it could have been.
Here's an idea, TH-cam or Facebook,ect could calculate the useage of a particular piece of music and pay a certain percentage to the artist after revenue from advertising and before they pay the TH-cam high volume watched channels.
So many of the things in this video resonate, and transfer into other creative industries. With one swing of the hammer Apple managed to kill off Flash, which in turn flooded the frontend web arena with Actionscript developers who retooled into making JavaScript frameworks, which in turn made it harder for those of us who were trying to do things 'properly' to get by.
And 20k views in one year on such an informative and well produced video is a cruel mistress. On the plus side, TH-cam did its job - I'm a hobbyist strongly eyeing up Spitfire products.
@ 10:38, that's provided the audio remains unaffected (etc not pitched down/up by content creators). Thoughts?
Very nice studio, but those filament lamps just on the outside fo the monitors would drive me insane.
I'm pretty much in total agreement with Christian on this one.
It seems like what we are missing is a simple way to request and grant permission, or pre-grant permission, set a usage price as an artist. You could even have, as an example, something built into Final Cut/Premiere, add a song file to a project, it analyses it (or grabs meta data on the file) checks against a database to find out if you need permission to use it, and if you do have a little button to request permission right in the software, a key or something could be written to your video file that TH-cam could check against that database, check your permission status for all tracks on the video. Or an app or whatever, search for a song, request permission to use it. You could pay a little fee at that point, micropayments are easy now. Technology like blockchain could really facilitate all this too, in terms of tracking usage, payment, right etc etc etc. These are probably all wrong or flawed, but seems like there are loads of solutions to this.
If music is used or playing a well known track/piece is shown on an intsrument, the original artist should get a royalty, or get paid, just as when using samples in a hip hop song. Where things get OTT is when a payment to the artist simply for referencing their name, is called for. A possible way round is to play your own example, then reference the track, so the two can't be mixed up. Ideally.
If automation forces our hand toward Universal Basic Income, it could be seen as a creativity subsidy for many artists and musicans.
I feel like I'm in a similar conundrum to Christian's PewDiePie example: What if your music has millions of plays on music aggregation YT channels? I'm torn between accepting happily the exposure and bleed over to revenue sources that comes with that, and the feeling like I should really get a cut of the monetization of the video. It's a really difficult issue currently. Maybe a royalty share of ad revenue, as Dru mentions, really is the solution?
I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on this.
Drew Masters: Legend
As a composer, I have joined PRS and the cheques are trickling in, but should I also join PPLUK? TBH, I'm not sure of the difference.
Also, should I be getting royalties if my music is used in an advert that air on radio and TV?
Fair use? How can you have thousands or millions of people watching you brand yourself, sell ad space, promote commercial products, promote your e book, ask for taxable donations and etc using other people’s works and dare call yourself JUST an educator. There are songs that have had millions of dollars poured into them so that people will pay attention at the mere mention. Stealing that attention by using that material for your money making purposes is stealing. Royalties will be back and stronger than ever soon. Good interview!
Part of this discussion reminds me of the old MTV question, which was were music videos to be seen as content for MTV (that they should pay for), or free promotion for the artists ? Also it's questionable if/why/how a platform like YT should be the one to burden the challenge of figuring out if content (that YT didn't load up) is violating copyright or not. It's not only questionable from a technical or causal point of view, but also from a legal standpoint as they're now supposed to take over a role that used to be in the domain of legal courts. In addition, YT's own content ID system is already being abused now, for instance by beatmakers that content ID samples from a sample pack that is not even theirs, and either make YT take down videos of others that use the same sample or even worse, blackmail the channel for money, threatening them have their videos taken down. When it comes to news articles, part of the idiotic expectations of authors and publishers (at least here in Germany) is to charge Google for the snippets of news (or other publications) in the search results. Instead of treating the snippets as free advertising from Google, they think they should be paid for it. This kind of 80s/90s thinking doesn't suffice nowadays anymore. Not saying i have the solutions ready, but the collecting societies point of view is a bit outdated.
I personally believe that if we don't accept all of the different formats (youtube etc.) being sources of revenue then we'll be shooting ourselves in the foot; however, with how low the royalty payouts are for dedicated streaming services (apple music, spotify etc.) that is also hurting the whole industry and affecting how we earn a living. I know this doesn't apply to anyone that doesn't have their music on those services but say the soundtrack album for a film is on a streaming service then it's another source of royalties for the composer (incredibly low but something).
Are those phase issues at 22:00? Please excuse me if its something going awry on my end. Brilliant video, really eye opening. Dru is uniquely qualified to mediate between both sides, and I greatly appreciate it.
He forgot to edit out the room mic when changing to the lav mic and there's a difference in time in the sync. It isn't phasing, more of a delay. But no it wasn't on your end.
@@ElmoSyr Thanks for confirming I'm not going mad. I just heard a split between two sources not being exactly connected, so assumed it was phase going. I didnt pay enough mind to hear a switch in mic sources.
I don't know how I feel about it. While I think of many music education channels, Adam Neely's and Rick Beato's are examples I think make sense at the moment, using these songs as a teaching tool, while also advocating us to go listen to the songs in their entirety because they're usually only going over short snippets and sections, I don't think it's really a big deal. What is a big deal though, is getting demonetized for playing a section of track... might as well play the whole damn thing then? I don't know. Now I'm just ranting. Sorry.
I think it is fair the person who wrote the music gets a percentage - but the current demonetization/blocking is really bad. Most of the time, if a youtube video highlights your music, it does give you publicity, and helps cement your name in the history books - so they also deserve to make some money for that. It shouldn't be all or nothing.
These are times when we are coming up against the ethical, moral, and practical limits of capitalism. The concept of royalties has abrogated centuries of common law regarding commerce.
For example, when did the phrase "by opening this package, you hereby agree to..." which is a contract that you enter without signing, become legally enforceable? When did we get to vote to change the law on that?
So for royalties, the best example is the old cassette recorder/radio, where one could record from the radio, for the price of the cassette. Were we, back in the aforementioned days of the "boom box", "pirating" music off the radio? Then someone had the idea that there should be a tax on cassettes, and later, CDs to cover any royalties due, which is ridiculous because,
1. Not all cassettes were used to record only music, some recorded non-music materials, such as lectures, etc., and some were used to record ones own music.
2. To date, no one knows what percentage of the tax was actually applied to paying royalties.
3. Artists who register their music with a publishing house are required to pay royalties even when performing their own music, from which admin fee is deducted, then the remainder is paid back to the artist, which is a grift, plain and simple.
So we have a choice, we accept the current state of the intellectual property concept, which is structured so that everyone gets money except the artist/creator, who are paid fractions of a cent for their work, while middlemen and other entities enjoy an exponentially larger percent of the income.
If we do accept it, then we can't complain about "copyright strikes", because we make money from using other peoples work, even if only a part of it.
Or we copyright our own music directly (I register mine with the US library of Congress), promote, market, and sell directly to the consumer, which is something that, in the US, Black creators were forced to do until recently, as we were generally excluded from the mainstream market.
I also found that, as some of my works were heavily "pirated" in China and Asia, I used that to my advantage, securing sponsorship for tours in those countries was made much easier precisely because so many people knew of my work.
Now that Covid-19 is about to permanently change the way we gather to perform and enjoy live music, perhaps we should introduce new laws to force more equitable payments for recorded works, stiffer penalties for businesses who use content without permission, and reserved spaces for public access on the broadcast and digital streaming media for artists and creators to market their own work.
Royalties should exist for all types of mediums. Especially online platforms as these are consumed most of all these days. Not just TV and Film and Games. Royalties are royalties no matter what the medium is. Credit and Exposure can't pay for food and accommodaiton.
Just another example of how justice and law don’t go hand in hand…
For sure I think TH-cam has been a godsend for us all as far as having a legal means for user to post copywritten material largely without moderation. That was just a first step, going from zero money to a small amount. He says just getting everything into a database.. We have seen some examples recently drawing parallels from the movie industry where those representing the artists have been able to push back and negotiate improved royalty percentages. But there is different models like netflix which just buy out rights which I think is fine too, nothing wrong with earning a fair wage IMO.
But I don't think TH-cam's advertising model has been particularly profitable for them and many other big tech names have retreated from projects that aimed to make various media profitable ventures. I wouldn't be surprised to see more big labels try and funnel their 'investments' (ie music) via blocking into the more profitable platforms. On the other hand, I think they also know that huge play counts also are a powerful new, free marketing tool which seems poorly utilized.
Christian has a great attitude whereas he is not expecting to make money directly from his videos and instead I think just enjoys getting his voice out there and heard, and that indirectly helps his 'serious' music career.
On the point of AI music, maybe a decent analog is the club DJ. You could essentially put a CD on in Amnesia, Ibiza, and save paying the DJ 25k for their set. But it just hasn't happened because people value the human element when it comes to music. I guess within that example there is a brand element - people pay a lot to see a particular DJ - so I think building a strong brand as a creator is critical for not being replaced by AI one day.
Thanks for yet another thought provoking video, Christian.
like the colonel sanders at ultra
@@reverendoz I didn't see more than a clip of that, but it seemed abysmal... almost as though the promoters were taking the piss out of the audience. I'd like to think no reputable club would stoop that low.
Please Please Please Fix your UI for HZ strings and Eric Whitacre Choir. Its impossible to use them in any system, (Fully Loaded Mac Pro Cylinder)
Farzam Salami I’m using them without any problems and used them fine in the cylinders have you reached out to customer service who can help you. We have tens of thousands of customers using these quite happily.
Sponsored by San Pellegrino? Regardless, good choice of water. Cheers from Italy :)))
Haha, good choice of country as well : ) Stay strong Italy
That’s the second time you’ve mentioned Grindr on a video 😂 what’s the joke?
Ace chat though. Very thought provoking and hopeful.
Grinder is a Brit based sex hook-up site for non-heterosexuals.
@@jppagetoo I'm aware of what the app is. Just curious as to why he's mentioning it on here 😂
Great episode Christian , and the mention of JBP just made my day
I love to listen to him talk every morning on my commute to my studio, wonderfully inspirational and mentally challenging enough to spark the grey matter for a day writing music
😀😀
Christian, first of all great video and discussion but your point of Pewdiepie using your music for exposure being enough is extremely naive,and like Dru says, it eventually just drives the value of music down. I’ve tested this theory many years ago when a couple of TH-cam creators with well over 5million subscribers each asked to use my music for exposure. It basically resulted in about 250 extra subs and a couple of thousand extra plays on the tracks they used. It is a complete fallacy that exposure rather than buying a license works. Don’t get sucked into trying to grow your channel in the short term over the long term loss of composers being paid what they deserve for their music. (Sorry I wrote this before I got to the end) :)
NETFLIX pays PRO royalties!! I should know, I make them. Never sign a Netflix buyout deal with no royalties. All you have to do is negotiate and they WILL give it to you! Also don't fall for the argument that "no one else makes it so why should we?" Your music can exist outside of a movie or tv show on it's own merits. CEO's are already getting nervous that the word is out and are already backtracking so KEEP IT UP! Keep and fight for what is rightfully yours! In 5 or 10 years you will thank yourself when that ASCAP or BMI check comes in and saves your ass when your short on a bill :)
"A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of giving leisure" (Spud, another Scottish icon)
21:50 #slapbackdelay
Elvis :)
I wondered through the whole video why the audio was so different between the two different lapel mics rather than a blend.
I'm quite shocked at Christians take on the You Tube royalties. What if I said to him, I won't pay for Spitfire software, I'll put my stuff on TH-cam, but don't worry "I'll credit Spitfire".
If you say it's worth £2 and give it for free it is actually worth £0!
Christian Henson You are my hero🤟🤟🤟🤟🎛🎛🎚🎛🎬🎙🥁🎼🤟🤟