back to article YouTube UK welcomes back the music

YouTube has signed an agreement with the PRS to bring back music videos to UK users, while the US arm is busy talking to movie companies about setting up a movie rental business. UK users of YouTube will get the music back in their lives over the next month or two as tens of thousands of videos are brought back onto the site. …

COMMENTS

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  1. The Original Ash
    FAIL

    Too late

    Using Spotify to stream music now. Video is pointless, sound quality is better, and couldn't care less about various cat / falling / emotive Bint-ney Spears support videos that are plastered all over the site.

    YouTube is dead to me.

  2. dunncha
    Happy

    I like to think maybe....

    I like to think maybe Google gave PRS a bloody nose.

    With the take your content and stick it where the sun don't shine.

    I for one didn't miss much of the PRS supported content. Over the whole period I only got one video blocked for being in the UK.

    I would also love to know how much of a 'cut for Administration' the PRS has taken before passing the proceeds onto their deserving artist. If the Rick Astley example shows anything I bet their cut is the Lion's share. So much for supporting hard working artists. The PRS is basically a bunch of Hoods demanding money with menace from which they then take the cream off the top and pass the scraps onto artists.

    So much for fairplay on Music

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Humph!

    PRS should be paying YouTube for mass advertising of it's wares. It's not like you can download an album from there in MP3 format.

    All you can do is view single tracks if you are lucky, in effect, they are just tasters of the full product.

  4. Ben Rosenthal

    @ AC

    yeah but the music industry has always expected us to pay for promos, because they're greedy scum bags.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't care

    Youtube for watching music? no thanks, I want high quality, not some poor quality vid and sound followed by pages of immature and usually obscene drivel from kids in the comments sections. It was no loss that Youtube didn't have the content. Is it me or is Youtube just so banal and meaningless these days?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Err...

    @dunncha: Err, surely the other way round? The PRS are allowing their music back onto YouTube suggests that they have 'won' in this matter, otherwise they'd just keep it off until YouTube ponied up the cash.

    As for their admin costs, they are a non-profit organisation, it's likely that their costs will be low.

    @AC 1050: No, YouTube aren't advertising a product, they are giving it away, therefore it is right and proper that they pay for it. The video is the product, as it the MP3, as is the album, as is the physical media, they are just different ways of distributing the same product. MTV sure as hell pay a whole load of cash for playing music videos why should it be different for YouTube?

  7. MyHeadIsSpinning
    Boffin

    "revenue has to be generated from somewhere"

    Yes, advertisements.

    It is the Google way.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @Don't care!

    Must admit I too have managed happily since YT lost the music vids, I trotted off to my local torrent site and simply got the whole video file I wanted in very high quality AVI!

    Thanks PRS, you forced us to look for alternatives!

    Adam Shaw from PRS : "The money we receive is really their living.

    Balls! You line the pockets of the records companies with it, the artists only make a small amount from sales, the merchandise is where they finally get a chance to get some real money back!

  9. Bassey

    Meh

    I wasn't actually aware YouTube carried music videos until I saw the headlines saying they were being taken off. Actually, I haven't seen a music video since the 90s. I remember when it was green fields, as far as the Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  10. Belvedere Mulholland

    PRS only have themselves to blame

    People don't seem to understand what they do.

    What they largely do - with Google - is give up without a fight.

    None of the PRS money goes to record labels unless they own publishing.

    How will PRS distribute this lump? Based on radio One airplay? The Internet is known to have a different profile. Why doesn't PRS insist on getting paid by Google the same as the BBC? Why does Google get a special deal? When will the BBC say... Google doesn't pay, why should we? When will iTunes say Google doesn't pay, why should we? (iTunes also pays PRS for the writers as well as paying the labels for sales.)

    And why doesn't PRS insist on proper accounts from Google? There are many tools which would allow electronic tracking of copyrights so that the writers could be paid properly.

    (For the benefit of the people who don't know their labels from their publishers, it is the PPL royalty that goes to labels in the UK. American labels work in a different way but this isn't America.)

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RE: Errr...

    Nah, you are wrong. They are adverts. Without the media pushing this content in our faces all the time, the content producers wouldn't sell half as many of their products. The main focus of which is that they want you to buy CDs or download an MP3 from iTunes.

    The fact that the general media is currently willing to pay PRS to use their promotional content is besides the point. It just means that PRS are getting a free ride at the moment.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AC 1507

    I think you miss the point about the job of the PRS, they are a collection agency, because the musicians in question wouldn't be able to get payment from media outlets as there are too many to deal with and it would represent to large a task. The PRS merely pass on the cash to the people it should be going to, as fairly as possible, so there is no "the PRS are getting a free ride" the money goes to the musicians with a small amount left over to run the PRS (without profit).

    As for adverts/not adverts - You may as well argue that any broadcast or narrowcast media is an advert because it is generally available to buy, clearly this isn't the case - just because I can watch a film on the telly doesn't meant that it is an advert for that film on DVD.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RE: Fraser @AC 1507

    Sorry but I wasn't born yesterday, the PRS is run and owned by the big players in the music industry. They might call it a non-profit organisation but the reason for that is simply because they want all the cash to go back into their main businesses, they allow PRS to have as much money as it needs to function and all winnings (licence fees) go the the industry big players. Eventually some of that will filter down to the bimbo's and croners that dance about on stage and maybe even the people that actually write the stuff.

    So I say it is for profit, just not the profit of PRS as a company (or non-profit organisation) but for the profit of the music industry bosses who get the money from the licence fees, and also happen to run PRS.

    re: Adverts, we are going to have to agree to disagree on that one I'm afraid. To use another analogy, watching a music vid on Youtube is like watching a trailer of a film, the trailer is promo material same as watching a clip on youtube.

  14. Richard Porter
    Welcome

    Bereft of copyrighted videos?

    Er, what were all those music videos that I've been watching then?

  15. Alan Newbury
    FAIL

    RE: Fraser

    Actually, if you go back through the history of this spat, you'll find that it was YouTube/Google that yanked the vids because the price asked was too high - then the labels complained that they weren't getting the exposure. Can't please some people, can you?

  16. Georgie
    Thumb Down

    "Promo"

    If music videos are not adverts to get you to go out and buy the single/album/track, can we stop calling them "promos" as that's clearly a big fat lie.

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