Zoe Keating v YouTube: key sticking points in Google's latest music row

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/27/zoe-keating-youtube-google-music

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If you can watch the video above, Zöe Keating’s channel hasn’t been blocked by YouTube. But according to the musician, that’s the threat hanging over her if she refuses to sign a new contract relating to the recently-launched YouTube Music Key service.

Keating went public with her concerns in a blog post last week, with YouTube contacting reporters afterwards to deny some of her claims.

As with the company’s dispute with indie-labels trade body WIN in 2014, the row hinges on comments made in private about YouTube’s terms and conditions, and how it plans to enforce them.

It’s another can of worms for a music industry that specialises in canned wormage, but it’s an important one: YouTube is already a major player in the digital music world, and together with Apple and Spotify will be shaping the way that industry evolves over the coming years.

So, what’s really going on here, and what does it mean for YouTube and other musicians?

What Zöe says

Cellist Keating – who earlier in her career worked as a software developer – has become one of the most prominent “DIY” artists, releasing music herself through her store on the Bandcamp website, as well as through iTunes and other online stores.

In her blog post, she made several specific allegations, including the claim that she was told by a YouTube representative that “I need to sign on to the new Youtube music services agreement or I will have my Youtube channel blocked”.

She listed five elements of the proffered agreement that she disagreed with: having to include all her music in both the free and premium versions of YouTube Music Key – including videos featuring her music uploaded by other people; having to set all her videos to “monetize” through advertisements; not being able to release new music elsewhere before it’s on YouTube; having to upload that music at 320kbps resolution; and the five-year length of the contract.

Keating added that she uses YouTube’s Content ID system to identify videos uploaded by other people which feature her music – nearly 9,700 that collectively were viewed 250,000 times in December 2014 – and decide whether to leave them be, “claim” them to earn a share of ad revenues, or get them removed

According to Keating, YouTube’s representative told her that she couldn’t just keep Content ID running and opt out of YouTube Music Key.

What YouTube says

YouTube hasn’t gone on the record in this particular dispute, but the company’s private arguments remain similar to those offered during its dispute with WIN in 2014.

The company wants the same music to be available on the premium, subscription-based version of YouTube Music Key as on regular (free) YouTube, rather than having some tracks available on the latter but not the former.

Hence its “all or nothing” offer to musicians: if they don’t want their music on Music Key, they can’t make money from ads around their music videos on the free version of YouTube. The company wants Music Key to be seen as the solution to the regular complaints that musicians don’t get paid enough for YouTube views, rather than a new problem.

However, YouTube is adamant that it won’t block musicians from uploading their music to its service or running a channel in that case. The company also says it isn’t stopping artists from releasing music on other platforms earlier than YouTube.

Content ID? That’s more of a grey area. YouTube says musicians who don’t agree to its Music Key terms still have “control” over their content in terms of copyright: they can still get videos that use their music without a licence removed.

What’s still unclear is whether they can still use Content ID for that. If not, artists would have to manually find videos using their music, and file individual takedown requests with YouTube to get them removed – a process that could be onerous for independent musicians like Keating. It’s a bigger threat than blocking her channel.

What now?

The current dispute has a very specific impact: artists who release their own music rather than work through a label – whether a major one with its own deal with YouTube, or a independent label represented by licensing agency Merlin, which struck a deal with YouTube in November 2014 on its members’ behalf.

The terms signed by those labels and Merlin have unsurprisingly been kept secret, but it’s highly likely that some of the terms objected to by Keating will have been scrubbed from their final agreements.

With a growing number of artists going it alone thanks to services like Bandcamp, Patreon, PledgeMusic and distributors like TuneCore and The Orchard, Keating is far from the only musician who’ll be in the position of having to decide whether to sign an individual deal with YouTube – with little muscle to push back against terms they don’t agree with.

The danger for YouTube here is looking like a bully, at a time when musicians are increasingly speaking out when they feel that big technology companies aren’t respecting their work, and their desire to control how and where they release it.

This particular dispute could be fixed pretty quickly: let artists offer exclusives elsewhere if they want, shorten the contract length from five years – an age in digital music – and let musicians keep using Content ID even if the option to make money from ads around their videos is blocked.

The deeper communication issues could be solved too: making sure representatives talking to artists are explaining policies clearly – if Keating’s channel won’t be blocked if she declines to sign the YouTube Music Key contract, why did she come away from a phone call with notes suggesting it would? – and perhaps even addressing complaints publicly and explaining its reasoning more often.

What’s the bigger picture?

YouTube has been a powerful platform for all kinds of artists and creators, including independent musicians. Violinist Lindsey Stirling is an interesting counterpart to Keating: another classical musician finding her audience online, except in her case, YouTube played a pivotal role.

Neither musician’s path is better than the other: they’re both important examples that in the emerging new music industry, there are many paths to a sustainable career and a passionate audience of fans. Control is an important factor in all of them: control over the rights to your music, as well as over the platforms you choose to distribute it on and connect with fans.

There’s a big digital music battle brewing between big companies – Apple, Google/YouTube and Spotify included – with the likes of Bandcamp, PledgeMusic, Patreon, Kickstarter and many more technology companies carving out smaller (but still very important to their musician clients) niches around them.

Control, transparency, flexibility... all important concepts as the big companies realise they need to compete not just on price, slick features, exclusive deals and marketing, but also on how artist-friendly they are (and seem) – with the small companies nudging them along in that regard.

That’s why the YouTube / Zöe Keating row is more important than it might seem at first: even if you share her view that Google isn’t “evil”, it’s dispiriting to see the company seemingly handing ammunition on a plate to the people that do hold that belief.

At the same time, if YouTube can resolve this dispute fairly and prove that it has a role driving even more control, transparency and flexibility in the music industry, that would be a positive outcome.

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