Warner Music Group asks YouTube to remove all their videos
Music video fans will be disappointed today, as Warner Music withdraws all their videos from YouTube.
Although Warner was one of the first media companies to reach a deal with YouTube and their owners, Google, allowing the company to display their content for free apparently hasn’t been particularly profitable for Warner. According to Billboard:
"We are working actively to find a resolution with YouTube that would enable the return of our artists’ content to the site," Warner said in a statement. "Until then, we simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide."
Shawn Ingram of Gadgetell questions whether the benefit of getting their artists exposure perhaps outweighs the possible earnings from revenue sharing with YouTube:
It seems like a bad idea for Warner to take the channel down from a consumer stand point, but a big statement on the business side. Granted Warner is a huge label, but I would imagine it would want to give more exposure to its artists, especially the newer or less popular ones, and the easiest way of doing it is through YouTube. I know plenty of people who use YouTube as a means of listening to full songs before buying albums. I would hope they don’t pull everything down, or, at least, let the artists have their own channels if they so want.
I anticipate that the stalemate won’t last forever – after all, YouTube are the key online video service. And at the speed the average record company moves, setting up their own service isn’t a viable option right now.
However, there are other streaming video services out there. If I was one of the contenders, I’d be racing to bang out a deal with some of the major labels right now, while YouTube are floundering to renegotiate their deal.
And finally, here’s another quotable from NewTeeVee, reinforcing the fact that YouTube’s dominance in the online video market make them the company to stay in bed with:
And sure, people could just Google their favorite music video, but YouTube now accounts for 25 percent of all Google searches. Why scatter those people around the web when you could concentrate them on one site and ideally increase the total number of videos played?
What’s your take? Should the music companies take their content elsewhere, or should they continue to feed Google’s monopoly? Will the fans follow the music, or will they stick to the brand they trust?
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Warner Brothers wants the artists and musicians to be “compensated” for the music that is shown on YouTube, that is biggest load of crap I heard all day. Warner Music Corporation wants to get paid, they are the ones making the money and filtering part of it to the artists. This was demonstrated with the RIAA and how the artists are complaining that they have not received their money yet. Warner did not disclose how much money they received from the RIAA but all we know is that they are not paying the artists. Warner needs to put the Videos on YouTube instead of complaining.
It is so disappointing to see that the large media corporations are completely pulling out of You Tube. I have an extensive music playlist, the majority of which has been legally PURCHASED from itunes after viewing songs and fan videos on the site. Most of the artists that i am now proud to have in my music library would have never otherwise crossed my path. This is a sad, sad day for music artists and their fans. Media corporations need to come to the realisation of just how important You Tube is in the promotion of their artists in today’s global online community.