Music Ally

Don’t be evil: Google’s unofficial corporate motto hasn’t stopped it from finding conflict with creative industries, consumer watchdogs and politicians in recent years. Given its recent fallings out with music bodies, it’s instructive to look further afield at Google’s other rows, to see if any lessons can be learned for the hopeful  resolution of its music disputes.

Music

Starting with the one Music Ally readers know most about: Google has three ongoing disputes with music organisations. In March, it announced it was blocking premium music videos from YouTube UK after failing to agree licensing rates with PRS for Music.

The next month, it did the same in Germany after reaching a similar impasse with German collecting society GEMA. Then in June, French collecting society SPPF sued YouTube for copyright infringement. The first two rows involved a fair amount of mudslinging, with PRS in particular portraying Google as a bullying 800lb gorilla.

Lesson: Throw all the accusations you like about disrespecting artists, but Google is prepared to dig its heels in on a point of principle, especially when it thinks the numbers don’t add up.

Newspapers

European newspaper publishers have complained that Google indexes their content without permission or payment – Wall Street Journal editor Robert Thompson described it as a “parasite”. Such criticism has drawn a sharp retort from Google that they can block its ‘search crawlers’ whenever they want. Which, of course, could see their web traffic drop off a cliff…

Google execs have also given their advice to the newspaper industry in recent months. VP of products Marissa Meyer told a US Congress hearing that they should act more like Wikipedia with evolving stories at single URLS, while CEO Eric Schmidt told an audience of US newspaper bosses to invest in new technology and improve their websites.

Lesson:  Telling newspapers they can refuse to be indexed by the most popular search engine in the world is a few notches up from removing music videos from YouTube, but represents a similar rock/hard place school of negotiation.

Book publishers

Google’s first high-profile dispute with a creative industry related to its Google Books project, and its practice of digitising copyrighted but out-of-print books without permission. Authors and publishers kicked up a stink, and last October Google reached a settlement, paying $125 million to set up a Book Rights Registry to discover who owns the copyright to digitised books, while also agreeing to sell access to its collection and split the revenues with publishers.

“The real victors are all the readers,” said Google co-founder Sergey Brin. However, the settlement is still attracting attention from both the US Department of Justice and the European Commission.

Lesson: Google certainly isn’t entirely inflexible – deals can be done with creative industries that feel like a win for both sides.

Broadcasters

Google’s most long-running dispute is with broadcaster Viacom, which filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube asking for over $1 billion in damages back in March 2007. This followed a demand that YouTube remove more than 100,000 clips which Viacom said infringed its shows.

The case has rumbled on since then, and last July there was controversy around exactly how much user data Google has to hand over to Viacom as part of the case’s discovery process. Google and Viacom managed to reach an agreement on that.

More recently, ITV boss Michael Grade criticised YouTube’s “derisory” offer in relation to advertising placed next to clips of Susan Boyle in Britain’s Got Talent. Many broadcasters happily put videos on YouTube, though – the BBC for instance – although US broadcasters have set up their own online TV site, Hulu, to compete.

Lesson: Google isn’t scared of the biggest media beasts, but it would prefer to work with them if the terms are to its liking.

Apple

We’re not sure whether this should be called a row – yet. But late last month, Google announced that its Google Voice telephony application for iPhone had been rejected by Apple. Then this week Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced he was resigning from Apple’s board due to increased competition between the two companies – especially in the mobile area.

That said, the companies still have more mutually aligned aims. YouTube and Google Maps remain native apps on iPhone, for example.

Lesson: The concept of frenemies isn’t alien to Google: co-operation and collision aren’t mutually exclusive in its corporate strategy.

And so …

Many within the music industry might feel that Google’s unofficial motto is now an empty statement, undermined by repeated encroachments on the copyright model which underpins most of the income that all artists receive. But these examples illustrate how it is possible to work with the company. So, for example, while there are few companies with the clout of Apple it is still possible to partner with Google – as Universal discovered through Vevo.

And while the collecting societies might not love the way YouTube doesn’t seem to be paying its way; the book publishers’ complaints have led to Google setting up a kind of collection society of its own, promising to split the income with them in the process.

Finally there’s China, where Google has been sanctioned by the major labels to offer links to free music downloads as long as it splits the search income with the rightsholders.

So no, Google isn’t evil. But on the strength of the opposition from other media sectors it may count as a bully. It’s omnipotent, and omnipresent, but doesn’t want to kill anyone …  just eat their lunch.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 7:02 pm and is filed under Digital Music News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.