The blogosphere is already buzzing with opinions and reactions to today’s announcement by YouTube that it’s pulling thousands of music videos from its UK site, due to a breakdown in negotiations with licensing body PRS for Music.We’ve been all over the story, giving our opinion and republishing the statements made by both sides in the dispute. There’s no shortage of other opinions online though: we’ll be gathering them in this post, which we’ll update as the night and tomorrow morning roll on.Mark Mulligan, Forrester Research (link)“UK consumers needn’t worry too much. The music videos will be back. Once the grandstanding is over both parties will hit upon a compromise. Music video is too important to YouTube not to reach an agreement, just as YouTube is too important a revenue stream for PRS. Until they do UK music fans have plenty of alternatives, such as Daily Motion and of course file sharing networks. And there’s very strong reason why the labels, PRS and even YouTube don’t want YouTube’s loss to be Bit Torrent’s gain.”Lionel Laurent, Forbes (link)“It still looks as though Google is determined to win this fight, even though it can’t play official content without a license from the songwriters and publishers’ association — in addition to the record company’s approval. Its YouTube subsidiary is under pressure to squeeze more revenues out of its advertising-dependent business model, and it also knows that it needs to set a strong precedent now to ease negotiating pressures with other industry associations going forward. Opponents of the company had better run for the hills.”Eliot van Buskirk, Wired (link)“Once again, music fans — this time British ones — will wonder why so much music is suddenly unavailable on YouTube, while artists and labels lose whatever they would have made in Britain through the service. Meanwhile, each day the videos are blocked, another batch of British music fans will learn to look elsewhere for music and videos.”Bruce Houghton, Hypebot (link)“It’s the UK music industry that is the biggest loser. From online royalties to ISP interference, the birthplace of The Beatles and Sex Pistols seems determined to send the message that it has no intention of being an incubator for new music tech and the new music industry itself. That can’t bode well for the future.”Austin Modine, The Register (link)“Apparently companies are betting customer outrage will spur the other side to bend to their demands. But when customers can get their content elsewhere easier (and often illegally, where nobody gets paid) the licensing e-tantrum can certainly backfire on both.”Mike Masnick, Techdirt (link)“The record labels keep demanding more without any actual reason for it, insisting that 100% of the value comes from the music, rather than the service and the promotions. It’s about time that some of the service providers proved they were wrong. Yes, the music is part of the value, but it certainly appears that a much bigger part of the value is the community that Google brings at YouTube.”AND VIEWS FROM TWITTER…“And it begins… YouTube to block music videos in UK… As recession worsens I am sure we are going to see more if this..” (doncorbett)”YouTube has blocked all UK IPs from accessing music videos. From now on, I will torrent all music and seed to a 2:1 ratio. FUCK YOU, YOUTUBE” (DinnyHoon)”What is YouTube and PRS up to? Now they are blocking premium music videos in the UK. More incentive for people to pirate maybe” (twitpmc)”Way to encourage users to go around you, PRS… Standby for a surge in “pirate” content on YouTube from the UK. And then more churnalism?” (sbisson)”PRS pressuring YouTube to remove music video in the UK… Where will I get my daily fix of Pat Benatar and Roxette now?” (marshallstaxx)”YouTube to remove music videos after PRS showdown. Can’t see who benefits from this and fans may turn to P2P. Hope this is resolved soon.” (smernicki)”Heading for the office and finding it interesting that the PRS want paying for mass exposure on Youtube… can I get paid per tweet?” (pauly4)”Surely it’s promoters who rely on YouTube to promote music and by not reaching agreement the PRS are doing more harm to musicians…” (poleydee)”Google/Youtube and the PRS lose out in this spat. Spotify wins.” (robbrown)And we most definitely can’t print this one…
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…