Mötley Crüe co-founder Nikki Sixx is the latest musician to speak out about YouTube royalties, alongside his current band Sixx:A.M.’s frontman James Michael.
“YouTube is paying out about a sixth of what Spotify and Apple pay artists,” Sixx told the Guardian, on the eve of a tour that the band intend to use to encourage fellow artists to join a campaign for safe-harbour legislation reform.
“We are not telling them how to run their business. We’re saying treat artists fairly the way other streaming services are. And by the way, we are a big part of what built your business: music is the No 1 most-searched thing on YouTube.”
Michael, meanwhile, addressed the topic of Content ID, which YouTube argues represents an investment to help artists monetise their music better on its service.
“YouTube have said, ‘Here’s our solution: we will ask artists to agree to our licensing terms, and in exchange for that we willl pay you.’ But what they’re offering to pay is such a small fraction of what their competitors are paying,” he said.
“The technology does already exist to do a much more accurate job of protecting artists against unlicensed use of their music. The problem is that the only way they will engage that technology to protect you is if you agree to their terms. And those terms are just not adequate.”
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