Zoe Keating’s YouTube concerns raise heads in tech and music press
On the 22nd of January Zoe Heating decided to write a blog post about her experience dealing with YouTube as an independent artist, one without label representation but with over 10,000 videos being monetised through Content ID and generating a quarter of a million plays per month.
Keating describes what was a very civilised conversation with the service over the new terms surrounding YouTube Music Key. Although the conversation with YouTube reps was polite and civilised, it showed how immovable their position is on key deal points, summarised by Keating in the extract below:
“1) All of my catalog must be included in both the free and premium music service. Even if I don’t deliver all my music, because I’m a music partner, anything that a 3rd party uploads with my info in the description will be automatically included in the music service too.
2) All songs will be set to “monetize”, meaning there will be ads on them.
3) I will be required to release new music on Youtube at the same time I release it anywhere else. So no more releasing to my core fans first on Bandcamp and then on iTunes.
4) All my catalog must be uploaded at high resolution, according to Google’s standard which is currently 320 kbps.
5) The contract lasts for 5 years”
The key issue here is that if she doesn’t agree to all of these terms her channel will be downgraded to being “free” and her opportunity to monetise third party videos via Content ID disabled.
Keating’s post raised a lot of heads in both the tech and music press. Some argue that YouTube’s content pool is too large for the service to be able to negotiate individual deals with each content creator. On the other hand Keating had invested time in the YouTube platform based on it working in a certain way and - a Gizmodo puts it - she is now being forced into a different type of relationship which has a “bait and switch” flavour to it.
This is a key issue and one that the music industry should bear in mind at all times when dealing with technology companies: however friendly they may seem, they are private companies that are in it to make as much money as possible. A company like YouTube is not only a huge entity itself, but is part of an even bigger company - Google - and its development and strategy is very much influenced by the parent’s company’s ultimate goals.
This raises a major issue: taking into account Google’s and YouTube’s size can their behaviour be classed as anti-competitive? After all, even Google admits that YouTube is the world's second-largest search engine these days. The anti-competitive aspect is what IMPALA was trying to argue when they made a complaint to the European Commission around Google’s new contractual terms in 2014.
To our current knowledge, for example, YouTube is the only service to require artists and labels to “release new music on Youtube at the same time I release it anywhere else.”
Keating updated her blog on the 24th of January to report on a snippet of conversation with a Google representative confirming that if she doesn’t sign the new agreement she won't be able to claim any money via Content ID for videos that make user of her music. In that situation Keating would be able to choose either to leave those videos up there - although without Content ID there will be no credit displayed within the video so it will essentially do her no good in increasing her fan-base, or she could choose to ask for them to be blocked or taken down, thus angering thousands of fans who have deliberately used her music as a soundtrack to their videos.
This is not a fair choice for her to have to make, but it is unlikely that Google will change its position as it would require Keating's complaint to be a serious threat to the company's image and unfortunately, since Taylor Swift is not involved and the nature of the issues is complex, this is not a debate that is likely to make it into tonight's mainstream news headlines anytime soon.
(Andrea Leonelli)