Getting rid of CD's?

[firedog]

14 hours ago, unbalanced output said:

 

YouTube is a very interesting platform. It is true that there are copyright infringements in videos bla bla black but thats not important really. YouTube is the modern version of the TV in a sense. You can watch whatever you please, all for free. Artists publish their stuff and get paid for the views and at the same time they get direct publicity. There is no need to middlemen (other than Google) to get something published, but at the same time labels have their own channels. I find more music through YouTube nowadays rather than anywhere else, also all sorts of rarities can be found there - of course, quality is not great. 

 

Already years ago Monty Python published all their old sketches because they were fed up with sketchy (sic) versions of their videos! Such visionaries! Postmodern Jukebox was also propelled through YouTube, which in turn brought several talented artists to the spotlight. And so on.

 

Looking at all that's happening in the world of music, it somehow makes me sad to see this obscure side of music where people have to keep their CDs in a safe fearing the copyright police. 

 

Ps. Nothing directed to you or anyone else, just some Monday night ranting

But let's get some perspective, with some rough figures of what YouTube pays: unless you are a mega artist and can negotiate a special contract with YouTube, and get all sorts of ads to sponsor your channel, the going rate comes out to about $2000 for a million views of a song video. Very hard to make a living with that rate. Only the handful of megastars make a real living from YouTube streaming. Worst royalties in the industry. 

 

And AFAIR, songwriter royalties are almost non-existent: something like $30-$40  per million views. And if you aren't knowledgeable enough to know how to "claim" your songwriting royalties in advance of every version that gets put out, you may be paid nothing. In short, it's setup from the beginning not to pay artists. Only Google and other corporate interests actually benefit. 

 

Traditional CD buying pays the artist about $1 per disc, and songwriting royalties are significant enough that a successful songwriter makes a good living. 

Just another reason to buy disc (or at least paid digital download) of artists you like. 

[firedog]

29 minutes ago, unbalanced output said:

 

It's a bit OT for sure and I apologise for that, but - artists don't get payed per views, but on the revenue made from videos. The payment per view is lower since the average quality of ads is lower than other services (e.g. other video streaming services don't allow skipping ads or using ad blockers so the pay ratio is higher). Youtube is not a good platform for listening to music, but when it comes to music clips - well, it displaced MTV out of the business. 

 

It's just another platform for music artists, but from the point of view of the consumer it's great (it's free and artists make money out of it!). The argument that artists make $1 per disc to me is broken, that's 10% of an USD 10 album. Youtube's revenue per view may be low, but creators average a take 55% of the revenue. Tell me which one is fairer?

You're blowing smoke. Look up what artists really make on youtube, it's similar to what I quoted. The point is that saying YT is great b/c "artists get paid" is highly misleading. They get paid a pittance. 

Don't kid yourself. The corporate interests involved used the changes in media to set up a new paradigm where almost all the money goes to them and almost none to the artist. It's really that simple, no matter how much you try and explain it away.