Saturday, 28 May 2016

Musicians are losing the battle against piracy because YouTube By JONATHAN TAPLIN May 26, 2016 Back to Article principalComparte this page

LOS ANGELES - On Sunday night, the entire music industry paused during the Billboard Music Awards to commemorate a visionary musician Prince. And although the tribute revolved around his artistic legacy, throughout his career Prince also waged a battle against digital piracy and for the right of artists to have control over their work.

The artists are losing this battle. have passed 17 years since Napster, the file-sharing software online, began to flood free Internet music illegally uploaded to the network. While Napster disappeared long ago, the looting continues, only now those responsible are technology giants like Google and SiriusXM, plus play online services like Pandora.

New services and platforms are great for consumers but lax laws in the United States has allowed divert the profits of the music, which has led to the composers, performers and the whole industry drowns into nothingness.

YouTube, owned by Google, has become the world's leading audio platform to play online, rather than Spotify and other services. However, it pays to artists and record companies less than one dollar per year per user recorded music, thanks to piracy of their website, which continues to increase (instead, Spotify licenses to listen to your music and pays $ 20 per user per year).

The song "Drag Me Down" One Direction appeared on YouTube 2700 times after the service was asked to withdraw unauthorized copies. These 2700 copies pirates boarded the Google page allowed to continue to benefit financially from advertising while the artists got nothing.

The problem has worsened to such an extent that in 2015 sales of vinyl recordings generated more income for music creators that billions of views online on YouTube and its competitors.

Google has also used its dominance among Internet search engines to create the goose gold advertising. A Google does not care if our searches of the film "Mean Streets" and the music of "The Last Waltz" (which in both cases produced) are authorized versions or pirated copies: the company sells ads and charges anyway. However, the creators do not get a penny of the stolen copies, except for the anguish of seeing others take over the value of the work of a lifetime.

Google has basic technology of "fingerprint" that could cancel illegal versions of YouTube and its search results. But instead of protecting the work of artists, Google makes use of this tool as an element of coercion. The creators have two options: either sign a license agreement with YouTube and receive low royalty rates or are at the mercy of pirates. That which seems to protect the holders of copyright is rather a mechanism that benefits Google extortion.

Unfortunately, in the United States they are sadly underrated musicians. The radio, an industry of 17 billion dollars, pay publishing rights (payments to composers) but has never been paid to artists or record companies for their music. In addition, the company SiriusXM satellite radio pays below-market royalties, thanks to a good deal he got in Congress 20 years ago.

Conglomerates as iHeartMedia (formerly known as Clear Channel Communications) and other online services such as Pandora, who are obliged to pay artists for digital reproductions, have abused the laws of copyright for refusing to pay for work recorded before 1972 (it paid to composers, but not the performers). This means that artists like Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Chuck Berry and John Coltrane never received a penny of stations AM / FM nor many digital services much of his great music.






The last law passed for this sector was the Law on Copyright "Digital Millennium" in 1998, which was based on the idea that the creators should monitor the Internet for illegal copies of their work and "notify" pages for withdraw illegal copies. According to the "safe harbor" of the law, any service or website to make the minimum effort to address these notifications it is immune from accusations of piracy or theft.

Perhaps this system made sense when minutes were needed to download an illegal song. But today no one can effectively control the millions of pirated files that multiply online and instantly reappear after being removed. Google only received about 560 million to remove content notifications in 2015.

There are two concrete steps that Congress can take and that would allow musicians are treated fairly. First, Congress should update the rules of "safe harbor" of the law of copyright to achieve balance was sought: protect creators with effective tools to change not leave the responsibility in the hands of companies Internet.

Second, Congress can address the "original sin" committed the AM and FM stations and plug the loophole that allows radio stations use music without paying the artists. The bill "fair play, fair pay" ensure that all creators receive payment at market value for their work regardless of the technologies or services used for playback. It has the support of hundreds of artists as Rosanne Cash, Abdul "Duke" Fakir of The Four Tops, Elvis Costello, Martha Reeves, Elton John and Common.

In 2015, after years of fighting pirates, Prince said in an interview that the Internet "was the end for those who wanted to pay them." With new laws, it does not have to be.

No comments:

Post a Comment