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comment by Meriadoc
Meriadoc  ·  3587 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Clarity | Zoë Keating

Jesus. She's not kidding that he's unclear. I feel bad for the rep, because it seems like he barely knows what's going on and disagrees with it too. That complex loophole he offered is a complete mess.

Why are they so adverse to allowing some artists to continue their content ID as it is? I don't see why both can't exist concurrently.





veen  ·  3587 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Because the new system is mostly beneficial for Google, not for the artists. And it only works if a lot of artists cooperate. Instead of offering the artists a better deal than they have now, winning them over, Google realizes that this for most artists this isn't worth the hassle, so they just force everyone to participate. This whole ordeal reminds me a lot of the Google+ integration into Youtube.

kleinbl00  ·  3586 days ago  ·  link  ·  

A clever, enterprising lawyer would advertise a DMCA service that pummels Youtube for every artist that doesn't want to be blackmailed into participation. Youtube is practicing extortion, pure and simple: "either we own you outright, or you get no money at all." There's no negotiation whatsoever and if Google had thought about this ahead of time, they'd recognize they're opening themselves up to an anti-trust case. Youtube is every bit the monopoly the A&P were and they're effectively dictating their price for all music for everyone whose music is ever used on Youtube.

coffeesp00ns  ·  3586 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    This whole ordeal reminds me a lot of the Google+ integration into Youtube.

I get this vibe too.

kleinbl00  ·  3586 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I would argue he isn't unclear at all - I would argue that he's got 1000 words hedging around but completely agreeing with everything she's said.

Her basic statement is "I have to agree to everything Youtube says, which includes immediate rights to everything I produce, or I have to forego all revenue from Youtube."

    So what would happen is, um, so in the worst case scenario, because we do understand there are cases where our partners don’t want to participate for various reasons, what we basically have to do is because the music terms are essentially like outdated, the content that you directly upload from accounts that you own under the content owner attached to the agreement, we’ll have to block that content. but anything that comes up that we’re able to scan and match through content ID we could just apply a track policy but the commercial terms no longer apply so there’s not going to be any revenue generated.

...We'll have to block that content...so there's not going to be any revenue generated.

That's an unmuddied lake right there, as Alex said.

Meriadoc  ·  3586 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Right, but then when the journalists come around to them, they straight up call her a liar. She said exactly what the said, and has the report here saying exactly that, and then they claim that it's not true.

kleinbl00  ·  3586 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That's because controversy sells, not because there's room for confusion. A lawyer would point out that the language being discussed is inoquivocal, and the journalists discussing it disingenuous.

Meriadoc  ·  3586 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Does controversy benefit Google in this case? This seems like something they'd want to keep as quiet as possible and get artists to sign before news gets out of it.

kleinbl00  ·  3586 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think Google would like this to never ever ever be discussed again. The fact that their royalty agreements are dipped in six flavors of NDA speaks to that. That said, Billboard has her back. Considering the dissenting opinions seem to come from Diffuser and Hypebot, I'm going with Billboard.