YouTube UK welcomes back the music YouTube has signed an agreement with the PRS to bring back music videos to UK users, while the US arm is busy talking to movie companies about setting up a movie rental business. UK users of YouTube will get the music back in their lives over the next month or two as tens of thousands of videos are brought back onto the site. …
I like to think maybe Google gave PRS a bloody nose.
With the take your content and stick it where the sun don't shine.
I for one didn't miss much of the PRS supported content. Over the whole period I only got one video blocked for being in the UK.
I would also love to know how much of a 'cut for Administration' the PRS has taken before passing the proceeds onto their deserving artist. If the Rick Astley example shows anything I bet their cut is the Lion's share. So much for supporting hard working artists. The PRS is basically a bunch of Hoods demanding money with menace from which they then take the cream off the top and pass the scraps onto artists.
So much for fairplay on Music
Youtube for watching music? no thanks, I want high quality, not some poor quality vid and sound followed by pages of immature and usually obscene drivel from kids in the comments sections. It was no loss that Youtube didn't have the content. Is it me or is Youtube just so banal and meaningless these days?
@dunncha: Err, surely the other way round? The PRS are allowing their music back onto YouTube suggests that they have 'won' in this matter, otherwise they'd just keep it off until YouTube ponied up the cash.
As for their admin costs, they are a non-profit organisation, it's likely that their costs will be low.
@AC 1050: No, YouTube aren't advertising a product, they are giving it away, therefore it is right and proper that they pay for it. The video is the product, as it the MP3, as is the album, as is the physical media, they are just different ways of distributing the same product. MTV sure as hell pay a whole load of cash for playing music videos why should it be different for YouTube?
Must admit I too have managed happily since YT lost the music vids, I trotted off to my local torrent site and simply got the whole video file I wanted in very high quality AVI!
Thanks PRS, you forced us to look for alternatives!
Adam Shaw from PRS : "The money we receive is really their living.
Balls! You line the pockets of the records companies with it, the artists only make a small amount from sales, the merchandise is where they finally get a chance to get some real money back!
People don't seem to understand what they do.
What they largely do - with Google - is give up without a fight.
None of the PRS money goes to record labels unless they own publishing.
How will PRS distribute this lump? Based on radio One airplay? The Internet is known to have a different profile. Why doesn't PRS insist on getting paid by Google the same as the BBC? Why does Google get a special deal? When will the BBC say... Google doesn't pay, why should we? When will iTunes say Google doesn't pay, why should we? (iTunes also pays PRS for the writers as well as paying the labels for sales.)
And why doesn't PRS insist on proper accounts from Google? There are many tools which would allow electronic tracking of copyrights so that the writers could be paid properly.
(For the benefit of the people who don't know their labels from their publishers, it is the PPL royalty that goes to labels in the UK. American labels work in a different way but this isn't America.)
Nah, you are wrong. They are adverts. Without the media pushing this content in our faces all the time, the content producers wouldn't sell half as many of their products. The main focus of which is that they want you to buy CDs or download an MP3 from iTunes.
The fact that the general media is currently willing to pay PRS to use their promotional content is besides the point. It just means that PRS are getting a free ride at the moment.
I think you miss the point about the job of the PRS, they are a collection agency, because the musicians in question wouldn't be able to get payment from media outlets as there are too many to deal with and it would represent to large a task. The PRS merely pass on the cash to the people it should be going to, as fairly as possible, so there is no "the PRS are getting a free ride" the money goes to the musicians with a small amount left over to run the PRS (without profit).
As for adverts/not adverts - You may as well argue that any broadcast or narrowcast media is an advert because it is generally available to buy, clearly this isn't the case - just because I can watch a film on the telly doesn't meant that it is an advert for that film on DVD.
Sorry but I wasn't born yesterday, the PRS is run and owned by the big players in the music industry. They might call it a non-profit organisation but the reason for that is simply because they want all the cash to go back into their main businesses, they allow PRS to have as much money as it needs to function and all winnings (licence fees) go the the industry big players. Eventually some of that will filter down to the bimbo's and croners that dance about on stage and maybe even the people that actually write the stuff.
So I say it is for profit, just not the profit of PRS as a company (or non-profit organisation) but for the profit of the music industry bosses who get the money from the licence fees, and also happen to run PRS.
re: Adverts, we are going to have to agree to disagree on that one I'm afraid. To use another analogy, watching a music vid on Youtube is like watching a trailer of a film, the trailer is promo material same as watching a clip on youtube.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
