YOUTUBE IS PAYING LESS THAN £0.0009 PER STREAM TO UK RECORD LABELS

... When performance rights are folded in, total label income did rise by a sliver (0.6%) in 2015 – some positive news, but meager consolation when new startling figures about YouTube are considered.

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Here’s the devastating bit.

Despite this 88% rise in YouTube and Vevo plays, money coming into labels from ‘pure ad-supported’ platforms rose by just 4% – up to £24.4m.

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Remember the audio/video streams graph above, in which video took 50.3% of consumption?

Here’s how subsequent payments to labels and their artists were then divided between audio streaming platforms and ‘pure’ ad-funded (YouTube/Vevo/SoundCloud) platforms.

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Geoff Taylor, BPI & BRIT Awards Chief Executive, explains:

“It is hugely encouraging that demand for British music is so strong at home and abroad thanks to our brilliant artists and the continual innovation and investment of our record labels.

“Yet the fact that sales revenues dipped in a record year for British music shows clearly that something is fundamentally broken in the music market, so that artists and the labels that invest in them no longer benefit fairly from growing demand."

“Instead, dominant tech platforms like YouTube are able to abuse liability protections as royalty havens, dictating terms so they can grab the value from music for themselves, at the expense of artists."

"The long-term consequences of this will be serious, reducing investment in new music, making it difficult for most artists to earn a living, and undermining the growth of more innovative services like Spotify and Apple Music that pay more fairly for the music they use."

“Music is precious – it’s not a commodity to be strip-mined for big data. And as we’ve seen time and again in the digital market, where music goes first, the rest of the content sector will follow. This problem requires urgent action by the EU, and our Government needs to take the lead in making sure it is tackled.”

full post on Musicbusinessworldwide

#Sales #Streaming #Soundcloud #Youtube #Market #Piracy