Artists who don’t sign with YouTube’s new subscription service to be blocked

[Mistress Stowastiq]

This is the only report on this that I have found so far but I am sure there will/is to be more. Wonder if this relates to twitch at all. Er the Financial times link too but I can't get past their paywall yet.

Adele is reportedly one of the artists under fire.

Artists who don’t sign with YouTube’s new subscription service to be blocked
YouTube will soon have a premium tier. Labels have days to comply.

YouTube is getting ready to block music videos from artists that haven't agreed to the contract terms for its upcoming subscription service, the Financial Times reported Tuesday. The videos set to get the boot include those from independent record labels and artists including Adele and Arctic Monkeys.

The new subscription service for videos will charge a monthly fee but will let users watch videos on YouTube without ads. FT noted that the service will also allow users to watch videos "even when not connected to the Internet" on any device, suggesting some sort of pinning or downloading infrastructure to go with the platform.

Robert Kyncl, YouTube's head of content and business operations, told FT that record labels representing 90 percent of the music industry have agreed to the contract terms that include provisions for the subscription service. But YouTube will apparently not let the 10 percent that have resisted carry on as ad-supported-only videos, and Kyncl told FT that the blocking will begin in a matter of days.

The news of the subscription service and YouTube's tense relationship with indie labels comes just weeks after The Information reported that Vevo, a video-hosting service centralized on YouTube that deals primarily with major musical artists, is up for sale. Vevo, which is owned in part by Google, Universal Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment, splits its YouTube ad revenue between the investors.

The Financial Times reports that the 10 percent soon to be cut out of YouTube if they don't sign up with the new contract terms are fighting back through Impala, the "independent music companies association." Impala has made a plea to the European Commission for assistance, stating that YouTube is abusing its dominant market position. Google will start internally testing the subscription service in the next few days, FT says, with a launch time frame of late summer.

[kuronosan]

Um, so does this include us indie video producers or just labels?

[Plow]

this is only if they want money from the advertising on their vids yeah?

[Uzor]

Found this too on the link that you didn't include in the OP:

Update: A report from Digital Music News claims that Financial Times got the story about YouTube's upcoming service wrong, and offers an alternative perspective. According to Digital Music News' anonymous source, YouTube will not block the videos that don't sign on with the subscription service. However, the source says the correct intepretation of YouTube's statements are that the site will be blocking music videos from YouTube's monetization program, as whole, if labels can't agree to make their videos available to both the free and premium tiers of the subscription service.

Doesn't sound as bad as I originally thought. Actually makes it sound more like YouTube is standing up for the free users.

[Plow]

not exactly

what I get from that is

anyone can post videos that get no ad revenue, no effect on that whatsoever

you can only post videos that will get ad revenue if you also agree to the deal offered for premium users

they're "protecting" the premium users, ensuring there's no "ad-free! (except for this that blah blah)"

it will be at some expense to both free and premium users as some people will refuse the deal and refuse to allow their videos on youtube for no revenue

[kuronosan]

What I get from that is that free users get the same access as premium users to your videos or you get no videos.

[Plow]

that's the easy part, the stuff that's willing to do ads is already there; the hard part is getting them to agree to the ad free version too


but yes, it's to ensure equal content for both with complete ad-free showing for premium users