YouTube has paid out more than $1 billion to the music industry from advertising in the past year. Robert Kyncl, the video platform’s chief business officer, penned a blog post about the state of YouTube’s ad revenue. Continue Reading
Metallica is out with a new album and the band has gone an unusual route with distribution. Hardwired… To Self Destruct has been released on most of the usual digital outlets, but it is also on YouTube in its entirety. Metallica’s adoption of streaming distribution contradicts the band’s earlier resistence, and contains some irony. Then there is Radiohead, once a hold-out, which is now streaming on Spotify. Continue Reading
YouTube has rolled out an app for watching its videos in virtual reality. All the videos on the platform allow the viewer to see the action as if they were physically present on the scene. This news is still interesting as a forecast for what digital entertainment might look like in ten years. Continue Reading
The U.S. music industry is petitioning its European counterparts to make copyright reforms that would address royalty payments made by online music distribution services. Several music industry organizations signed an open letter about the value gap in services that do a great deal of user traffic but make comparatively small royalty payments. It asks U.S. government representatives in Europe to support Article 13 of the Copyright Directive proposed by the European Commission. Continue Reading
YouTube Red reportedly has 1.5 million subscribers as of late summer. That’s the figure shared by The Verge, citing multiple sources familiar with the video platform’s all-in-one subscription program. According to the sources, another 1 million people are signed up for free trials, but are not paying. Continue Reading
YouTube has entered a licensing deal with German collection society GEMA. The two parties had been at an impasse since 2009, meaning that German viewers would often have music videos containing GEMA repertoire blocked. Details of the arrangement have not been disclosed, but they seem to have taken immediate effect. Continue Reading
Univision has entered a deal for the management of its YouTube channels. Multiplatform network BroadbandTV will assume content-management and promotion responsibilities for Univision’s YouTube channels. Continue Reading
Lyor Cohen is joining the YouTube team as global head of music. The long-time music industry veteran is the CEO and founder of 300 Entertainment. He has also held long tenures in the upper ranks at Warner Music Group and Def Jam, including presiding over large mergers at both labels. Continue Reading
The three major labels have filed a lawsuit against an operation that they claim is a top offender in stream ripping. German company YouTube-mp3.org is charged with piracy by engaging in an increasingly common form of music copying, where music videos are reduced to audio-only MP3 files for personal consumption and sharing. Continue Reading
A new survey from MusicWatch broke out the most popular streaming services by hours listened. Its Audiocensus found that Pandora and YouTube dominate weekly time spent listening, each with a 27% share of hours in the second quarter of 2016. Continue Reading
YouTube is exploring the addition of some social features which could help music owners get more value from the video platform. The feature set currently in development is known as Backstage. It’s a move to be more competitive with the likes of Facebook or Snapchat, but the music industry should also keep tabs on what the plan says about YouTube’s next directions. Continue Reading
YouTube has inked a deal with the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency, marking a step toward increased rights management for the online video platform in the northern nation. CMRRA will license the copies of audiovisual content made by YouTube in the process of delivering that content to its audience. Continue Reading