Major Labels Say That Content ID Not Effective Enough

The 3 major labels are furthering their attack on YouTube, the platform they love to hate.

With licenses up for renewal soon, the majors are trying their best to gain some leverage in the negotiation, so they have filed a submission to the US Copyright Office claiming that YouTube's Content ID is ineffective in identifying uploads using content illegally using their copyrights a great deal of the time.

Content ID is YouTube's secret sauce in that it's the content recognition technology that allows the copyright holder to identify and monetize unauthorized uploads of copyrighted material.

Universal Music Publishing claims that it fails to identify as much as 40% of its compositions, according to an article in the Financial Times.

YouTube, of course, claims that Content ID is successful 99.5% of the time. Even if that were true, 0.5% still represents hundreds of thousands of unlicensed uploads, so there's a lot of money being left on the table.

Ultimately, the labels would like the 55/45 revenue split with YouTube to be increased, since all other music streaming platforms are in the 70+% range. YouTube has little incentive to change, however, since even if the labels pull their licenses, the user generated uploads will continue, so the label's vast catalog of music will still remain on the platform.

If it's true that Content ID doesn't catch 40% of the unauthorized uploads, that only puts YouTube in a stronger negotiating position. One should never bet against the major labels in a negotiation, but in this case, my money is on YouTube coming out on top.

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How Long Should Your Teaser Video Be?

Many artists and bands will post a teaser video of their album before it's released, or as a brief sampler afterwards. The problem is that there's several schools of thought on how long the teaser should be.

One school has it that shortest is best, since YouTube attention span is around 8 seconds. The second school says that you should make it as long as necessary to get the point across, even up to several minutes long.

It turns out that neither may be right. According to a study done by Think With Google, good old fashioned 30 second ads performed far better than either 15 or 60 second ones when it came to people viewing it all the way through. This allowed the viewer to get more detail about the product without the dreaded viewer fatigue.

This contradicts what happens on television, where 15 second ads are up to 75% more effective (and cheaper) than their longer counterparts. No surprise since online advertising has proven to be substantially different because of its random access nature.

The bottom line is that 30 seconds is a sweet spot in that it's neither too long nor too short, giving you enough time to get the point across while the viewer doesn't feel like she has to sit through too much information.

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Facebook Finally Launches Its Version Of Content ID

Content creators have been complaining for months that many of their YouTube videos have been showing up on Facebook posted by someone else - an action called "freebooting."

In an effort to alleviate the situation, Facebook has now officially launched its version of YouTube’s Content ID called Rights Manager. 

This is an admin tool for Facebook Pages that lets them upload video clips, then monitors Facebook news feeds for copies of these videos that might be later illegally posted to Facebook. It can then either automatically report them as violations to be deleted or notify the original publisher.

Rights Manager allows copyright owners to set up whitelists of Pages that are allowed to distribute their videos, and upload unpublished videos they don’t want anyone else using even if they haven’t posted them themselves.

It will also show what Page posted a video, how many views it has gotten, and sort alerts about freebooting by these parameters, too.

Live videos can be monitored as well, which is designed to prevent people from rebroadcasting pay-per-view TV content like boxing matches, which has become a huge issue that has put Periscope in the television industry's crosshairs.

Rights Manager isn’t available to all Facebook users yet, although content owners can now apply for access.

Interestingly, there's been no discussion about monetizing Facebook videos yet, although it seems like only a matter of time now that Rights Manager is in place.

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YouTube Has All The Leverage In New Label Negotiations

If you’re a record label, or an artist, band or publisher for that matter, the one thorn in your digital side is YouTube. Why? It’s by far the most widely used streaming service for consuming music, yet it pays the least of all the services. However, it’s come to light that YouTube’s licensing agreements with the three major labels have either expired or are about to, which brings new hope that renegotiated terms might mean increased revenue for the industry.

That hope may prove false though, since YouTube continues to hold all the leverage - in fact, it holds virtually all of it.

Until now, the major labels could drive a hard bargain with all other streaming services that not only gained them hefty upfront fees, but also even a piece of the company in some cases. If a music service didn’t like a label’s terms, it still had no choice but to take the deal, otherwise it would be minus the label’s catalog, which could mean a death blow to the service.

Not so with YouTube.

Since so much of the music on the service is illegally uploaded by its users, the company is able to dictate the license agreement terms, since if a label balks and refuses to agree to the deal, its music will still appear on the service.

In fact, Warner Music tried this very tactic a few years ago, but after a year of its songs still appearing on YouTube yet generating zero revenue, the company acquiesced and signed a deal on YouTube’s terms. Getting some money is better than no money at all.

All this is made possible thanks to the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which protects YouTube and other similar services in that they can’t be held liable as a result of unlicensed content that its users might upload. A record label can ask that the content be taken down, and YouTube will comply, but chances are that content will be re-uploaded immediately and the cycle will continue. Plus the burden of finding any unlicensed versions lies with the labels, all of which spend a great deal of time and resources searching for violations. 

So YouTube is in the drivers seat in these negotiations. Even if the labels don’t like the deal presented, they have no recourse since their music will find its way onto the service, but the labels will get zero money if they pull their catalogs because they don’t like the terms.

Read more on Forbes.

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How Gen Z Is Using Social Media

Gen Z is coming of age and they have a whole different take on communication than the generations before. Gen Z is generally defined with birth years ranging from the mid or late 1990s through the early 2010s or starting from the early 2000s.

A study by the college marketing insights agency Fluent examined the online active of Gen Zers and found a number of interesting points.

• Facebook is still the top network for many users. 51% use the platform for keeping in touch with high school friends and family, while 39% used it for keeping in touch with college friends. Gen Zers like the fact that the platform keeps on top of new technical trends like messaging and video.

• Snapchat and Instagram were used to keep in touch with closer friends, particularly at college. 34 and 35% used Snapchat and Instagram several times a day.

• They spend their time online looking for content rather than social interaction.

• 24% sample new apps every month.

• YouTube is a major destination with 80% of respondents.

• That said, Facebook has become a major video destination as well for 79% of respondents.

• 32% watched at least 1 hour of video a day, 30% watched 2 hours a day, and 21% watched 3 hours a day.

• They cannot live without the following brands in order of popularity: Apple, Samsung, Google, Netflix, YouTube.

Notice that Twitter isn't a part of the social mix. This goes to show that pictures and video are a big part of the Gen Z lifestyle, so if you're fan base is in this demographic, this is something to strongly consider in future marketing campaigns.

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YouTube Says It Pays Plenty Of Royalties

Many fingers are being pointed at YouTube for not contributing much to label and artist bank accounts despite the enormous number of streams it generates.

For instance, YouTube claims that it had 50% of the 317 billion streams last year, yet paid only a fraction of what the paid tier from Spotify paid.

How much? We don't have the exact breakouts, but a combination of YouTube, Soundcloud, and all the ad-supported tiers from all streaming services accounted for $385 million in the U.S. in 2015.

Premium tiers of Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play and others amounted to $1.22 billion last year.

While everyone is disgruntled with YouTube for paying such low rates, its response as been that it's paid out over $3 billion dollars to the music industry, which is deceiving in that it's over the services lifetime, not last year.

The fact of the matter is that YouTube is still the go-to service by most people to listen to music, yet it pays the least to artists, songwriters, labels and publishers.

Yet the company has the music industry over a barrel as it holds all the leverage. Whether an artist wants their music there or not, chances are some fan is going to upload it, so it's always going to be available, and the price is still right at free.

Unfortunately, don't expect this dynamic to change soon.

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YouTube Now Lets You Selectively Blur The Screen

YouTube videos are so incredibly powerful that every artist and band has to do them in order to both engage their current fan base and also to expand it as well. That said, many artists shoot randomly and never think of the consequences of not getting releases from people and places in the video.

There are times that people and venues want money for using their name and likeness. That used to require a reshoot, which wasn't always possible, until now. YouTube now gives you the tools to selectively blur any part of your video for maximum anonymity.

Way back in 2012 YouTube launched a face blurring tool, but the current update allows other things to be blurred out in the video like license plates, phone numbers, wardrobe malfunctions, disturbing imagery, etc.

You draw a box on top of the part of the video that you wish to blur, and then the feature will track the object as it moves throughout the video. You can also choose when the blurring begins and ends.

This update is only available on the desktop version of YouTube at the moment, but they promise that the mobile version update will follow soon.

Here's a video that shows how to do it.

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Bandpage Is Acquired By YouTube

Bandpage, the app that allows artists to monetize their followings, has been acquired by YouTube for a fire sale price of $8 million.

The app allows artists to set up a store and syndicate it to numerous social media and streaming platforms.

Bandpage started as an app to create a special tab on an artist's Facebook page, and had about 32 million users when Facebook shut that feature down in 2012. The company reportedly lost 90% of its traffic in 3 months.

The app then disconnected from a single platform, instead allowing artists to syndicate their pages or stores to most of the artist-friendly platforms available instead.

The company claims to have over 500,000 users, among them superstars like Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake.

Investors had poured over $32 million into the app, so a sale of only $8 million is somewhat surprising. It should be interesting to see how YouTube integrates it, especially now that the YouTube Red service has launched.

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Physical Album Sales Actually Increased Last Year

After years of decline, physical album sales actually increased 1.1% in the U.S. in 2015, according to Nielsen.

There's a caveat there though. 3.6% of that came from Adele, and her 25 album was only available for 6 weeks. That album has sold over 7.4 million copies in the U.S. last year alone and is still going strong.

Digital album download sales fell by 1.1% last year, and according to BuzzAngle, song streams on audio platforms were up 99.2% to 137.5 billion. Song streams on video platforms like YouTube and Vevo were up almost as much at 97.9% to 168.6 billion.

And as we all expected, vinyl sales were up 56% to around $6 million in sales.

That's a pretty good year for music overall, and expect 2016 to be even better.

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The Evolution Of Online Video

Believe it or not, online video is only about 10 years old, and as we all know, it's come a long way in that time.

Just about everyone has posted a video and many are actually making money doing so. And online video cuts across all age demographics, so even though younger Americans are more prolific, the 50+ year-olds watch more video online than ever before.

Here's a great infographic from SwitcherStudio that shows just how much things have changed since YouTube was created 10 years ago.

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Adele Foregoes Streaming In A Last Dash For Cash

Adele’s new album 25 was released last week and, as many predicted, it won’t be on any streaming services, as she and her record label make what might be the last attempt at some serious money from physical product before the format disappears.

That Adele should even be in this position speaks well of her music and her generally older fanbase, as the music deeply motivates fans to acquire her music at any cost (just like Taylor Swift and her last album 1989).

Although the songs from 25 won’t be on any of the major streaming services at least initially, you can be sure that by latter today it will be spread all over YouTube by zealous fans posting audio-only and lyric videos. Of course, these will be joined by official Adele videos, so at least some of her music will still be available on the largest streaming network currently available, especially now that YouTube Red and Music have launched.

While it’s easy to see why Adele (or her management or label) chose to forego streaming, the decision only postpones the inevitable. It might take 90 days or more before 25 appears on Spotify or Apple Music, but rest-assured it will be there eventually. 

The real question is how much sales might have been hurt had the decision been made to go the streaming route the day of the release of the physical album. In fact, it’s likely that the songs from 25 would have racked up some massive numbers on the various streaming services and might have even caused some new fans to register, which would have been a win for entire music business. Read more on Forbes.

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YouTube Debuts Its "Music" App

Don't look now but YouTube just launched another music app. This one is fittingly titled YouTube Music and is an audio-only version of its recently launched YouTube Red service.

YouTube Music is free to download, and there's a free, ad-supported tier, but you unleash its power if you become a YouTube Red subscriber for $9.99 per month.

The experience is optimized for music and allows you to search for a particular song from its 30 million licensed tracks. The key here is that when you search in the app, you'll only get music-related results.

It should be noted that the app doesn't replicate Google Play Music (which is included if you sign up for Red) as it doesn't allow you to create a playlist. What it does instead is create a playlist for you based on what you've listened to before as well as some songs that it thinks you'll like.

Of course, its ad-free if you've signed up for Red, but it's yet to be seen if that will be enough to attract new users.

If you're using either YouTube Red or YouTube Music, let us know what you think. Is it worth the money?

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