Musicians should be able to opt out of YouTube, Irving Azoff says
Irving Azoff thinks YouTube is being a little bit of a hypocrite.
On Monday, two weeks after YouTube penned a damage-control blog post denying claims that it mistreats musicians, the music manager -- who works with a list of high-profile artists including Christina Aguilera and Thirty Seconds to Mars -- said he's not buying any of it.
In an open letter posted on recode, Azoff said that despite YouTube's claim that "no other platform gives as much money back to creators," the company does very, very little to give artists control over what appears on YouTube and actually "pays artist a pittance."
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In his statement last month, YouTube's Christophe Muller maintained that YouTube has a deep respect for musicians and believe they "deserve to be compensated fairly." But Azoff disagrees: "If YouTube valued music, then it would allow artists to have the same control which YouTube grants to itself."
As an example, he points to the fact that YouTube's original programs are only available to those who subscribe to YouTube Red for $9.99 a month.
"If music matters to YouTube, then why not give musicians the same choice you give yourselves? Taylor Swift should be able to decide which of her songs are available for free and which are part of a paid subscription service. Or she should be able to opt out of YouTube if you won’t give her this choice."
That, of course, is not an option. Artists have two methods for monitoring their music on YouTube. One way is the Content ID, in which an artist provides reference files of their music and the system will automatically claim content, giving an artist the option to block, make money from or track user engagement on claimed videos.
In their blog post YouTube maintained that 99.5 percent of music claims are handled this way and that those claims are handled with "99.7 percent accuracy." But Azoff calls the system "meaningless when YouTube continues to hide behind the 'safe harbor' provisions of the DMCA."
In March, dozens of artists including Katy Perry and Christina Aguilera called for changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was passed in 1998, far before anyone could have anticipated just how often music would be uploaded to the internet.
A letter signed by 47 music managers --- including Azoff -- called compared the DMCA takedown process to a game of Whack-a-Mole.
"No one can police that vastness – and anyone who tries to do so finds the universe online is growing faster than our ability to inspect it for illegal copies of our clients’ work. Today, the instant an infringing link is taken down, it is replaced by many more. It’s 'whack-a-mole' on steroids in which every time the mole is knocked down, two more pop up, then four, then eight."
In his letter on Monday, Azoff urged YouTube to join in on the call for changes to the DMCA. "Or, better yet, you could really prove your love for music by not allowing music on to YouTube unless you ask the creators of that song for permission."
"I know how easy it is to take shots at record companies and publishers — I have been doing it for years. But the root of the problem here is you: You have built a business that works really well for you and for Google, but it doesn’t work well for artists. If you think it is just the labels and publishers who are complaining, you are wrong. The music community is traditionally a very fractured one, but on this we are united."
Read Azoff's letter in full at recode. A representative for YouTube has not responded to Mashable's request for comment.
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