Swift, Beck, McCartney join campaign against YouTube

Following the US petition signed by musicians including Katy Perry and Billy Joel, the public blasting of YouTubeby Trent Reznor, and an open letter from Sixx:AM to amend the US Copyright Act, big music stars have signed a letter which requests a similar action be taken to ensure fair compensation for rights holders.

The letter, sent to US Congress, was organised by manager Irving Azoff, and has been signed by 180 people including artists Taylor Swift, Troye Sivan and Paul McCartney, industry players like the NMPA and Kobalt, and the big three record labels, Sony, Universal and Warner.

Artist signees:

Industry signees:

The letter technically calls out the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The 1998 law protects YouTube against being liable as a result of unlicensedcontent that its users might upload. This is referred to as the ‘value gap’.However, Azoff has been vocally dissatisfied with YouTube’s payment model and its abuse of the ‘value gap’. In an interview withRecodeAzoff called YouTube’s abuse of the DMCA “dangerous.”

“It’s not just about the money. It’s about control and what we leave behind in the future,” he said. “This isn’t a fee dispute. It’s far deeper. That’s why it’s really dangerous for anybody to hide behind the DMCA if they need a relationship with anybody in the music business.”

While YouTube has noted it has to date payed out “over $3 billion to the music industry,” the label sector is currently in discussions to renew their licensing deals with the streaming giant.

Current negotiations are seen to have put the music industry in a position of power. Azoff told Recode he believes that if YouTube refuses to update its payment model and stop abusing the ‘value gap’, labels will remove their music from the platform.

“I would be shocked, after supporting all these artists in a letter to Congress, [if] these big labels would turn around and make voluntary extensions to YouTube,” Azoff said.

According to a reportbyMBW in April, Universal has “put together both an ‘on YouTube’ strategy and an ‘off YouTube’ strategy– the latter very much an ‘in case of emergency’ fallback”.

Read the music industry’s full letter to US Congress below:

DEAR CONGRESS: THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT (DMCA) IS BROKEN AND NO LONGER WORKS FOR CREATORS
As songwriters and artists who are a vital contributing force to the U.S. and to American exports around the world, we are writing to express our concern about the ability of the next generation of creators to earn a living. The existing laws threaten the continued viability of songwriters and recording artists to survive from the creation of music. Aspiring creators shouldn’t have to decide between making music and making a living. Please protect them.

One of the biggest problems confronting songwriters and recording artists today is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law was written and passed in an era that is technologically out-of-date compared to the era in which we live. It has allowed major tech companies to grow and generate huge profits by creating ease of use for consumers to carry almost every recorded song in history in their pocket via a smartphone, while songwriters’ and artists’ earnings continue to diminish. Music consumption has skyrocketed, but the monies earned by individual writers and artists for that consumption has plummeted.

The DMCA simply doesn’t work. It’s impossible for tens of thousands of individual songwriters and artists to muster the resources necessary to comply with its application. The tech companies who benefit from the DMCA today were not the intended protectorate when it was signed into law nearly two decades ago. We ask you to enact sensible reform that balances the interests of creators with the interests of the companies who exploit music for their financial enrichment. It’s only then that consumers will truly benefit.