There has been a lot of talk overnight about YouTube (owned by Google) not being able to come to a royalty deal with the PRS in UK, thus leading to all music videos being removed from YouTube effective immediately. Here are links to the statement about the situation from YouTube and the PRS.
I don’t want to just run through what many other sites and news sources are writing about, I wanted to discuss why a solution didn’t happen and what is going to happen next to both the PRS and YouTube.
YouTube and the PRS couldn’t come to a royalty deal mainly because the PRS were asking for a lot and they were providing no real information in return. The PRS were asking for blanked royalties but weren’t able to specifically say what artists would receive the royalties and what amounts they would receive. YouTube stated the following:
“PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our license than before…we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback. In addition, PRS is unwilling to tell us what songs are included in the license they can provide so that we can identify those works…that’s like asking a consumer to buy an unmarked CD without knowing what musicians are on it.”
It is kind of like the PRS just expected YouTube to meet their demands no matter what they asked. In addition, on the PRS statement for some reason they mentioned Google’s last quarter revenues for 2008 in which have completely no relevance in this case. The PRS still seem to be using old methods to try to force companies into agreements that just simply aren’t realistic in this current economic climate. Remember that Pandora is not in the UK anymore because the PRS couldn’t offer them a decent agreement and forced them to basically close up shop in this country.
This leads me to believe that there is now a potential for YouTube to launch a spinoff site as already reported with all four major labels, which will attract high levels of advertisers and also possibly sidestep old music companies like the PRS.
Crenk has long been a part of the Insomnia Media Group, which today is launching our music initiative.
RouteNote is a user driven music distribution service, allowing indie artists to get access to major online retailers and make their music available to film, radio and other media producers for quick, easy licensing.
The site is launching into public beta which involves our distribution section. Distribution through RouteNote will allow unsigned artists and independent labels from all over the world to sell their music in some of the worlds largest online stores. RouteNote is a completely non-exclusive music distributor that has some of the best rates in the industry. Artists are able to sign up for FREE, uploading as many tracks as they would like and being able to keep 90% of the revenues from download sales.
What RouteNote offers:
- Retain 100% Ownership of your tracks
- Non-exclusive
- Worldwide Exposure
- No Signup Fees
- Receive 90% from all download sales
- It wont stop you from signing up to a record label in the future
- Forward looking partnerships and marketing expertise
RouteNote is a unique service that can help hundreds of thousands of artists all over the world. So why not signup today.
Stay tuned for more features to also launch over time.
RouteNote is the new product by Insomnia Ltd, in which im currently CEO. RouteNote has just launched a new weblog which will discuss all the happenings are the music industry as well as profile artists and partners that sign to the RouteNote.
About RouteNote
RouteNote is an online music licensing and distribution service providing artists instant access to a large proportion of the online market, and delivering an innovative licensing service to the creative media industry. Designed and built to take advantage of the shift towards independent and self-publication through online and mobile music outlets, and the consumer switch to online purchasing as outlined by the success of iTunes, Myspace and Pump Audio, RouteNote is partnered with some of the biggest retailers on the web to give artists massive and immediate availability for their tracks.
Onsite, artists can upload tracks to the RouteNote catalogue and enter into a non exclusive agreement permitting us to offer their music for licensed use in media projects like films, TV shows, games and websites. They then select partnered retail outlets that they wish their music to be available through (e.g. Napster, Snocap, Samsung Mobile) and within moments their songs are earning money as part of a world wide, web wide, distribution network. Our rates for providing a distribution service are currently the best in the market, and our ever expanding catalogue gives us increasing muscle with which to negotiate deals from which everyone, artists, clients and distribution partners included will all benefit.
Creative media clients wishing to license music through RouteNote for use in their projects can use our intuitive browse and search facilities to quickly find the tracks they need and generate a license individually tailored to their purpose within minutes. Our teams experience of media production gives us first hand knowledge of the way clients source music, meaning the site is designed to let users find appropriate music efficiently and intuitively. Users have the ability to create and save shortlists of search terms, tracks and license terms for multiple projects making our service easy to use for first timers, and even more helpful for repeat customers.
I have been reading various articles this week about CDBaby and how they broke their deal with Snocap. I have actually seen all of the CDBaby figures on how much their artist were selling on Snocap and the figures weren’t too bad. However if you are a music aggregator and trying to work with Snocap it is a little more difficult than just providing distribution to online stores. The issues with Snocap is the amount of time it takes to implement a widget store and which songs will need to be selected.
CDBaby is now offering for their artists to sign up with Snocap individually and receive the first year free. If however this doesn’t work for you then make sure you head over to RouteNote which will be launching in a few months and already has Snocap signed as a founding partner. RouteNote will also not charge any signup fees and can license your music for TV, Radio and Advertising at the same time.
RouteNote has just signed a deal to provide our content on Audio Lunchbox. Audio Lunchbox will sell our content on their sites and services for the next three years. Audio Lunchbox has a licensed catalog of over 2 million songs in 79 sub-genres. Audio Lunchbox is the only service on the web to offer both a la carte and permanent subscription downloads side by side. Well thats what they claim.
There has been a buzz around the blogosphere in the last day or so about Pump Audio and how they have finally been intergrated with Getty Images. As most of us know Pump Audio was purchase by Getty Images for about $42 million. Pump has a catalog of approx 20,000 independent artists in which their music is licensed for use on the Web, TV or Radio. Pump’s customers range from major TV shows like The Colbert Report to advertising agencies and podcasters.
Getty yesterday announced that they have re-launched Pump Audio under the name Soundtrack on the Getty site. This must be the most over-hyped event from Getty in a very long time and I cant believe the blogosphere (Techcrunch, Mashable) has jumped onboard. It is as if Soundtrack was a completely new product and it has just be released, but that is the complete opposite to what has really happened. Soundtrack is a tool designed by Pump Audio most before the purchase and I have been using Soundtrack for the last six months or so. All Getty has done is place a link on their site to the Soundtrack tool. So why the hell is this getting blog and press coverage??
Imeem, the service that offers a widget for sharing your music playlist, has reached a deal with Sony BMG to legally offer their music to users. In exchange for allowing Imeem users stream Sony BMG music in their widgets, the record label will get a cut of the advertising revenue. Imeem previously signed a similar deal with Warner Music, after the record company first tried to sue them.
Imeem has already signed with RouteNote. RouteNote has a private beta test launching next month, so make sure you signup.
