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Trent Reznor says YouTube is “built on the backs of free, stolen content”
- jinushaun 10y agoI thought YouTube was built on the backs of videos of cats and stupid human tricks.
- guyzero 10y agoApple employee Trent Reznor...
- overcast 10y agoWell yeh, I thought this was pretty common knowledge at this point.
- tsunamifury 10y agoSo was the iPod. Products are built on the back of what people want and its a very tough row if you want to go against that.
- genghisjahn 10y agoFunny you mention the iPod. Back when music companies were getting eaten alive by mp3s and napster, Apple didn't seem to care as much. Their slogan was Rip Mix Burn. "And the electronics industry's attitude toward the labels is summed up by an Apple slogan: Rip. Mix. Burn. Which, a music executive once told me, translates into "Fuck you, record labels." http://www.wired.com/2003/02/dirge/ http://www.wired.com/2003/02/dirge/
- drzaiusapelord 10y agoRip meant taking physical audio CD's you own and migrating them to mp3. The slogan wasn't Download Mix Burn. Apple has always been strong on the IP end of things.
- douche 10y ago> Rip meant taking physical audio CD's you own and migrating them to mp3 Rip meant taking physical audio CD's you, or anyone you knew, owned. One kid buys a CD, and the next day it's in every kid in the school's iTunes library. I think iTunes even had an ability to just grab and copy MP3s from anybody's library that was broadcasting on the network, circa 2006-07.
- extra88 10y agoRight but after "Rip" is "Mix," i.e. create a playlist of different tracks, then "Burn," burn them to a disc (as an Audio CD or a data disc with MP3 or AAC files). Since it's the the 00's version of making a mix tape, that burnt disc is probably going to someone who didn't buy the CDs in the first place, i.e. copyright infringement by distributing works without permission. The British record industry in the Eighties had a "home taping is killing music" campaign, the could've updated it to "home burning is killing music."
- nikdaheratik 10y agoAnd the record companies made big bucks by distributing everything as $20 CDs even if the consumer really only wanted a single song off the album. Of course, the reason why they wanted the single was because the other 8 tracks weren't very good and only there so the company could justify charging $20. It's not like the record companies were completely blameless. They didn't care about their customers, they only cared about the artists they signed because they were legally obligated to, and no one who cares about music is mourning their downfall.
- Karunamon 10y agoAnother irrelevant 90s musician making bombastic comments about copyright, another day.
- tikumo 10y agoYeah but this musician provides free downloads of his music and high quality garage band files for a low price. That makes it somewhat different.. From his site: as a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com. the music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. your link will include all options - all free. all downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits.
- spriggan3 10y ago> Yeah but this musician provides free downloads of his music and high quality garage band files for a low price. That makes it somewhat different.. After making loads of money in the 90s from the very music industry he despises now. It's easy to give stuff for free when you are already rich.
- k-mcgrady 10y agoOk so he has lots of money, has given a lot of his stuff away for free but is complaining about businesses being built from stolen content. Why? I guess he's standing up for the musicians without a loud enough voice to complain about this stuff then.
- joezydeco 10y agoYeah, what a poser, making all that music and winning all those Grammy and Oscar awards. When does your next record drop?
- dragonwriter 10y ago> Another irrelevant 90s musician making bombastic comments about copyright I thought it was "another current corporate executive talking down a major competitor's successful product."
- tomclancy 10y agoMost video sites are. From eBaumsWorld to Facebook Video.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Cuuugi 10y agoI agree with Gabe Newell's stance on piracy. "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable." http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-Piracy-Is-a-Service-Problem http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-Gabe...
- overcast 10y agoThis is exactly right. Steam single-handedly revived the entire PC gaming market. A simple to use interface, that has your entire collection / achievements / whatever, that can be accessed from anywhere, without screwing around with keys. That's why it works.
- jdc 10y agoIs there anything that iTunes could learn from Steam?
- overcast 10y agoYes, by selling full CD quality or higher tracks, and with infamous "Steam Sales". There is no incentive for me to buy a lossy track, when I can just go buy the entire disc cheap online. I know most people don't care about audio quality, but this is a major contention for me.
- golergka 10y agoDid you do a double blind test between an uncompressed CD track and same track in 320 kbps (same master — not vinyl, not "mastered for iTunes)? Did you really hear the difference in statistically significant number of trials?
- lucideer 10y ago> It’s a markedly different opinion from when a 2007 pre-Apple Reznor said the iTunes store made him feel “uncool” (“[it] feels like Sam Goody to me”) and admitted he was a frequent user of the file sharing website OiNK. Whatever your views on his statements are, this comparison is fallacious. He's called YouTube disingenuous for building a business on the back of stolen content. OiNK can neither be accused of disingenuity, nor of building a business.
- vthallam 10y agoWell, which video site is not? Youtube's DMCA responses are really good, compared to FB or any other video platform.
- k-mcgrady 10y ago>> "Youtube's DMCA responses are really good, compared to FB or any other video platform." Yes but they only started doing that after they became the go-to site for videos. If they didn't allow copyrighted materials from the beginning it never would have become the behemoth it is and more than likely would've died before it had a big enough audience to entice copyright owners to strike deals with it.
- unfocused 10y agoI wonder what has changed his mind since he was a member of Oink, a UK torrent site aimed at music. The (very brief) article mentions it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oink%27s_Pink_Palace#Notable_users https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oink%27s_Pink_Palace#Notable_u...
- clydethefrog 10y agoOink was not a business. Oink was an invitation-only BitTorrent community. Reznor even has a relevant quote in the Wikipedia article you linked: "they're not stealing it because they're going to make money off of it; they're stealing it because they love the band" Meanwhile, YouTube is a business, it displays ads for stolen content and everyone has easy access to it.
- unfocused 10y agoYou have a good point. Perhaps one could say they are "trying" to pay content providers, but are just not doing as good a job as iTunes. Apple has far better control over iTunes, than Google has over Youtube. Youtube is just a different animal.
- Programmatic 10y agoThanks for posting this, it's easy to forget the distinction between the two. I was just thinking that it's awful inconsiderate to have a stance against piracy given that he himself literally asked people to pirate his music, but there is a difference between people sharing information vs. a platform monetizing it.
- k__ 10y agoI thought he generally wasnt a friend of the Internet. Last thing I read from him was a rant about social media :/
- k-mcgrady 10y agoSocial media != the internet Years ago he was making his Nine Inch Nails tracks available for users to download and remix. He uploaded an entire concert (HD, multiple angles, terabytes of video if I remember) to bit torrent so users could download it and produce their own concert film. So he's been taking advantage of the power of the internet for a while and fans have benefited from that. I think his problem is when you take away control from the artist.
- WalterBright 10y agoLaws that try to stop people from getting what they want in what they perceive as victimless are doomed to fail, no matter how punitive the enforcement. Examples: prostitution, gambling, drugs, books, music, video
- exolymph 10y agoWell put.
- spriggan3 10y ago> prostitution, gambling, drugs, books, music, video Prostitution and drugs are hardly victim-less.
- CaptSpify 10y ago> in what they perceive as victimless
- aangjie 10y agoTrue, yet they can be and are in a lot of cases "perceived" as victimless or atleast neglible victimhood. (For ex: read iceberg slim and you get the sense that for him the women were either better off with him(less poor) or just loved sex and drugs anyway they'd be prostitutes without him too.) Which I guess/believe was the point OP was making.
- mthoms 10y agoThat certainly isn't a given. Not even close.
- jknightco 10y agoBoth can absolutely be victimless. I would argue that the biggest reason they aren't victimless more often is because they're both crimes in most countries.
- WalterBright 10y agoadd booze and cigs, basically any "for your own good" morals "crimes".
- splawn 10y agoAs if he should criticize about being built from stolen content. Watch "young gods envoye" from the 80's then watch Reznor's "broken", which was produced many years later... and I recommend using youtube to do it.
- corysama 10y agoIf he copy-pasted audio or video from Envoye you'd have an argument. There's no copyright on style.
- splawn 10y agoYou are correct. Perhaps this is OT, but I have 100% respect for youtube as a useful service that I use every day even if its due to something illegal. In contrast, I have very little respect for any artist that bites their style wholesale from another artist esp if they have a successful career from it...even if it is legal to do so.
- shiftpgdn 10y agoHow many record labels are making massive profit (via bogus DMCA/Content Aware disputes) off of the backs of YouTube creators? I've had multiple videos get their adsense dollars removed because there was 5 seconds of pop music emanating from a storefront I walked by in my video. With views and adsense revenue being heavily front loaded against the upload time of the video I have no method of recovery of those lost dollars.
- Reason077 10y agoIs it, though? In my experience YouTube (or is it the copyright owners?) are quite aggressive about scanning for unauthorised music and removing it - to the point where you actually have to be careful about things like having the radio on in the background during a video. In fact, they even provide tools to help you fix videos that have audio copyright claims against them... https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2902117?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2902117?hl=en
- overcast 10y agoYeh conveniently when YouTube started to have paid offerings, rentals, etc, they started cracking down on those pirated copies. Obvious is obvious on that one.
- rayiner 10y agoThat's relatively recent. The early popularity of Youtube was built on offering streaming access to other peoples' content for free.
- magicalist 10y ago> That's relatively recent It's at least 7 years old[1] and the system itself (if not the name) is almost 9 years old[2]. That's not recent relative to just about anything. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/01/youtubes-january-fair-use-massacre https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/01/youtubes-january-fair-... [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/10/youtubes-copyright-filter-new-hurdle-fair-use https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/10/youtubes-copyright-fil...
- whatok 10y agoWould Youtube even exist if it had to have something like Content ID when it first launched? Its existence definitely took advantage of the relative lawlessness of the web back then. Don't see much difference between how Youtube established vs Uber/AirBnB as far as break shit and pay for it later goes.
- 10y ago
- incongruity 10y agoMuch of the internet is built from free things. If we really want to talk about inequity of rewards for effort expended[1], I think content producers need to get in a long line... [1] The difference, of course, is that many of the free resources were given away by license. However, at the end of the day, very little compensation has gone to many people who have built critical, foundational parts of the infrastructure that has fueled billions of dollars in revenue for companies world wide. On some level, hearing a musician who has been compensated, significantly, for their work complain about inequities kind of makes me laugh.
- 1_2__3 10y agoI'm sure then that he paid for and licensed all his NBK samples, Star Wars samples, Prince samples, and Queen, and David Bowie, and Kiss, and and and.
- k-mcgrady 10y agoIf these are samples he used in commercial tracks I'm sure he licensed them because if he didn't he'd have been sued out of existence by now.
- dri_ft 10y agoThings were different in the eighties. I think the precedent-setting anti-sampling lawsuits came about in the early nineties. The Beastie Boys album Paul's Boutique was famously built from hundreds of unlicensed samples, and was one of the last albums that could be made that way, because shortly thereafter it became necessary to license samples.
- coldtea 10y agoWhether he did or not, sampling a track is different than downloading a track without compensating the artist and the production company.
- draw_down 10y agoYeah, and it kicks the shit out of every offering the RIAA and their pals come up with. Funny how that works.
- dwaltrip 10y agoPersonally, I find it not at all obvious that artists "deserve" to be paid for any use of their "intellectual property". Hell, I don't even find the concept of physical property to be straightforward. Almost every single physical object we have in our lives today is built off the work and ideas of countless millions and billions of people before us. So the objects in our lives that we "own" and have "earned", in reality, were earned and produced by large swaths of humanity over thousands of years. Now, how do we reconcile this with the fact that I'm still standing here, holding the object in my hand, and "no, I definitely would not like to give it to you, thank you very much". That seems incredibly tricky. And then of course there is the fact the concept of property ownership does incentive huge amounts of innovation and productivity. So we don't want to ruin that. I'll have to continue thinking about this another day...