5 ms·

'I was exploited by Google'

12 points by rglovejoy 18y ago

swombat 18y ago
I think he should pay Google 22 cents for every time they play Rick Astley, because he's getting fre publicity.
- seertaak 18y ago
  a) The figure would be 0.022 pence under the current contract, and 0.22 pence under the legally-mandated minimum per-play charge, not 22 pence. b) The argument that Google gives him free publicity depends crucially on the assumption that a viewer will go to iTunes and buy either a video or a single after viewing the video. But, and numerous consumer behaviour studies have borne this out, this is in fact not the case. And the reason why is obvious: what's the point of going to iTunes and paying for the video when you can watch it any number of times in YouTube? YouTube replaces demand for the video, it doesn't enhance it. Even if you don't accept the conclusion of the consumer behaviour studies (and it's true that there are a few studies which contradict those findings), the idea that YouTube promotes sales doesn't tally with industry revenues over the last two years in which YouTube's hits for music videos have exploded -- the music industry has seen online growth of, IIRC, 17% or so, but that has been more than offset by decline in CD sales of around 20%. So all in all, people are buying less music. If YouTube is such an excellent vehicle for publicity, where are the resultant increased sales? Over time, this argument becomes increasingly untenable.
  - swombat 18y ago
    I can't imagine that all that many people use Youtube as their music collection repository. Just because someone listened to a tune on Youtube (or, as is the case for most Rick Astley listens, got rickrolled) doesn't mean that they would have bought the song to listen to it. I have no sympathy for the music industry. They are monopolistic cartels that have abused the public and the artists for decades. Why are you defending them? Let them all go bust. The world will be a much better place without them.
weavejester 18y ago
"Waterman, whose fortune was estimated at £47 million by The Times in 2004, compared this treatment to the "exploitation" of migrant workers in the Middle East." I like this line. Presumably Waterman signed a contract with his publisher that allowed his song to be played by Google. If that contract is exploitative, surely that's his publisher's fault (or his own, for signing it), not Google's.
- seertaak 18y ago
  Actually, no; the PRS is authorized to negotiate mechanical rights rates on the artists' behalf -- otherwise Waterman would have to sign a contract with each and every local radio station, pub, etc. The PRS negotiated the agreement with Google at a rate close to .022p per play (note: pence, not pounds!), which is well below the legally mandated minimum (I believe this legal minimum was introduced after the agreement with Google) for radio stations and other users of 0.22p per-play. Google, so far, has been getting an excellent deal compared to other redistributors of music. That they can't manage to eek a profit out of their business model is not PRS For Music's fault. I applaud Waterman's looking out for the interests of musicians and songwriters -- considering how much mullah he already has, it's quite clear that he's not doing this out of self-interest. He's interested in protecting the community of musicians and songwriters. And rightly so, in my opinion: they are being fleeced.
  - lacker 18y ago
    He's not being fleeced. You think he'd be better off if Rick Astley was banned from Youtube? Without Youtube, there would be no Rickrolling, and there would be no value in having the rights to "Never Gonna Give You Up". Plus, I'm sure the phenomenon is making him money via making the song more popular in other more lucrative channels. This is making him money, just not as much as he'd like.
    - seertaak 18y ago
      I'm not sure I follow. You're saying he's not being fleeced because he would make less if his video wasn't on YouTube. That's like saying a sweatshop worker in China is not being fleeced, even if they earn a pittance, because they'd be making less money working on a farm, for instance...
zacharydanger 18y ago
"...because I earned less for a year's work..." Yeah, I'm sure he was working hard full-time for those royalties. Not that he doesn't deserve royalties, but I think it's a falsification to consider waiting for a royalty check to come in, "work".
- jodrellblank 18y ago
  Why does he deserve royalties? It probably took him, oh I don't know... less than two months to co-write, 22 years ago.
  - seertaak 18y ago
    > Why does he deserve royalties? I take it you don't approve of software patents either? In the interest of consistency, that is.
    - nkurz 18y ago
      Most programmers on this forum, especially those working open source, are opposed to software patents as currently implemented. They make it impossible to do anything non-trivial without running the risk of being sued for infringing what should probably be considered a basic technique. The musical analogy would be something like copyright of chord progressions, such that any time you released what you considered a new piece of music there was a small but real chance that you would be sued for an amount greater than your life's savings. Are you confident of your ability to convince a court that your strumming of GCDG is sufficiently original to be non-infringing? You mentioned in an earlier thread that you worked as a developer, so I presume you are familiar with these issues. Am I right that you 1) presume that you are legally shielded by your employer and 2) that you do not release the source to the code that you write?
      - seertaak 18y ago
        > Most programmers on this forum, especially those working open source, are opposed to software patents as currently implemented. They make it impossible to do anything non-trivial without running the risk of being sued for infringing what should probably be considered a basic technique. You raise some valid points. But you're not really disagreeing with me, are you? You say "as currently implemented", which means that you agree in principle to the concept. And if, if you recall, the comment I was replying was questioning whether royalties should exist at all; they weren't suggesting that it be "tweaked", rather that it be abolished altogether. I'm saying that's a pretty extreme view, and used the similar case of software patents to make my point. In any case, I agree that there is a tradeoff, and it's true that in some cases -- especially software patents --we've gotten to a kind of silly season. But I don't think all patents -- even the majority of patents -- are egregious. Perhaps I was too restrictive in specifying software patents. A new question: do you not agree with patents in general? I think it's much harder to argue that, for instance, a pharmaceutical that invests billions of dollars on a new treatment shouldn't be protected from a competitor simply copying its product and putting it to the market. I'm basically arguing that the concept of intellectual property is a valid and fair one. Obviously there can be debates about details, but the principle, in my view, is sound, and even the most ardent of open-source adherents agrees as much, else why the meticulous emphasis on the precise terms of licenses like the GPL? If you don't believe the creator has "ownership" over something that can be copied at zero cost, how can you argue against, for instance, Tivoization? > The musical analogy would be something like copyright of chord progressions I would have thought that the musical analogy is copyright, which refers to an expression -- a somewhat nebulous term but which is nonetheless amenable to common sense judgements. To patent chord progressions would obviously be silly, because there's relatively few of them that sound good. And yes, I am 100% confident that my songs (shameless plug: http://www.myspace.com/thesignalsuk http://www.myspace.com/thesignalsuk) are sufficiently distinct from anything else that I could argue that in a court of law and prevail! They are indeed original expressions ;) To answer your questions: 1) You mean from patent infringement? Yes, I would think so. 2) No; I work in a hedge fund. To open-source our strategies would be commercial suicide. I suppose that gives me a different outlook from you. ;)
TweedHeads 18y ago
Oh god, not another attack from redmond disguised as retarded journalism.
alecco 18y ago
Thank you. That was funny.
- seertaak 18y ago
  I'm pretty sure that had you written a tune that got viewed/listened to 150 odd million times (notwithstanding how god-awful it is!), and you'd received 11 pounds for it, you wouldn't think it was so funny. Imagine if you'd written a game and you put it on iTunes, and you'd observed 150MM downloads, but only got 11 pounds from iTunes. You're telling me you wouldn't feel exploited? There really is a double-standard at work here. When musicians/songwriters say they're being fleeced, members of this (hacker) community pooh-pooh them, and accuse them of being dinosaurs who just don't get it. When a developer writes an app that gets rejected by the iTunes store, devs are up in arms about lost dev time and the financial implication. Similarly if Google Checkout decides to terminate a developers account and said developer loses pending income. It's totally natural for groups to look after their own, but one might have hoped that an elite community like Hacker News would be able to recognize this tendency. Sadly, from the evidence I've seen here from posters, whose views on the music industry are, generally speaking, at once flippant, condescending, arrogant, cold-hearted, and ill-informed, this is far from being the case.
  - lacker 18y ago
    I'm sure he has made far more than 11 pounds on the Rickrolling phenomenon.
    - seertaak 18y ago
      Sure, since you say so.
      - scott_s 18y ago
        As feedus points out above, it might have driven iTunes sales. I'd like to know those numbers as well.
feedus 18y ago
How many 'never gonna give you up' tracks were sold on iTunes since Rick Roll versus before Rick Roll? I bet sales of that song went through the roof.
- briansmith 18y ago
  Unfortunately, it isn't available as a ringback tone.
mr_justin 18y ago
> compared this treatment to the "exploitation" of migrant workers in the Middle East. Oh, how so? Were you at risk of death or physical injury? Were you living in disgusting, slave-like conditions? Were you working 14+ hour days and barely getting enough money to survive?
- ricree 18y ago
  Or perhaps it was the part where they stole his passport and forbid him leaving or looking for other means of making a living.

12 points by rglovejoy 18y ago

swombat 18y ago

I think he should pay Google 22 cents for every time they play Rick Astley, because he's getting fre publicity.

seertaak 18y ago
a) The figure would be 0.022 pence under the current contract, and 0.22 pence under the legally-mandated minimum per-play charge, not 22 pence. b) The argument that Google gives him free publicity depends crucially on the assumption that a viewer will go to iTunes and buy either a video or a single after viewing the video. But, and numerous consumer behaviour studies have borne this out, this is in fact not the case. And the reason why is obvious: what's the point of going to iTunes and paying for the video when you can watch it any number of times in YouTube? YouTube replaces demand for the video, it doesn't enhance it. Even if you don't accept the conclusion of the consumer behaviour studies (and it's true that there are a few studies which contradict those findings), the idea that YouTube promotes sales doesn't tally with industry revenues over the last two years in which YouTube's hits for music videos have exploded -- the music industry has seen online growth of, IIRC, 17% or so, but that has been more than offset by decline in CD sales of around 20%. So all in all, people are buying less music. If YouTube is such an excellent vehicle for publicity, where are the resultant increased sales? Over time, this argument becomes increasingly untenable.
- swombat 18y ago
  I can't imagine that all that many people use Youtube as their music collection repository. Just because someone listened to a tune on Youtube (or, as is the case for most Rick Astley listens, got rickrolled) doesn't mean that they would have bought the song to listen to it. I have no sympathy for the music industry. They are monopolistic cartels that have abused the public and the artists for decades. Why are you defending them? Let them all go bust. The world will be a much better place without them.

weavejester 18y ago

"Waterman, whose fortune was estimated at £47 million by The Times in 2004, compared this treatment to the "exploitation" of migrant workers in the Middle East." I like this line. Presumably Waterman signed a contract with his publisher that allowed his song to be played by Google. If that contract is exploitative, surely that's his publisher's fault (or his own, for signing it), not Google's.

seertaak 18y ago
Actually, no; the PRS is authorized to negotiate mechanical rights rates on the artists' behalf -- otherwise Waterman would have to sign a contract with each and every local radio station, pub, etc. The PRS negotiated the agreement with Google at a rate close to .022p per play (note: pence, not pounds!), which is well below the legally mandated minimum (I believe this legal minimum was introduced after the agreement with Google) for radio stations and other users of 0.22p per-play. Google, so far, has been getting an excellent deal compared to other redistributors of music. That they can't manage to eek a profit out of their business model is not PRS For Music's fault. I applaud Waterman's looking out for the interests of musicians and songwriters -- considering how much mullah he already has, it's quite clear that he's not doing this out of self-interest. He's interested in protecting the community of musicians and songwriters. And rightly so, in my opinion: they are being fleeced.
- lacker 18y ago
  He's not being fleeced. You think he'd be better off if Rick Astley was banned from Youtube? Without Youtube, there would be no Rickrolling, and there would be no value in having the rights to "Never Gonna Give You Up". Plus, I'm sure the phenomenon is making him money via making the song more popular in other more lucrative channels. This is making him money, just not as much as he'd like.
  - seertaak 18y ago
    I'm not sure I follow. You're saying he's not being fleeced because he would make less if his video wasn't on YouTube. That's like saying a sweatshop worker in China is not being fleeced, even if they earn a pittance, because they'd be making less money working on a farm, for instance...

zacharydanger 18y ago

"...because I earned less for a year's work..." Yeah, I'm sure he was working hard full-time for those royalties. Not that he doesn't deserve royalties, but I think it's a falsification to consider waiting for a royalty check to come in, "work".

jodrellblank 18y ago
Why does he deserve royalties? It probably took him, oh I don't know... less than two months to co-write, 22 years ago.
- seertaak 18y ago
  > Why does he deserve royalties? I take it you don't approve of software patents either? In the interest of consistency, that is.
  - nkurz 18y ago
    Most programmers on this forum, especially those working open source, are opposed to software patents as currently implemented. They make it impossible to do anything non-trivial without running the risk of being sued for infringing what should probably be considered a basic technique. The musical analogy would be something like copyright of chord progressions, such that any time you released what you considered a new piece of music there was a small but real chance that you would be sued for an amount greater than your life's savings. Are you confident of your ability to convince a court that your strumming of GCDG is sufficiently original to be non-infringing? You mentioned in an earlier thread that you worked as a developer, so I presume you are familiar with these issues. Am I right that you 1) presume that you are legally shielded by your employer and 2) that you do not release the source to the code that you write?
    - seertaak 18y ago
      > Most programmers on this forum, especially those working open source, are opposed to software patents as currently implemented. They make it impossible to do anything non-trivial without running the risk of being sued for infringing what should probably be considered a basic technique. You raise some valid points. But you're not really disagreeing with me, are you? You say "as currently implemented", which means that you agree in principle to the concept. And if, if you recall, the comment I was replying was questioning whether royalties should exist at all; they weren't suggesting that it be "tweaked", rather that it be abolished altogether. I'm saying that's a pretty extreme view, and used the similar case of software patents to make my point. In any case, I agree that there is a tradeoff, and it's true that in some cases -- especially software patents --we've gotten to a kind of silly season. But I don't think all patents -- even the majority of patents -- are egregious. Perhaps I was too restrictive in specifying software patents. A new question: do you not agree with patents in general? I think it's much harder to argue that, for instance, a pharmaceutical that invests billions of dollars on a new treatment shouldn't be protected from a competitor simply copying its product and putting it to the market. I'm basically arguing that the concept of intellectual property is a valid and fair one. Obviously there can be debates about details, but the principle, in my view, is sound, and even the most ardent of open-source adherents agrees as much, else why the meticulous emphasis on the precise terms of licenses like the GPL? If you don't believe the creator has "ownership" over something that can be copied at zero cost, how can you argue against, for instance, Tivoization? > The musical analogy would be something like copyright of chord progressions I would have thought that the musical analogy is copyright, which refers to an expression -- a somewhat nebulous term but which is nonetheless amenable to common sense judgements. To patent chord progressions would obviously be silly, because there's relatively few of them that sound good. And yes, I am 100% confident that my songs (shameless plug: http://www.myspace.com/thesignalsuk http://www.myspace.com/thesignalsuk) are sufficiently distinct from anything else that I could argue that in a court of law and prevail! They are indeed original expressions ;) To answer your questions: 1) You mean from patent infringement? Yes, I would think so. 2) No; I work in a hedge fund. To open-source our strategies would be commercial suicide. I suppose that gives me a different outlook from you. ;)

TweedHeads 18y ago

Oh god, not another attack from redmond disguised as retarded journalism.

alecco 18y ago

Thank you. That was funny.

seertaak 18y ago
I'm pretty sure that had you written a tune that got viewed/listened to 150 odd million times (notwithstanding how god-awful it is!), and you'd received 11 pounds for it, you wouldn't think it was so funny. Imagine if you'd written a game and you put it on iTunes, and you'd observed 150MM downloads, but only got 11 pounds from iTunes. You're telling me you wouldn't feel exploited? There really is a double-standard at work here. When musicians/songwriters say they're being fleeced, members of this (hacker) community pooh-pooh them, and accuse them of being dinosaurs who just don't get it. When a developer writes an app that gets rejected by the iTunes store, devs are up in arms about lost dev time and the financial implication. Similarly if Google Checkout decides to terminate a developers account and said developer loses pending income. It's totally natural for groups to look after their own, but one might have hoped that an elite community like Hacker News would be able to recognize this tendency. Sadly, from the evidence I've seen here from posters, whose views on the music industry are, generally speaking, at once flippant, condescending, arrogant, cold-hearted, and ill-informed, this is far from being the case.
- lacker 18y ago
  I'm sure he has made far more than 11 pounds on the Rickrolling phenomenon.
  - seertaak 18y ago
    Sure, since you say so.
    - scott_s 18y ago
      As feedus points out above, it might have driven iTunes sales. I'd like to know those numbers as well.

feedus 18y ago

How many 'never gonna give you up' tracks were sold on iTunes since Rick Roll versus before Rick Roll? I bet sales of that song went through the roof.

briansmith 18y ago
Unfortunately, it isn't available as a ringback tone.

mr_justin 18y ago

> compared this treatment to the "exploitation" of migrant workers in the Middle East. Oh, how so? Were you at risk of death or physical injury? Were you living in disgusting, slave-like conditions? Were you working 14+ hour days and barely getting enough money to survive?

ricree 18y ago
Or perhaps it was the part where they stole his passport and forbid him leaving or looking for other means of making a living.