YouTube Details Music Industry Payouts As Labels Remain Skeptical

Music videos are a popular staple among YouTube users, accounting for a large percentage of the video service's overall views and drawing in countless people every day. The Google company has made a continued push into the market, and this week revealed it has paid out more than a billion dollars to the music industry. Still, labels remain skeptical.

During a session at the Midem music show this past week, YouTube's Vice President of Content Tom Pickett said, "We've paid out to the music industry over the last several years over a billion dollars." He went on to reiterate the Google video service's focus on music, clarifying that they're "all-in on music."

Despite the payout number and continued push into the music industry, labels and artists are still expressing concern over the business move, citing reasons ranging from YouTube's dominance in the market to the ratio of funds-to-video views for many music videos.

Another constant concern for labels and artists are stream rippers and similar that allow users to rip MP3s and videos from YouTube. Said BPI Cheif Executive Geoff Taylor, "We've been asking YouTube to deal with these stream-ripping applications for many years. YouTube is supposed to be an ad-funded streaming service, not a free download service. We can't understand why it's taken so long for Google and YouTube to do something about this."

SOURCE: The Guardian