YOUTUBE SAYS IT PAID THE MUSIC INDUSTRY OVER $3BN LAST YEAR – EQUIVALENT TO 20% OF ITS ANNUAL AD REVENUE.
Do you remember when the music industry was clawing at YouTube’s throat? C’mon; it hasn’t been that long.
Three years ago, for example, then-RIAA boss Cary Sherman was claiming: “It makes no sense that it takes a thousand on-demand streams of a song for creators to earn $1 on YouTube, while services like Apple and Spotify pay creators $7 or more for those same streams.”
More recently, of course, there’s been the battle over Article 13 (now 17) in Europe – the legislation aiming to make digital services legally responsible for copyright infringement on their platforms.
Having slammed YouTube for its supposed “carpet-bombing propaganda” ahead of the vote on Article 13 (and the Copyright Directive) by European lawmakers, a raft of music biz orgs brought out the bunting when, in April last year, the European Council gave the bill the green light.
Now, thanks to Brexit, UK politicians now say Article 13/17 won’t actually be adopted in Britain after all. (*Lyor Cohen turns to camera, arches eyebrow, whispers: “C’est la vie.” Run credits.*)
Throughout these skirmishes, YouTube has maintained that it is, in fact, furnishing music rightsholders with a healthy amount of dollar.
In 2017, in a clear broadside against Spotify, Cohen – YouTube’s global Head of Music – said: “At over $3 per thousand streams in the U.S., YouTube is paying out more than other ad-supported services. Why doesn’t anyone know that? Because YouTube is global and the numbers get diluted by lower contributions in developing markets.”
Then, in September 2018, YouTube claimed that it had paid out some $1.8 billion to music rightsholders in advertising revenues in the prior 12 months – and that it had handed over more than $6bn to the music biz to date.
(Confusingly, global record industry body IFPI claims that worldwide record label income from video streaming platforms – including YouTube and Vevo – stood at $998.8m in 2018; that’s a lot smaller than $1.8bn, although the IFPI figure doesn’t include publishing revenue or money received by independent artists.)
Now, for the first time in a while, YouTube has put a new figure on what it says it’s paying the music industry.
According to a blog from YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki published Friday (February 14), YouTube handed music rightsholders over $3bn from ads and subscriptions combined in the 12 calendar months of 2019.
Wojcicki claims that YouTube is successfully partnering with the music biz to “grow revenue, break new artists and promote music”.
She writes: “YouTube offers twin engines for revenue with advertising and subscribers, paying out more than $3 billion to the music industry last year from ads and subscriptions.
“We’re also partnering with artists to support and amplify their work through every phase of their career.”
YouTube further claims, within a flattering new Billboard feature, that it has paid out over $12bn to the music industry in total to date.
(This $12m is a confusing figure. YouTube claimed in a ‘How Google Fights Piracy’ report, published November 2018, that it had paid over $6bn to the music industry in lifetime ad revenues; it now says it paid $3bn to the music industry in 2019, taking that $6bn running total up to $9bn. There’s $3bn missing vs. the $12bn stat here, no? We therefore have to assume the missing $3bn must be the cash YouTube believes it paid the industry in subscription/non-advertising revenues prior to 2019.)
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