Musician Zoe Keating criticises YouTube block threat
A musician has spoken out against the licensing terms demanded by Google for hosting videos on its YouTube service after coming under pressure to accept new terms for its Music Key service under pain of being blocked entirely.
Zoe Keating publishes her own work independently without resorting to a label and is thus not covered by existing arrangements between the major music producers. As such she has been left to fend for herself against the tech titan.
In a blog post explaining her predicament Keating said: “My Google YouTube rep contacted me the other day. They were nice and took time to explain everything clearly to me, but the message was firm: I have to decide. I need to sign on to the new YouTube music services agreement or I will have my YouTube channel blocked.”
Outlining five main concerns Keating complained that the contract mandated that all of her back catalogue of work be included in the free and premium service and must carry advertising. Other concerns centre on being forced to release new tunes on YouTube at the same time as other platforms at high resolution with a minimum contract length of five years.
Since joining the video sharing service in 2007 Keating has racked up 520,000 views of 19 videos and is a beneficiary of YouTube’s ‘Content ID’ system which pays artists a share of ad revenue generated by commercials featuring their work.