Warner Music

Warner Music really sucks a lot of balls.

I just read an article about how they were in contract negotiations with Youtube about payment for people watching clips on Youtube that had music from artists on Warner (or one of Warner’s subsidiaries). The contract negotiations failed, so Warner Music demanded that any clip with Warner Music had to be either deleted or muted.

Some of the videos that got deleted include:
- a baby dancing to a Prince song
- someone playing piano to and singing “Winter Wonderland”
- Death Cab For Cutie’s official film clips
- Led FREAKING Zeppelin’s official clips


What the hell is the problem with Warner Music? Do they really think that removing people’s access to their songs on Youtube is going to help them in the long run? Or even in the short to medium term? Are they that retarded?

Well, it seems that they are.

Because there is no good reason for them to have done this. Of course their official statement says that they are concerned that artists aren’t getting their due revenue from people watching their Youtube clips. But how much of the royalties do you think bands are actually getting from Youtube anyway?

Maybe, just maybe, Warner Music is trying to prolong their inevitable death by squeezing as much money out of every available revenue stream until no-one is willing to pay them anything at all.

I’ve been reading a music blog by a guy called Bob Lefsetz for about 6 months now and I can’t agree more with his insistence that major labels are out of touch and totally unnecessary. The music industry is going to have to change in a major way …

Viva la revolution.

The original article - http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24983460-2,00.html

Bob Lefsetz’ blog - http://www.lefsetz.com/