Read Before You Sign

Wow!  I read this a few hours after posting my revisited Rotten post.  Braindeadly should have read Rotten. I was shocked that the Sex Pistols had signed an in perpetuity contract with Warner Bros. in the US, well Techdirt had this story of Braindeadly (Ben Vacas) who apparently did the same thing with the owner of his YouTube network. 

As Techdirt states:   It's going to become increasingly important that formerly amateur YouTube stars read the contracts they sign with a growing number of upstart "YouTube Networks" very carefully, or else they are going to face situations such as we're seeing with Machinima [owner of the YouTube Network] stars, who are shutting down production because they're locked into lifetime and beyond contracts with the multi-channel network.

It pains me to hear that at this stage of the game people are still signing quickly and not reading or having someone else read, a contract before they sign.  There must be such panic to sign, that no thought is given to the consequences.  In the case of the Sex Pistols they just wanted to know how much money they would get, which turned out to be very little. 

Coachella Live Streaming On YouTube

The music starts here at 4pm PST. 

Here's the schedule, which is subject to change:

Tonight, April 15th
Channel 1
4:10PM • The Drums
4:55PM • Cee Lo Green
5:45PM • Moving Units
6:30PM • Ozomatli
7:25PM • Interpol
8:35PM • Ms. Lauryn Hill
9:55PM • Kings of Leon
11:15PM • The Black Keys
12:05AM • Gayngs
Channel 2
4:00PM • !!!
4:50PM • Warpaint
5:35PM • Cold Cave
6:25PM • YACHT
7:10PM • Cold War Kids
8:00PM • Titus Andronicus
9:00PM • The Pains Of Being Pure ...
10:00PM • Tame Impala
10:55PM • Monarchy
12:00AM • Flogging Molly
Channel 3
4:30PM • The Morning Benders
5:45PM • Ariel Pink's Haunted Gra...
7:25PM • Interpol - surveillance
8:20PM • Omar Rodriguez-Lopez
12:00AM • Scala & Kolacny Bros.

Saturday April 16th
Channel 1
4:00PM • Freelance Whales
4:50PM • Erykah Badu
6:05PM • Broken Social Scene
6:55PM • Here We Go Magic
7:40PM • Gogol Bordello
8:30PM • Mumford & Sons
9:25PM • The Swell Season
10:20PM • Bright Eyes
Channel 2
4:30PM • Two Door Cinema Club
5:20PM • Cage The Elephant
6:10PM • The Foals
7:00PM • The New Pornographers
7:55PM • The Kills
9:05PM • Big Audio Dynamite
10:05PM • Elbow
11:00PM • Raphael Saadiq
11:55PM • Scissor Sisters
Channel 3
4:00PM • Black Joe Lewis & the Ho...
5:45PM • Jenny and Johnny
6:35PM • Yelle
7:30PM • Brandt Brauer Frick
8:30PM • ENCORE PERFORMANCES
10:25PM • Empire Of The Sun
11:30PM • ENCORE PERFORMANCES

Sunday April 17th:
Channel 1
4:00PM • Wiz Khalifa
5:00PM • Nas & Damian Marley
6:10PM • Death from Above 1979
7:25PM • The National
8:30PM • Ratatat
8:55PM • The Strokes
Channel 2
4:00PM • Jack's Mannequin
4:50PM • Jimmy Eat World
5:55PM • Fistful of Mercy
7:25PM • Duran Duran
8:35PM • Chromeo
9:45PM • PJ Harvey
11:05PM • She Wants Revenge
Channel 3
4:00PM • Angus & Julia Stone
4:45PM • HEALTH
5:35PM • MEN
6:05PM • Best Coast
6:55PM • Foster the People
7:40PM • Ellie Goulding
8:30PM • ENCORE PERFORMANCES

It's Friday

It's Friday!  The Rebecca Black video Friday has hit the 100 million YouTube views mark in one month.  This is faster than Justin Bieber's Baby achieved the same milestone.  He took 2 months and 8 days.  Earlier in the week we heard that  Glee will cover Friday in their prom episode.  Hey, it's Friday!

$500 YouTube Video Nets Director Hollywood Deal

Panic Attack, a 5 minute movie made for $500, has Hollywood opening their pocketbooks. Federico Alvarez runs a post-production visual effects house in Uruguay and is the director. He worked on the project in his spare time according to newslite.tv. He has been given millions of dollars by a Hollywood production company for a bigger project and would work with Sam Raimi says Cinema Blend.

It's all about getting your work in front of people. If you keep it under a bushel, it will stay there. You not only have to build it, but you have to set it free. Reap the rewards later.

Free Music Websites Can No Longer Exist

I've been reading so much about the high fees major record labels are charging legitimate music licensing websites that play music for free. Wired has summed up the many stories I've been hearing in one article. Ad supported music sites can't keep up with the licensing payment. The piece sites MySpace Music, imeem, MOG (had to implement a $5 a month subscription fee), Spotify (which might not be able to launch here in the same fashion it did in the UK) and Google who are all losing or plan to lose money due to the fees owed the music companies. YouTube is the only licensed, free, on-demand music service that should break even. If these sites shut down, it would narrow the ever shortening playing field to an even more select group of places to hear music.

MySpace Left Out

A posting on today's Cynopsis had a list of the top ten video streaming sites. MySpace is not among them. Just a short year ago, people were still turning to MySpace to hear music. YouTube seems to be the destination for both video and audio. Thousands of songs have user made videos which are essentially stills edited together with the music and uploaded as a video. It's an easier way to hear a song. The MySpace player still takes time to load, which could be sending users to YouTube. YouTube is easily accessible from computers to iPhones.

Top Online Video Brands Ranked by Total Streams - April 2009
Including Month-over-Month and Year-over-Year Growth

Video Brand Apr-09 Streams (000) M/M % Change Y/Y % Change Share of Streams
Online Video Usage 9,452,996 -2.3% 24.2% 100.0%
YouTube 5,490,204 0.2% 35.5% 58.1%
Hulu 373,290 7.1% 490.4% 3.9%
Yahoo! 203,628 -12.2% -8.1% 2.2%
Fox Interactive Media 201,362 -3.0% -38.8% 2.1%
Nick Kids and Family 175,917 -10.3% 15.9% 1.9%
MSN/Windows Live 164,422 -2.7% 9.8% 1.7%
ABC.COM 148,830 -15.9% 144.8% 1.6%
MTV Networks Music 143,356 15.7% 359.6% 1.5%
Turner Digital Network 130,559 -5.1% 60.0% 1.4%
CNN Digital Network 112,469 8.7% 32.7% 1.2%
Source: Nielsen VideoCensus

The audio is not the best, but if you want a quick reference, it's a great resource.

What Do Royalties From YouTube Amount To?

Peter Waterman, songwriter of Rick Astley's hit "Never Gonna Give You Up," is not happy with Google's royalty payments and compared his royalties from YouTube to the "exploitation" suffered by foreign workers in Dubai according to a piece in the Telegraph. The Astley video has been viewed 154 million times on YouTube, according to the article, and Waterman says he has received £11 ($16.30) from Google. There are several posting of the video on YouTube, including Pop Up Video versions. The views ranged from 1.5 million to 16.3 million views. I'm assuming these are global views and not just US. If so, the 154 million claim seems rather high.

The PRS For Music organization based in the UK, wants Google/YouTube to pay higher royalties to songwriters for use of their work online and Waterman's comments were part of a press conference for the PRS for Music group, which is demanding higher payments to content creators.

YouTube and Universal Deal

According to the Wall St Journal, Google Inc.'s YouTube and Universal Music Group are discussing a partnership under which YouTube would build a new hub for music videos.

YouTube would also provide technology and advertising-sales support to help distribute Universal's video content to other Web sites, people familiar with the matter say.

Is creating a new YouTube hub worth the time and effort? Does it justify jobs at Universal to work on this with YouTube? If there was an announcement that YouTube was setting up a hub for indie artists and they would promote and develop new acts, that would be worthy of a news story. Somehow a major label trying to eek out a few more dollars sounds like tired old news.

Neil Young Defends Warner Bros against YouTube

Neil Young pointed out that YouTube's practices are unfair. Labels have different deals for different compensation. His argument is that it should all be the same across the board for all artists. He said Warner/Reprise is being punished for being the early negotiator with YouTube and now other labels have better deals. Are the indie artists left out of the picture entirely?
Here's the posting on his website.

DejaVu All Over Again: WMG Battles YouTube

Unable to renegotiate the share of ad revenue it sought, Warner Music Group has pulled all of its content from YouTube. Affected are thousands of songs and artists from WMG's extensive recording catalog, as well as, those published by Warner/Chappell Music who may not record for the company.

Read the full article at Hypebot.com