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IPFS News Link • Entertainment: Music

The music industry cranks up the volume in its fight against YouTube

• theverge.com

The Music Industry is at war with YouTube. If this sounds familiar, it should. The two entities have been warring for a decade over how much YouTube should be paying the music labels for hosting the music videos and songs that helped turn the video site into a monolith. YouTube says it's paid out $3 billion to the music industry and that's plenty: the music industry says it's been paid the same amount by Spotify and it doesn't even offer music videos and has accounted for far fewer streams. The fight isn't new, but recently the stakes have been raised.

Musicians and their managers were imbued with a renewed vigor for the battle after the RIAA released a report in March stating Vinyl record sales in 2015 brought in more revenue than YouTube. Major industry players like Irving Azoff chastised YouTube in op-eds, and artists including Katy Perry, Billy Joel, and Rod Stewart petitioned the US government to amend the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Combine that with the fact that all of the major labels have begun to renegotiate their deals with YouTube, and you have the perfect ingredients for a fight.


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