Warner cuts of its own nose, then shoots both feet…

So Warner Music has ordered Youtube to pull all of it’s videos from Youtube in a dispute over royalties, stating:

“We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide.” (via Brand Republic)

Ignore, for the moment, the fact that by pulling all their videos, they’ve almost invited Google to pull all their search results (Sometimes it’s a real shame the company claims to ‘do no evil’)

Ironically just four hours later Universal Music was featured on Cnet as making ‘tens of millions of dollars from Youtube’, according to Executive VP, Rio Caraeff:

“(YouTube) is not like radio, where it’s just promotional,” said Caraeff, who heads up Universal’s digital group. “It’s a revenue stream, a commercial business. It’s growing tremendously. It’s up almost 80 percent for us year-over-year in the U.S. in terms of our revenue from this category.”

“Certainly, in the last year the rise of free to consumer ad-supported video has become a very significant part of our business coming from a variety of areas,” Caraeff said. “YouTube is driving a very large quantity of that… We have a great relationship with YouTube, and the future for us will be more than with YouTube than we’re doing today.

“We’re working with them on a variety of new concepts and new businesses to take the groundwork we’ve done in the last year and half and do a lot more with it,” he added. “I wouldn’t expect to see us just do business with YouTube like we used to do.”

The estimate from a ‘music industry source’ is almost $100 million from music streaming across the web.

And then Stan Schroeder eloquently sums up on Mashable why a rumoured Hulu-type video portal for Sony BMG, EMI, Universal Musica Group and Warner would be a monumental wast of time and effort.

The drum beat you hear is that of consumers who want to be able to enjoy, spread, love, talk about, share, promote, remember, and most of all, buy into the event and joy of music, hitting their heads repeatedly on their keyboards, laptops, MP3 players and Smartphones.

Major labels sign up to charge students for music in tuition fees

Tuition fees for U.S. universities could include a small music-royalty free in a model proposed by digital music strategist on behalf of the Warner Music Group (via Wired)

ISPs would collect the micropayments, which would then be given out to copyright holders by an independant non-profit organisation called Choruss. Only Universal is yet to sign up from the four major labels, and the offer is being shopped around U.S universities including Cornell, Columbia and the University of Chicago.

Here’s the interesting bit in the words of Wired:

In return for a university paying fees to Choruss, its students would be able to continue downloading as they have been — bit torrent, Limewire and so on — without fear of legal reprisal. Unlike previous plans that require the use of onerous digital rights management, this one would allow students to download music in the unprotected formats they prefer, using the hardware, software and networks of their choice.

Could this be the long-awaited innovation in the face of extinction? It’s an interesting proposition, and one which presumably accepts DRM-free files will be shared, traded, uploaded etc. And will probably end up in the hands on non-students, who won’t have ever paid any fees?

If so, I’ll be stunned.

I await the first time it launches, and the discovery within a week of some kind of tracking or limitation. If it does turn out to be true, it does prove that anyone can change if they’re heading for a big enough disaster. Repent, ye industry sinners.

(There’s also the small flaw of those students and families complaining that fees intended to pay for an education are now being diverted to an entertainment industry, and the rush of film and media companies to include their own fees.

Plus complaints by those who don’t intend to download any music and resent paying for others.

Plus the eternal question of why on earth music labels deserve to take any of the money in the first place – because in this model, they don’t actually do anything?

Look again:

1. Universities charge students.

2. ISPs collect payment.

3. Organisation collects electronic data and distributes it to copyright holders (Surely the musicians and artists who created the work).

Exactly where in this 3 step plan do we have a need for record companies? Give the non-profit organisation the ability to enforce copyright if a musician wants to, and that’s the music labels gone.