Should Mahalo pay public performance royalties, as users videos? Should Jason Calacanis "pay up" as said in the video?
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$11 Answers
We can simply tell them to send us a DMCA notice and we'll take them down, or they can simple tell YouTube to take the videos down here:
http://www.youtube.com/t/dmca_policy
We respect copyright, but we also hope that folks respect our ability to provide a navigational search engine. We are not hosting the music in question--YouTube is. As such, we shouldn't be targeted by ASCAP.
If ASCAP insists on pushing this issue with Mahalo or other bloggers we should all simply not embed videos anymore. Instead we can launch a new window with all YouTube videos. This will provide a slight inconvenience to users (i.e. the popup), but ASCAP said if it's not embedded they don't care.
ASCAP really needs to settle their issues with YouTube, not 3rd party sites and search engines.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
1. You upload their copyrighted material on youtube.
2. You allow other users to embed your content on their sites.
3. You fail to monetize it yourself.
4. If you fail don't start crying.
5. Realize that embedding = more views = free advertizing / attention
6. Instead of crying find a better way to monetize your content or remove your content.
Here's what I would do
1. Embed your own advertising in your video to make some money (preroll banners, commercials in the video)
2. Or disable embedding.
3. Remove your video from youtube if you don't like it that other people embed your content.
4. Sell your content yourself on sites like iStockPhoto.com or Itunes.com
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$It's simple fairness. An artist deserves to be compensated for his work. Sure, the A list artists will get paid very well from record sales. And radio ALREADY pays royalties to the songwriters (so it's not like paying royalties is such an obscure idea). But what about the backup singers and musicians? Know how much they get paid for getting played on the radio? Zero.
The broadcasting industry always uses the argument that it gives artists free publicity, and that it will drive record sales, so they should absolutely not have to pay royalties to artists (this is the same broadcasting industry that fought tooth and nail to drive royalty payments as high as possible for Pandora and other Internet radio).
Right now, Internet radio (like Pandora), satellite radio (XM-Sirius), and cable radio (the music stations on your cable box) all have to pay royalties. Don't all these media give artists publicity? Why is it fair that they all have to pay, but commercial radio and for-profit websites don't?
How is this different from Mahalo putting the X-Men movie, or a digitized copy of a Harry Potter book on their front page? You can use the exact same argument: it drives up interest in the product and more people will buy it. But I would guess that most people think that's a silly argument for those two examples. Why is the situation with radio different?
For me, it comes down to fairness. Pandora just had to start charging users of their service because the broadcast industry (who wants nothing more than for Pandora to go out of business so people will listen to AM/FM radio more) wanted them to pay royalties. But now that we're talking about putting royalties on radio, all of a sudden it's earthshattering news.
Artists deserve to be compensated for their work. If you profit from somebody else's work, you should pay royalties for that work.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
I don't completely agree with your answer... parts of it I do... but regardless of my view, this is a helpful and well composed answer.
I wish that I had the time right now to compose the carefully worded reply to your view that is bubbling in my mind... but sadly, i don't.
In short: Media is undergoing a revolution and the economic system that previously empowered music, movies, television and even the Internet has changed. The people who control that system however have not changed. Growing community + true scarcity = revenue.
@dcanswerer, very true, you're completely right about the whole "free advertising" argument. I think in your analogy that Ford would be entitled to demand that the purchase price be paid, but that's it. It just frustrates me that every joe-schmo artist out there thinks they are entitled to a complicated, financially savvy, big business-style licensing deal. Why can't we iTunes-ify everything and be done with it (flat rates, no tangled webs)?
I like some of your points here, and it's not because I agree with it 100%, it's just because it's well thought out. Maybe YouTube should charge to have videos embedded, then the DMCA would just handle this with YouTube.
Can you imagine if Ford wanted a percentage of your profits if you bought some of their cars and started a taxi cab company? The longer this debate continues, the more I think that royalties aren't the answer. What if I buy a physical product wholesale and resell it for a 50% markup? Is the wholesale company going to ask for a percentage of of my profits then too? What if there are losses - in that case could the wholesaler owe ME money?
But @jkepler here's the problem with that argument. What if a Taxi company just took a Ford car off a Ford dealer's parking lot without paying for it, and then started charging passengers to ride in it. Isn't Ford entitled to something? You can argue that it's free advertising--"Wow, look at all the taxis driving ford cars. I should go out and buy one!"
But that's the system we have now. Radio stations (and commercial websites, where the discussion started) don't pay for the music, as the taxi dealer does in your analogy. I just don't think you can fairly use the "but it provides free advertising" while you're turning a profit off of someone else's labor.
You bring up some interesting points like if an song can be streamed for free on the internet, than why not a movie. There is some grey area there. I would argue that a 3 minute song stream and a 2 hour movie stream hold different value, but it is something to think about.
I don't think sites such as Pandora should have to pay royalties either. Consumers should pay for downloading songs, or they can sign up for services that charge for streaming content. There can still be sites that offer free streaming of content as long as the artist is ok with it. If the artist or group does not want their music to be streamed for free, than their songs will be removed from the site, simple as that.
My main argument is that there are hundreds of thousands of artists who are fine with having their music streamed and promoted for free on these sites. Just because a few of the big names in the business want royalties doesn't mean they speak for everyone.
It MTV.com offers an embed code to a music video why should Mahalo be charged for using that Embed. If the artists don't want their music being shared shouldn't that be something they should take up with the companies and websites that are hosting embeddable videos for their music? Instead of the websites who are simply embedding the content.
On top of that and find any piece of music that is being hosted on Mahalo, here is one that I know I have embedded myself, you can view the stats on YouTube and shows you which websites have played the video the most. Perhaps this union should sue all these websites first before they take their fight to Mahalo.
At the end of the day, if you don't want your music being shared, don't make it available, spend your life tracking down every embed and every mp3 file on the Internet, see how far that gets you.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
I agree DC, artists should be compensated, if that's in their interest, they should work harder on controlling their work.
Why sue every individual website that links to your music, when you can just contact YouTube or MTV and have the original source of that content removed entirely from the web. Honestly, this sounds like an idea drafted up by some backroom lawyer... "Hey instead of suing one website and asking them to remove the content, lets sue every website that links to the content!"
It's stupid. The Music Industry better evolve before they become irrelevant.
I think that is a good point. If there were a royalty provided to the artists, who would have to pay? Mahalo is only linking to Youtube (where the content is hosted). But at the same time, Mahalo is earning money for providing access to the content. So it's a tricky question.
I fall back on my belief that if somebody is profiting off an artist's work, the artist deserves to be fairly compensated. And whether that's by Mahalo or Youtube is a question for another day.
I agree on all accounts.
Shelly Palmer and ASCAP need to sit down with Mike Masnick so that their slanted, pinhole view on the world can be expanded.
I don't think that Mahalo should pay anything ... not because of the social, legal or economic flaws in ASCAP's inane views... but so that Mahalo can leverage and promote itself on top of this issue that is sure to be in the news both online and in mainstream media.
This is of course a better conversation to be had with the board of directors at Mahalo... but if it was me, I would show up on ASCAP's doorstep with a crew of 100,000 internet folks, Jason at the lead wearing an American flag shirt and a megaphone yelling, "hell no, we won't pay".
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$Groups like the ASCAP want to charge royalties to websites and blogs for posting music and videos? This is ridiculous. What they fail to understand is that this is free promotion for the artists who produced these songs and videos.
The same thing goes for how they want radio stations to pay royalties to play these songs on the radio. Do you know how many artists out there would kill to have their music on the radio for free? If anything, it should be the other way around.
The days of establishments being required to pay for content is over. There is an over abundance of content now and therefore, artist cannot expect to be paid by others who are promoting their content for free.
It is a privilege to have your videos and music chosen to be posted on blogs around the internet. If certain groups and individuals demand to be paid "performance royalties", guess what, your music and videos will be ignored and all the millions of artist out there who are willing to put their content out there for free will get the attention and free promotion.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$Why isn't someone questioning the entire royalty system? Why shouldn't Sirius and XM be able to pay one flat rate for a song and then play it as many times as they want?
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
It is all about money and even if you pay for the vids, the artist gets a very tiny tiny piece of it. Everyone else gets rich off the artist.
Since I joined Mahalo a couple of years ago and started doing the music pages, I fell in love with music that I would have not ever listened too. And had it not been for the video's, I would would not have fallen in love with a song. I went out and bought a gazillion Cd's. So they can thank Mahalo for more sells!
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$I am all about performers rights and them being able to get paid for their work. However, I am not sure if the blame falls on Mahalo for allowing us to post the material ... or YouTube who allows us access to their catalog. I guess what the video is suggesting is Mahalo pay a monthly fee for unlimited use of ascap's catalog, which doesn't seem like a horrible idea. However, If Mahalo coughs up the money than YouTube and several other blogs had better be giving the PRO's some too.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
It looks like google wants to pay for it.
--QUOTE--
ASCAP sent collection letters to other website owners in the spring; YouTube told recipients to refer the group back to YouTube. But then a judge ruled Google owed ASCAP $1.6 million while a court fight between the two sides over licensing drags on. At some point, website owners are going to start wondering how much longer Google will offer to handle all the legal complaints over YouTube embeds — and just how many songs they've embedded over the years and now owe royalties on.
http://gawker.com/5310339/embedding-a-youtube-video-may-cost-you-a-bundle-in-ascap-bills
That's a good point, where do they draw the line for who has to pay. Pretty much everyone has a blog these days where they are free to post whatever they want. How do they expect to regulate all these blogs?
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
"this is not a big deal" ... "ASCAP really needs to settle their issues with YouTube, not 3rd party sites and search engines. "
I really think that this is part of the problem. We're letting contrived groups of lawyers like ASCAP erode the natural progression of technology. There is a very significant and real revolution in media underway and most folks are happy to receive DCMA notices or worse placate the issues by limiting technologies like embedding.
I do get it though... why make a big deal about something if you don't have to? You're running a startup and lawsuits take money away from development. Still, all of these small accommodations that people are making have been adding up to become real limitations of technology and liberties.
This is not only a concern for Mahalo, as Mahalo is not the only site that allows users to upload or embed videos from YouTube. What about sites like Muziic http://www.muziic.com If anything YouTube should be able to help the sites like Mahalo generate ad revenue through the videos. What about video search engine sites that have YouTube videos in its search results? The first one that comes to mind is a site like Truveo? Do you think these sites are technically embedding the videos or not?