Patrick Carney Criticizes YouTube Over Artist Payouts
YouTube has come under some fire from the music community of late. Yesterday, Trent Reznor blasted the streaming service for being “built on the backs of free, stolen content,” but as an Apple Music man, it wasn’t at all surprising for him to throw some shade at the competition. A YouTube spokesperson responded to Reznor via Pitchfork with this statement:
The overwhelming majority of labels and publishers have licensing agreements in place with YouTube to leave fan videos up on the platform and earn revenue from them. Today the revenue from fan uploaded content accounts for roughly 50 percent of the music industry’s YouTube revenue. Any assertion that this content is largely unlicensed is false. To date, we have paid out over $3 billion to the music industry–and that number is growing year on year.
Today, the Black Keys’ Patrick Carney lit into YouTube in a series of tweets chiding the streaming service and artists who hold stakes in streaming but don’t argue for fair pay. See Carney’s tweets below:
Give me five minutes on @youtube and I probably can find 250 songs that are available which the artist isn't getting paid for. At least.
— Patrick Carney (@patrickcarney) June 16, 2016
A sell out in my book in 2016 is anyone that takes a share in a streaming company who also is an artist and doesn't advocate for fair pay.
— Patrick Carney (@patrickcarney) June 16, 2016
A song should cost as much as an avocado. They should be traded similarly at least until people discover a similarly thick and savory fruit
— Patrick Carney (@patrickcarney) June 16, 2016
The streaming war pigs are starting to oink a little louder again.