YouTube is skill in music

YouTube is blocking all music videos from its service in the UK from today, due to a disagreement with the Performing Right Society (PRS). YouTube has clashed with other media owners in the past too, and there seems to be no end to the disagreements that could be had between old and new media. Having been a full member of the PRS myself since 1984, I am of course, torn between the two viewpoints, as I can see the arguments for both sides. Forget about the very small percentage of mega-stars who earn an absolute fortune when they enjoy chart success with a string of number ones. The majority of musicians struggle to make a small living from the royalties on the number of plays of their songs, administered through PRS, and sometimes this is their only income.

I remember when I was a semi-professional musician, on a low income - having spent a small fortune on amplification, instruments and lighting - trying to recoup some at least back from recording and selling my own songs (that's me pictured playing in 1983 with my trusty Gibson Les Paul). The initial outlay was alarming, with studio and production costs very steep. Travelling to gigs, marketing and upkeep of equipment and instruments was an ongoing hidden cost. It was an expensive business to be in.

On one occasion, a whole group of 'fans' came up to me after a gig and told me how much they enjoyed listening to the tracks I had released on cassette tape. This may sound strange to you but it made me quite angry. You see, I had never released cassette tapes of those tracks, only vinyl disks, so the cassette tapes were illegal copies of my music. I had certainly dug deep into my own pockets to record and produce the disks, but someone had gotten hold of one and copied it, and was distributing it. It was as if someone had stolen something from me, which in a way, they had. 'I think you probably owe me some money' I thought, but didn't say. 'Home taping is killing music' was a slogan probably originating somewhere in the bowels of the PRS. Now the mantra might be 'YouTube is killing music', but this would not be totally accurate, as there is strong evidence that playouts on YouTube and other social web sites can actually increase the sales and downloads of music. We are caught in the maelstrom of a paradigm shift, with a collision of the old and new media. The question is not whether YouTube should be able to play these music videos. The only thing we really need to decide is how to get payments from playouts, whatever the medium, into the pockets of those hard working and very deserving musicians and songwriters. Please think again YouTube.