Neil Young has written a letter at his website telling YouTube it needs to respect the rights of artists following negotiations between his label and the company breaking down.
In the letter, he comes to the defence of his record company Warner Reprise pointing out that they were the first company to embrace YouTube and are now being penalised by the Google goobled video site.Much of Young’s music was removed from YouTube as a result of the Warner dispute.
“Warner Reprise records was one of the very first to embrace You Tube,” Young writes. “You Tube was in its fledgling stages when Warner made an early deal to work with them. Today, other labels have made more lucrative deals for their artists at You Tube”.
Young, an early adaptor of new technology can see the impact YouTube is now having. “So You Tube is the new radio.....but not quite,” he says.“Today's web world has created a new way. Artists today can go directly to the people. There is nothing standing between the artists and their audience. Freedom of expression reigns. People today feel that they should be able to get all the music and art that they want, from the artists who they appreciate. When that conduit is broken, the connection is weakened”.
Neil is calling for YouTube to standardize its licensing model. “If all artists were compensated equally, and the people decided who had the hits and misses by virtue of number of downloads and plays, there could be no grounds for disagreement that would cause the facilitator of the art to break the conduit between an artist and an audience. That is what has happened to Warner Bros artists caught in YouTube's web. YouTube has a responsibility to respect the artists it facilitates and resist punishing them to make a business point”.
“It is time for industry wide standards of artist's compensation on the web,” he says. “Reprise and Warner Bros artists deserve what artists from other labels are getting. Let the people decide what constitutes success. Warner Bros and Reprise are looking for a level playing field. Until they get one, these problems may not go away. That is the essence of the issue between Warner Bros Reprise and YouTube”.
YouTube is unrepentant. “YouTube connects music, musicians, and fans," responded spokesperson Chris Dale. "We have deals with all of the other major record labels and with musicians, songwriters, and other independent creative producers. It is the record labels' responsibility to represent and pay their artists."
Check out Neil’s comments at http://www.neilyoung.com/news/index.html
